Photorealism had its moment as a genre of painting in the 1970’s, right? The exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum, featuring paintings from every decade since then, gives ample proof that Photorealism has not gone away. Rather the exhibition “From Lens to Eye to Hand: Photorealism 1969 to Today,” provides vibrant work from many artists who use photographs in their capacity to render detail. Early practitioners like Don Eddy: “Wrecking Yard I” from 1971, and Audrey Flack’s “Shiva Blue,” (1972-3), “Petit Fours” from 1976, and “Hers” from 1977 show pioneering work in this style. Flack’s “Wheel of Fortune,” (1977-8) dominates one gallery. These sit comfortably near recent paintings by Yigal Ozeri: “Untitled; Territory” from 2012, “Untitled; Olya” from 2016, and “Untitled; Olya & Zuzanna” from 2017, or Don Jacot’s “Herald Square, 1936 (After Berenice Abbott)” from 2013, to name just a few.
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A simple walk through Guild Hall’s exhibition “Avedon’s America” is an encounter with the familiar. Portraits from the world of pop culture: Hendrix, Joplin, Dylan, along with iconic fashion work like Dovima with elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris, August 1955, grace the walls. A favorite portrait of mine is the loving embrace of poets Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg from 1964, naked and showy, the former with his genitalia limp, just part of the candor from an era when such displays were just not done. So is it merely loving, or up yours to anyone uptight? -
The third play of the Bay Street Theater season is Shakespeare’s As You Like It, featuring some theater royalty: Ellen Burstyn as the pensive Jacques and Andre de Shields, a show-stealer as Touchstone. They form the yin and yang of the bard’s comedy in this Sag Harbor staging under John Doyle’s direction, with Jacques pensive and pacing, and Touchstone colorful and cavorting. Burstyn is a most muted star in hat and tie. De Shields is his usual irrepressible in argyle socks and waistcoat. Of course the others in the ensemble for this musical version that will travel off-Broadway, to the CSC in the fall, are fine. But on the random Tuesday we attended, another was plucked from the first audience row, artist Eric Fishl, who as William with lines written out to read, formed a love triangle for the favors of Audrey, a saucy goatherd (Cass Morgan). Fishl’s wife April Gornik was cracking up, as her husband hates this sort of thing, she said. But Fishl was game, and handled his acting quite nicely, however sheepish he was. He does not win Audrey’s hand. -
On Author’s Night, the yearly festive fundraiser for the East Hampton library, writers sit in rows under an enormous tent, alphabetically, or so the signs say. This year, with books by Alec Baldwin (Nevertheless: A Memoir) and Ann Coulter (In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!), the tent could not have been big enough. By some feat of strategic seating, B and C were on opposite ends of the space, with each end drawing huge lines. Fortunately, fisticuffs avoided, the event remained politically correct, with each celebrated at his/her own private dinner following the group book signing. -
Trump is Michael Moore’s #1 target in his Broadway debut, “The Terms of my Surrender.” “How did we get here,” he asks rhetorically. Forget all the pundits and prognosticators; it was just a year ago when we thought our president’s candidacy was merely a joke, or a publicity stunt, but Moore, with his ear to the ground of the heartland’s disenfranchised older white men foretold the outcome of our election. He tried to get Hillary to travel to places like Wisconsin, but his calls to Brooklyn headquarters never went through. And now deploying an arsenal of jokes, sight gags, SNL-worthy skits, Michael Moore lands at the Belasco Theater, to incite his audience to action, give hope, and most of all, to entertain. He’s even saved a box for the first family, should any Trump care to laugh, or just take him on. -
Back in the day, when Jeannette Walls was a glamorous gossip columnist for New York Magazine, sporting a French chignon and a white suit, she reported on Trump’s clandestine dates with Marla Maples when he was married to Ivana, but she had some secrets of her own. Her 2005 best seller, The Glass Castle, revealed a hillbilly upbringing with parents who were less than protective and nurturing. Let’s say, these disheveled “artists” were advocates of an alternative lifestyle in which they celebrated poverty, moved around in a junk heap of a car, one step away from authorities, where Jeannette and her siblings often went hungry as their father drank himself into a cruel stupor. But Rex Walls had big dreams; he wanted to build “a glass castle” of his own design. Now the popular memoir has been made into a fine, The Glass Castle, film directed by Destin Daniel Cretton who made the movie Short Term 12, a game changer for the young actress who plays Jeannette in the new film, the Oscar winning Brie Larson. -
Growing up Kennedy meant seeing people who push to greatness on a regular basis, documentarian Rory Kennedy said to a crowd of movie and surfing enthusiasts about her inspiration for documentary filmmaking. The occasion was a screening of her new film, Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton, part of the Hamptons International Film Festival SummerDocs, at Gurney’s Montauk. This, her third to be a SummerDocs feature after Ethel, about her mother, and Last Days in Viet Nam, a film about an athlete supreme in the sport of surfing seemed best suited for a screening in Montauk, and so the rooftop party site, looking onto the ocean became the perfect setting for a celebration of Hamilton’s expertise both on his surfboard, and off, crafting them, inventing new ways to fly in water. -
When I spoke to longtime New York Times food and wine writer Florence Fabricant just before her entertaining “Stirring the Pot” series resumes its residency at Guild Hall this weekend, she was deep into writing her fall preview of new restaurants. The August interviews with chefs, she notes with pride, “gradually built an audience,” hitting the Zeitgeist fascination with all things food, and reflect her expertise and easy manner with celebrated guests. Her columns, “Off the Menu” and “Front Burner,” focus on eateries, opening, closing, or branching out: “A genuinely new restaurant is a “Front Burner” item,” she says about her column which also focuses on new products and events that are noteworthy: “I get a ton of pitches about flavored waters that will enhance your life. I say, if you are going to get thirsty, drink water.” A new vinegar or mustard does not cut it with Fabricant: “To catch my eye, it has to be astonishing.” -
The grounds at Watermill Center, Robert Wilson’s art retreat on the east end are always difficult to navigate, what with slippery grasses and rock paths. It would have been good to follow Daedalus’ flight, as the evening’s theme suggested, flying high—but not too high– into the sun. Alas in myth, the sun’s heat melts his wings and he perishes. That’s what happens when you soar too high. Evoking this myth as well as Lou Reed’s lyric, this year’s pre-gala cocktails had hubris galore on the paths through the woods. And there, in the large courtyard, a wall boasts, “SHE OUTWITS HIM/ SHE OUTLIVES HIM.” On its other side, artists, formal in black suits, one from Lithuania, graffiti with spray paint, the art called “Too M@ch Talk.” These days, walls say much.
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Director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal collaborated to give us a vision of “enhanced interrogation” in "Zero Dark Thirty," and now they’ve reached back to the 1960’s to explore that subject again—in the form of police brutality– in "Detroit."Based on a true incident from the hot summer of 1967, Detroit begins with an animated overview of slavery, complete with evocative Jacob Lawrence paintings, a pan of an urban ghetto ablaze during the riots there, before it lands its lens on a particular incident for one of the most gripping movies I have ever seen.
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By 7:05 PM, just when a “Fountain of Color” explosion event was planned to surprise guests at the cocktail hour and art viewing at LongHouse Reserve’s gala on Saturday, organizers had to announce instead that because of extremely dry weather conditions, Cai Guo-Qaing’s artistic contribution would not occur. Of course the irony was not missed: by dinner time it had begun to rain—lightly—and umbrellas were distributed as Cai, game and animated, displayed his designs for the explosion. -
Russell Simmons’ Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation Art for Life Benefit is always a great night, but this year’s benefit, “Midnight at the Oasis,” at Fairview Farms in Bridgehampton, was special thanks to a performance by Cynthia Erivo. Much beloved for her Tony awarded turn as Celie in last year’s revival of The Color Purple, Erivo channeled Whitney Houston for “I Want to Dance with Somebody,” and begged indulgence for an under rehearsed cover of the Beatles’ “Let It Be.” Trust me, no apology was necessary. Meantime, Simmons who is vegan, is finding more and more inventive ways to serve pasta “Bolognese” and “chicken” over waffles to the large crowd supporting this charity every year.
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Bring back the bustier! Fine lingerie takes center stage at Bay Street Theater where women (and a man) strip down to skivvies for the fine production of Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel. Kelly McCreary, from Season 10 of television’s “Grey’s Anatomy” stars as Esther Mills, and she is lovely, durable, and stoic, her character evoking a bit of Cynthia Erivo’s Celie—(although Intimate Apparel is not a musical)– from last year’s production of The Color Purple on Broadway. She simply doesn’t know how beautiful she is. -
Director Brian Knappenberger brought his documentary, Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press to the Hamptons International Film Festival’s Summerdocs series this weekend at Guild Hall. A provocative look at the First Amendment and what its protections may or may not have wrought, the provocative movie in three acts, now on Netflix, opens with Hulk Hogan and his take down of Gawker for posting a video of his having sex with his best friend’s wife (oy!), segueing to Sheldon Adelson’s purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, ending with a meditation on fake news in the Trump era. Big questions bubbled up regarding the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel who paid for Hulk Hogan’s trial. Gawker was forced into bankruptcy. -
Errol Morris’ new film, The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography, is his most intimate yet. Usually working with out-sized personalities, McNamara to Rumsfeld, the murderous gasman of Zyklon B, to point at a few of his subjects, documentarian Errol Morris has the further distinction with his 1985 The Thin Blue Line, of having changed the course of one man’s destiny with his investigative work, unearthing evidence that showed he was innocent of murder.
Elsa Dorfman, a longtime friend seems a smaller portrait indeed by comparison, but the filmmaker caught up with this mild-mannered photographer just as the Gentle Giant movers were removing some large scale Polaroids for storage, so the resulting movie surprises as it covers the technical aspect of Polaroid photography, and perhaps, the end of an era. In conversation, Errol and Elsa complete one another’s sentences.
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Sophie B. Hawkins is the real deal: she composes her own songs and sings her heart out. At Café Carlyle, she channels Janis Joplin, whipping her mane around for a medley of “Ball & Chain /Piece of my Heart,” and goes nasal for Bob Dylan’s “I Want You.” Promising only one cover, she performs George and Ira Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and gives the stage to John DeLay, for a piano solo, and a nod to the American songbook. But mostly, her brief Carlyle tenure features her new stuff, and it is well worth the trip.
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Comedy is rich, relevant, and raunchy at the Nantucket Film Festival. It helps that Ben Stiller is on hand for hosting awards nights, and for the annual comedy roundtable. Never mind that, as Mike Birbiglia aptly pointed out, there is no round table. On Saturday night, the ‘Sconset Casino was the site for stand-up with a theme of love letters. The conceit was this: Readers starting with hilarious host Ophira Eisenberg to comedic actors such as Kristen Schaal read letters from the likes of Oscar Wilde to Danny DeVito’s mother, and then followed up with a story of their own. If this were a competition, which it is not, Mike Birbiglia would win hands down for his reading of Tina Fey, and his depiction of forcing a sperm sample into a tiny paper cup, proclaiming, “My boys don’t swim.” If that does not sound funny to you, you had to be there. -
Al Gore’s follow up to the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, brings climate change up to the present moment, or at least up to events before President Trump’s pull out of the Paris Accord. Under the fine filmmaking of a team, Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, the documentary goes beyond the terrors of witnessing our ice melting to show what Al Gore has done in training an army of climate leaders to spread the message, and offer solutions. Of course the film goes into the Paris Accord and Gore’s work, along with John Kerry and others in forging a global unity regarding our carbon footprint. The film also shares Gore’s concerns over the Trump election and the people he has put in office surrounding him, many of them climate change deniers, showing footage of Al Gore entering an elevator at Trump Tower, when he met with Trump to discuss his concerns. But the film does not reveal what went on behind closed doors.
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Nick Broomfield will receive the Special Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking Award at this year’s Nantucket Film Festival. The festival will also honor Tom McCarthy with a Screenwriters Tribute Award and David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik for Impact in Television Writing. As a documentarian, Broomfield is known for putting himself in his films. While some of his influences, especially D. A. Pennebaker, prefer a “fly on the wall” omniscience, Broomfield is noted for creating a detective suspense in his storytelling: His latest film Whitney: Can I Be Me, about Whitney Houston, will screen at the festival.
I caught up with Nick Broomfield by phone, prior to Nantucket. He was on his way to Lewes, near Brighton in the UK where his family has a house. It was boiling hot, he said, “but this is one of my favorite parts of the world.”
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At a grand exhibition at Guild Hall of Taryn Simon’s photography, a man of color looks out from his seat at a bar. The site could be the iconic American working class watering hole in Lynn Nottage’s Sweat on Broadway, with Christmas lights dangling down. But it is the American Legion Post 310 in San Diego, California, and according to the wall text this photograph documents the location where 13 people placed this man, Frederick Daye, but he was convicted anyway of rape, kidnapping, and vehicle theft and served 10 years of a life sentence. This color photography exhibition, “The Innocents” is Taryn Simon’s earliest work, from 2002, and from the look of the stunned faces, it could be plucked off today’s headlines, except that today, and here’s a sinister thought, many of these wrongly accused and convicted individuals might be shot first. -
Not since the late Joan Rivers have we had a comedienne so adept at putting herself down as Amy Schumer. Introducing her makeup artist, Kyra Panchenko, at the recent Designing Women Awards Ceremony held at NYU’s law library, the Trainwreck star was convinced she was not Panchenko’s first choice, given that she also made up Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, Jessica Chastain, Naomi Watts, Kirsten Dunst, and Emily Blunt, among other Hollywood A-listers. Schumer was further convinced that they used her skin for close-ups of Blunt’s character in The Girl on the Train when she was all reddened from drink. -
Celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the Monterey Pop International Festival, D. A. Pennebaker’s newly restored film premiered on Wednesday at the IFC Center in New York, with further festivities to follow in Monterey this week. The film is now part of the prestigious Criterion Collection. According to the recent Clive Davis documentary, The Soundtrack of our Lives, it was at Monterey that the CBS executive signed Janis Joplin to a record deal, following instructions to look for something new and different. Janis Joplin’s vocals on “Ball ‘n’ Chain” in this state-of-the-art concert film are only one of its many revelations, its pure joy. The camera trains on her bell-bottoms and mules, her feet moving to the music much the way Monk’s feet shuffled under his piano. The camera cuts strategically to Cass Elliot’s enraptured face in the audience, and others sporting flower tiaras, tie-dyes, and flowing hair. -
Based on a children’s book by Jules Feiffer, the musical “The Man in the Ceiling,” premiering at Bay Street Theater, celebrates creativity, and more specifically the art of cartooning. From the perspective of Jimmy, a kid whose father only wants him to play ball like the other kids, this is also a story about following your vision, and believing in yourself against all odds, a message pertinent to young people, and everyone. So how does that translate into a musical? “The Man in the Ceiling” has one of the most imaginative sets ever produced on the Bay Street stage, some really snappy tunes by Andrew Lippa, and talented actors, particularly Jonah Broscow as Jimmy—that’s how! -
That Bette Midler would not sing at the Tony Awards made news in the week running up to the Tony Awards. As disappointing as that announcement was, it did not stop the hope that she might change her plan—maybe, we hoped–once the huge crowd filing into Radio City Music Hall on Sunday night saw the proscenium normally associated with her show, Hello, Dolly! Ahh, we were all forgetting that another musical, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, also crossed stage lines. And in any case, the walkway was used in many ways, but not for Dolly. Consequently, The Divine Miss M was indeed present, received by this discerning audience with some reserve, until her acceptance speech for winning Best Lead Actress in a Musical when she went on and on thanking everyone including her makeup artist, and the Tony voters, many of whom, she quipped, she dated. But if she could wax on in her speech, even calling out to “cut that crap” when the music came on to stop her: who muzzled Midler? -
Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke give stunning performances in the movie Maudie, a fictionalized account of the life of artist Maud Lewis. True eccentrics, Maud and Hawke’s Everett forge an unlikely coupling when he, the local fish peddler in Nova Scotia, advertises for a housekeeper and Maud, arthritic, limps over. She’s escaping her family: a rigid aunt and dreadful brother, and doesn’t mind the scandal of living with the odd and sometimes abusive Everett just to be free. As housekeeper she’s drawn to beautifying, and taking a brush she paints everything in sight, adding butterflies to drab walls, flowers to furnishings. By the film’s end, no space in the minute house is left unadorned. These characters are deeply affecting. And it is not just the superb acting. Sally Hawkins is to Maud as Eddie Redmayne was to Stephen Hawking, a tour de force of physicality. After a special screening this week, at a party at the American Folk Art Museum, Ethan Hawke deflected attention from the excellence of his own performance: “Sally just goes through the roof,” he said, still awed.
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