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about: Regina Weinreich

  • Michael Stuhlbarg in Patriots: Bye Bye Boris

    Putin
    If you were weaned on Russian literature: Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, you know exactly what nourishes the Russian soul—beyond vodka and borscht. Patriots, Peter Morgan’s play about the rise of Vladimir Putin at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, explores that pull through an oligarch’s power, and what happens when he loses it by his own hubris. A math prodigy, Boris Berezovsky (Michael Stuhlbarg) rises and maintains his wealth wheeling and dealing and situating those he manipulates in prominence. One such individual is Vladimir Putin (Will Keen), a nobody placed strategically until he becomes “president.” Eventually, fate finds Berezovsky exiled in London. While he is not poisoned to death as others in exile are, he simply cannot live outside his homeland.

    Stuhlbarg displays Berezovsky’s ample appetites in a robust performance. Act II begins with him fishing in the Caribbean. Banquets look like bacchanals—native dance, available women. Restraint is shown by his colleagues Roman Abramovich (Luke Thallon) who does what he must to stay in power’s favor; ditto for Professor Perelman (Ron Guttman) with whom Berezovsky spars in matters of math and politics. Morgan’s book is smart, philosophical as these historic figures are given voice. Yeah, it must have been good to be outrageously rich in Russia’s 1990’s.

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  • Eddie Redmayne in Cabaret: How Kinky is It?

    Cabaret
    The musical Cabaret was always a window into the years leading up to the atrocities of World War II based on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories. Landmark productions starring Joel Grey and Alan Cumming as Emcee at the fictional Kit Kat Club allowed us to glimpse a decadence we could never imagine. Can you ever top the images of cross-dressing, cross-gender, and utter flagrant sex that John Kander’s music and Fred Ebb’s lyrics brought to provocative life? The new must-see production at the August Wilson Theater, redone in the round so that it could give audiences not only the vision but the experience, is simply above and beyond.

    And how do you celebrate that? This opening weekend literally had audiences leaving their troubles at the door, as Eddie Redmayne, the latest Emcee welcomes everyone in whatever your language, to do just that. Angular, his kinkily-clad body a vessel of dis-jointed movement, “Wilkommen” he sings and introduces the ladies and gentlemen dancers who thrust their pelvises your way. Soon the key figures, an American writer called Clifford Bradshaw (Ato Blankson-Wood), an actress named Sally Bowles (a marvelous Gayle Rankin) after Isherwood’s friend, the writer Jane Bowles, and others join the party. Most poignant is landlady Fraulein Schneider, a fabulous Bebe Neuwirth and her beau Herr Schultz (Steven Skybell), a Jew. When he brings her fresh fruit, it is not only an Edenic gift and sexy, but in that real time of deprivation, it brought life-affirming hope.

    Speaking to the actors as the Kit Kat Club became a huge multi-leveled party space with flowing Moet & Chandon, lobster rolls, and tasty sliders, we learned just how much the long legacy of the play informed this new production. Sporting a Kit Kat logo “eye” pin, a gift from director Rebecca Frecknall, Neuwirth said in this subtle performance she was mindful that the role was created for Lotte Lenya.

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  • Bernadette Peters’ Joke: Posh Meets Borscht Belt as Guild Hall Returns to the Rainbow Room

    Bernadet petersGuild Hall Academy of the Arts President, the painter Eric Fischl got to hone his comedy chops at this year’s spring gala, fashioning a speech on a string of cliches—thanks to A. I. That set the night off in good spirits, against The Rainbow Room’s customary spectacular panoramic views of the city now fogged in, but as Board Chair Marty Cohen observed, “When it comes to Guild Hall, there’s no such thing as bad weather.”

    Sure enough, we were expecting no shows but most showed: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sunny Hosten, Fern Mallis, April Gornik, Ross Bleckner, Rufus Wainwright, and the robust theater crowd to celebrate Daryl Roth. That included her son Jordan Roth, head of Jujamcyn, clad in an elegant ensemble accessorized with his grandmother Sylvia’s matching clutch. He opened his speech with, “My mother loves gay people.” That broke the ice, as a proud, even gleeful son spoke of Roth’s collection of 13 Tony Awards and counting.

    She had just signed Julianne Margulies and Peter Gallagher to a show adapted from Delia Ephron’s Left on Tenth she’s hoping to stage in the fall, with Susan Stroman—also present– directing. As I congratulated her, Roth pulled me aside to say, she has yet to find a theater. Ah, the perils of producing!

    Her pal Bernadette Peters took the stage and before singing two numbers from Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods told a joke about a frog who, upon getting a kiss from an elder gentleman, promised to turn into a gorgeous blond who would make love to him every night for the rest of his life. The man took the frog home and went to bed, explaining that at this point in life he preferred to have a talking frog.

    The jokes did not end there. Howard Marks, who with his wife Nancy were also honored, with a Special Award for Leadership and Philanthropy told one about a boy who got a part in a school play. His mother asked, what part? The Jewish husband. Her reply: Couldn’t you get a speaking role?

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  • Alex Bornstein at the NYWFT Muse Awards: “You Are Enough.

    Alex“Do not fuck with a woman from NYC,” exclaimed comedian/actress Alex Bornstein, accepting her award for The Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment Made in NY Award at this year’s NYWFT Muse Awards.

    The “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star reminded 700 guests seated for a sumptuous steak dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street this week, she was not actually “made in New York,” but everyone seemed to think she was, maybe because as Susie Myerson, she epitomized the brash, pushy person who could be a New York bred talent agent.

    Her parents never called to congratulate her for any of her work, but they did for “Mrs. Maisel.” “You were good,” said her mother, while her father asked, “Why weren’t you the lead?” Her mother replied, “Because the skinny one with the perfect tits is the lead.” This may have bothered her growing up, but as the Muses dispense advice, now she knows: “You are enough.”

    Canadian actress Tantoo Cardinal whose personal story informed Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, had gratitude to family, particularly her grandmother who picked her up from the “dregs of genocide.” When her grandfather spoke her name, she said, “I knew he knew me.” And when he died, she wore an eagle feather in her hair for him. That was brave, she told the crowd. Of indigenous descent, she was taught to be ashamed of who she was.

    The WONDERSTRUCK and A QUIET PLACE actress Millicent Simmons accepted the Loreen Arbus Changemaker Award. Her mother was discouraged from learning to sign by doctors who thought that would slow her, a deaf baby, in learning to speak. A riveting performer, in A QUIET PLACE II, she leads the cast including writer director John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, often giving them notes. Actress Kyra Sedgwick has taken on directing. Her husband Kevin Bacon advised her: she was great at directing, if only she would never say “I’m sorry,” as she worked—as in, I’m sorry but we’re doing another take. This gave the audience a hearty, knowing chuckle.

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  • Water for Elephants: An Awesome Spectacle on Broadway

    Aaa at 8.53.22 AM
    This circus show comes with no disclaimer. No animals were hurt in Water for Elephants, opening this week at the Imperial Theater. Some human characters, yes! But if you know the story from the movie and the book on which it’s based, you know that certain bad leaders get their just desserts. The animals, so appealing in their puppet form, make for the heart and soul of this beautiful theater piece.

    When Marlena, a gorgeous aerialist (Isabelle McCalla), married to the ringmaster (Paul Alexander Nolan), must put down her prized, overworked show horse, he ascends to the heavens in a white sash, carried aloft in the acrobatics of Antoine Boissereau, an elegant performer from France in his Broadway debut. Here is a riveting moment, the essence of this production: the audience must suspend disbelief; awed, you see the divine in the art.

    Now, of course, Marlena must find another act, and soon an elephant with long curled eyelashes wraps her in its trunk. The elephant act works well to rescue the Depression era failing Benzini Brothers Circus. Along with a talented troupe of acrobats and one funny clown (Joe de Paul—the Playbill says he really did run away with the circus), the circus thrives. The day is saved! Until . . .

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  • Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People

    Enim of rhe peple
    If the players were not dressed in late 19th century fitted jackets, and the Circle in the Square stage not set as the interior of a fine Norwegian home with old school furnishings, you might think An Enemy of the People was a pandemic era drama of science vs. profit. Jeremy Strong--vulnerable as he was as Kendall Roy in Succession— as Dr. Thomas Stockmann, wants to alert the small town of serious, life-threatening bacteria in the water. His brother Peter—Michael Imperioli as a thuggish Sopranos bully who happens to be mayor, wants to suppress the information so that the people do not suffer the economic decline, from thriving baths about to enrich the community. Dr. Fauci seems so present, as does a narcissistic leader bent on denying scientific research. Amy Herzog has trimmed Ibsen’s original work to good effect and under Sam Gold’s superb direction An Enemy of the People feels like a parable for this time.

    As in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the ostensible drama whether it relates to the dynamic of saving people’s lives vs. preserving the opportunities for the rich or marriage and its tenuous relationship to true love, the real threat is the sheep-like dumbness of a citizenry that does not think for itself.

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  • Amy Ryan, Liev Schreiber, Zoe Kazan in A Superb Revival of Doubt: A Parable

    Dought 2a
    In the revival of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable at the Todd Haimes Theater, Amy Ryan as formidable, grim-faced Sister Aloysius is the kind of no-nonsense nun so fearful—under her eye, the consequences of actions good or bad are the same; you definitely don’t want to be caught. As directed by Scott Ellis, a fine tuning of Shanley’s work, she demonizes Liev Schreiber as Father Flynn, newly arrived at this Bronx parish in 1964. From the start, centerstage, delivering a sermon on “Doubt” in New York-ese, back lit by stained glass, he projects humanity, especially as his speech sets up the parable at hand: Doubt can be as binding as faith.

    This is theater at its finest, a holy cathedral of words. Playing with notions of innocence and guilt, the 2004 play—a Pulitzer Prize winner–means to keep us juggling our own internal debates on the subject, the truth intensely shimmering far away, compelling, mysterious and suspenseful. A younger teacher, Zoe Kazan shines as Sister James. Meek as need be before her superiors, she also represents the future of the church. She has doubts about what happened in the rectory when a student—the school’s only black boy– returns to class after a private meeting with Father Flynn. Reporting to Sister Aloysius, she suspects her superior’s accusations go too far, judging him a pedophile without saying the word. Can she maintain discipline as represented by Sister Alyosius, while keeping a tender, nurturing and welcoming presence for her students?

    Sister Aloysius’ meeting with the boy’s mother in a deft performance by Quincey Tyler Bernstine brings its own surprises. As does Father Flynn’s confrontation with Sister Aloysius in her Bible-lined study, questioning why he is thought guilty without proof. Of course, we as observers have our own certainties, or doubts, and they keep shifting. And it’s hard not to be swayed by Father Flynn’s kindness, vulnerability—and sheer manliness.

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  • Marion Cotillard at the Rendez-vous with French Cinema

    Marion CollardOscar winner Marion Cotillard in feathery white posed before photographers on opening night of this year’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center. She’s a big star, known internationally since her debut role as Edith Piaf, but for this yearly festival, a collaboration with Unifrance, it did not take long before she melded into the crowd, another guest for cocktails. Similarly, at the French Embassy where the party turned swank, she was part of the crowd with Thomas Cailley, director of the opening night film, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, enjoying drinks, vegetarian tagine, the confluence of English and French conversation. The French are very good at keeping the celebrity buzz under control.

    Winner of five Cesars in France, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, explores the imagined proposition of humans mutating into animals–literally. How does that affect identity? Family? Empathy? The star, Romain Duris, plays a family man whose wife has become a large beast—yes, literally. Neither he nor Adele Exarchopoulos, another big star who plays a minor role attended. In France as in America, having a film this lauded will improve chances of funding the next one, but Cailley said of his film in our conversation: This film is weird, and will widen the possibilities for others to make their more edgy films.

    Taking a conservative view on this movie that also features one such mutant who wants to fly, this is surely the best movie I have ever seen on the subject of father/son relationships. More conventional, director Pascal Bonitzer’s film AUCTION, about a Nazi-stolen Egon Schiele painting turning up in a workingclass home in the French countryside, would screen the next night, its North American premiere. A favorite among Rendez-vous critics, AUCTION is smart about the art market. Bonitzer based his script on interviews with key players in a known newspaper story. While Alex Lutz stars as an auctioneer, for Bonitzer, the young man who wants to give up his lucrative possession to the true Jewish heirs is a hero.

    Sting—yes, that Sting– plays himself in Michel Gondry’s THE BOOK OF SOLUTIONS, perhaps the goofiest selection in the Rendezvous lineup. A young film director (Pierre Niney), wanting to complete his work after the project has been kaboshed, holes himself up in the French countryside with the stolen footage. Manic, he wants to complete his movie and even convinces Sting to perform. Nutty as the twists and turns seem, this film may illustrate the inner frustrations of many filmmakers.

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  • Christine Lahti in Russian Troll Farm: Jesse Tyler Ferguson Honored at the Vineyard Theater Gala

    Russion Trol Farm 2PM
    Any lingering doubts about how the 2016 election went the way it did, Sarah Gancher’s Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy, now ending its run at the Vineyard Theater, offers a hilarious, clever, chilling spectacle of our nightmares come true –especially horrifying as we move toward the 2024 elections. Set in a cold office space, this play posits workers, computer nerds doing what they do best: hacking. A photo of Putin hangs on a back wall. We are in fact where our worst fears of control by a foreign enemy are fueled and posted. Expert in manipulating social media, these workers, led by Ljuba, a Robotnik performed by Christine Lahti, tweet misinformation at once familiar and breathtakingly outrageous—Hillary as a pedophile—kidnapped kids in tunnels beneath Disneyland—incredible fakeries that had us by the –eh, balls.

    The brightest note—this is good, riveting theater. And that view goes beyond the sight of Steve’s (John Lavelle) ample, inked butt crack. Renata Friedman as Masha, Haskell King as Egor, and Hadi Tabbal as Nikolai round out the fine ensemble. My hope is Russian Troll Farm will move to Broadway—as have other superb Vineyard productions such as Dana H. and This is a Room.

    At the Vineyard Theatre’s gala this week, the Edison Ballroon was abuzz. Honoring Jesse Tyler Fergusen, a rousing rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was a no-brainer. Chelsea Clinton, Lea DeLaria, Celia-Keegan Bolger, Sara Bareilles, Emily Bergl, and Montego Glover paid tribute, but Glover, a former Ferguson roommate, could attest: Jesse puts down the toilet seat. Whattamensch!

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  • Jennifer Holliday at the Carlyle Café

    Carlyle 2024 TWO TWOFEB
    Tony award winning Jennifer Holliday makes her debut at the Café Carlyle, not far from where she starred on Broadway as Effie in 1981 in “Dreamgirls.” Singing “I’m Still Here,” Holliday channels ancestors—Barbra Streisand among them– in a set that features selections from the American songbook. But more, she evokes a prior Café Carlyle resident, the legendary Elaine Stritch, who made this Stephen Sondheim “Follies” hit her signature song. Holliday now makes it her own, and ends her generous set with her “Dreamgirls” anthem, “And I’m Telling You—I’m Not Going.”

    Great news! At 63, Jennifer Holliday in a magenta sequined sheath, uses the intimacy of the Carlyle stage to sing about love, and honor her muses, Michael Bennett and Marvin Hamlisch. Their advice brought her to the standards that make this show so special—“Taking a Chance on Love,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” “Caravan,” “Body and Sou,” to name a few. Working in a jazz idiom –scatting like Ella Fitzgerald and mixing in her R&B chops– she’s backed by an excellent band: music director Shedrick Mitchell on piano, Eric Wheeler on bass, Charles Haynes on drums, and Jarien Jamanla on sax.

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  • Carey Mulligan’s Surprise Appearance at New York Philharmonic’s Evening of Maestro’s Music

    Mistro
    Director/ Producer/ Co-writer/ Star Bradley Cooper introduced a special concert at the newly refurbished Geffen Hall, featuring the NY Philharmonic performing Leonard Bernstein’s music for his film MAESTRO. That his subject Leonard Bernstein had begun his career in this very place, conducting the Philharmonic at age 25, gave the evening extra resonance. Fervidly researching, Cooper was said to have attended many a performance in the past five years, seated in the conductor’s box hanging dangerously over the rail, in rapt attention to the feverish body movements needed for conducting. His devotion extended to every aspect of the film, and it shows. Now after MAESTRO’s many awards and nominations, the night’s focus turned to the Philharmonic’s star conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin, the ample stage packed with musicians, the soloists, and the 50-member chorus. Now a hero to classical musicians everywhere, Bradley Cooper put them in the spotlight. And shine they did.

    In Cooper’s hands, glimpses of Bernstein’s musical genius pervade the film. Key scenes were projected over the live performances. The Requiem in St. John the Divine is the longest musical interlude, showing Cooper completely following in Bernstein’s conductor chops. As noted later in the Q&A, performers who had worked with Bernstein actually imagined him back in action. That’s how authentic Bradley Cooper seemed to them.

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  • Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James’ Menage a Trois in Days of Wine and Roses

    Days of wine and rosesWhen the new Broadway musical, Days of Wine and Roses, was announced, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s voluptuous classic song from the movie swelled in my mind’s ear. That was a lot to let go, as the new show at Studio 54 drew near. Featuring Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James as the lovers in a doomed triangle with booze, to tunes by Adam Guettel and book by Craig Lucas, the team that made Light in the Piazza starring O’Hara, this Days of Wine and Roses scores the romance operatically, even as it is meant to evoke jazz. A perfect fit for O’Hara, a theater superstar with a singular voice.

    Brian D’Arcy James, known especially for comic roles, is the quintessential leading man—a handsome and attentive wooer. Meeting at an office party, the two hook up once she, a lovely “good” girl, not into drink, samples a chocolaty Brandy Alexander. An unshakable, high alcoholic bond precipitates their down journey.

    This is no spoiler alert. Anyone familiar with the vagaries of this disease will recognize the thwarted steps taken to survive, and feel the pain in witnessing D’Arcy James’ Joe’s crescendos as he tears down his father-in-law’s (Byron James) prized greenhouse in a drunken rage.

    Joe and O’Hara’s Kirsten sing every number, accompanied for a few tunes by their daughter Lila (Tabitha Lawing). Kelli O’Hara’s voice is the one you take home—in “Evanesce” and “There I Go.”

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  • Chita Rivera Remembered at the Café Carlyle: Putting on her Vamp

    Cheta Revera
    Broadway musical legend Chita Rivera takes the narrow strip of stage at the Café Carlyle, maneuvering her sequined body strategically so she won’t end up in your vodka tonic. Nobody moves like Chita Rivera. The consummate showwoman, she gives a great, not to be missed night, starting with “A Lot of Living to Do.” For her West Side Story medley, in honor of its 60th anniversary, she tells of Leonard Bernstein teaching her the role of Anita, and sings “A Boy Like That,” and “America.” With stories galore, and memories of performers who inspired her, such as Rosemary Clooney from whom she learned she could just stand there and sing, and then of course defying that she shimmies through “Sweet Happy Life,” advising, “It’s great when your spirit and body get together.” When she sings “Where Am I Going?” from Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’ Sweet Charity, you feel grateful to have her right here, coquettish as three hookers, “Camille, Collette, Fifi” and wistful singing the ups and downs of Jacques Brel’s “Carousel.”

    With all due respect to Catherine Zeta-Jones who earned an Oscar for her film role as Velma in Chicago, Chita Rivera blows away all competition. Of course she originated the role of Velma in 1975, opposite Gwen Verdon, only one of her iconic Broadway performances in a career that includes Bye Bye Birdie, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, as well as West Side Story. Accompanied by an expert band, with music director Michael Croiter on guitar, Jason Loffredo on piano, Jim Donica’s bass, and Dan Willis reeds, she samples from her Broadway hits including the show-stopping vamp for “All That Jazz,” top hat, cane, and all.

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  • Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Charles Melton: Who Cares About Oscar Snubs?

    Oscars2024
    After Oscar nominations, pundits weigh in on the snubs. What exactly does it mean? In the case of BARBIE, the highest grossing film of the year: laughing all the way to the proverbial, eh, literal, bank. Team BARBIE has a prominent place at the party, with nods for Best Picture, Original Song, Production Design, Costume Design, and Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s Adapted Screenplay. Producer Margot Robbie will look gorgeous, of course! As nominee for Best Supporting Actor, Ryan Gosling put it, “There’s no Ken without Barbie.” Don’t cry for me.

    For other films, MAY DECEMBER, for example, other consequences for revenues can make a difference, but with an auteur such as Todd Haynes featuring stars Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman—Oscar winners on their own. Watch them as presenters on the special day, and Charles Melton—you may recall from his New York Film Critics win– looks good in a tux without a shirt.

    As the late, great Sylvia Miles, a two-time Best Supporting Actress Nominee—for MIDNIGHT COWBOY and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY—always pointed out during Oscar season, you cannot predict the nominations in traditional ways, seeing the process more of an algorithm of repeated listing by Academy members in each category.

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  • Sir Anthony Hopkins in ONE LIFE Opens the New York Jewish Film Festival

    Anthony Hopkins
    In these dire times, remember the mantra that evil flourishes when good people do nothing. As noted looking back to the days when Nazis rose to power in Europe, these words may guide our actions, as they did a true hero, Sir Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker who in his ‘20’s took on the plight of refugee Jewish children in occupied Czechoslovakia, attempting to bring as many as possible to foster homes in England. That he brought as many as he did—669—seems a true miracle, but in ONE LIFE, James Hawes’ debut film that opened the New York Jewish Film Festival last week he does just that. Sir Anthony Hopkins plays Winton as an elder gentleman, modest about his “menschlechkeit.” ONE LIFE flashes back to his youth with Johnny Flynn as Winton and his wise, enabling mother played by Helena Bonham Carter devoted to the kindertransport. If you have wondered where some A-list actors have gone—Lena Olin, Marthe Keller, Jonathan Pryce, among them—they are characters here, supporting the cause.

    A producer, Joanna Laurie, introduced the film on the festival’s opening night. While many have asked to make a film about Winton, she told the rapt crowd, his daughter and biographer Barbara Winton agreed to this production, saying that she thought Anthony Hopkins should play her father. Yeah, right? No one believed he would say yes, but indeed he did, bringing his prodigious talents to a role well suited to Winton’s elegant modesty. Laurie promised a surprise, which came when during the Q&A she asked members of the opening night audience to stand if they owed their lives to Nicholas Winton. Several families stood up, in a glorious SCHINDLER’S LIST moment that brought home the important theme: an ordinary citizen dared to act–the message illuminated in this thrilling film.

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  • Harry Smith at the Whitney Museum and in Cosmic Scholar: When Whimsy Meets Whip Smart

    Harry Smith
    Back in the day, I thought Harry Smith was a deadbeat. Now, he’s a dead Beat. A filmmaker, artist, student of the occult, mysticism, cats’ cradle and paper airplane master, and famously a star of one of Andy Warhol’s interviews, Harry Smith was a cultural figure in his day, as a rich exhibition of his work, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith, at the Whitney Museum, demonstrates. Who knew?

    An inhabitant of the Chelsea Hotel and the Breslin before that, he consorted with an array of artsy types, among them photographer/ filmmaker/ musician John Cohen, rocker Patti Smith, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and many others who appear in his masterpiece Mahagonny, a filmed reboot of Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill opera about a city where anything goes. Imagining New York that way in 1970, Smith filmed Allen Ginsberg, Rosebud Pettet, and many other downtown types. Viewers enjoyed it seated on sofas on the Whitney’s 5th floor.

    The Whitney had a weekend of lectures, screenings, and other tributes to Harry Smith. Anne Waldman gave a reading in tribute. Raymond Foye provided a connection to painter Jordan Belson. Some of the interviews are like home movies with semi articulate musings by Smith. Rani Singh, Director of the Harry Smith Archives, spoke about how Mahagonny was made from 1970 till 1980. And like so much experimental work of the time, the percussive poetry of Brion Gysin, Jack Kerouac’s spontaneous prose, William Burroughs’ cutups, the work is highly structured—not at all haphazard, as the art first appears.

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  • Rosamund Pike, Justine Triet, and Barbie at the Golden Globes: Off the Script Diversions Augur New Categories of Distinction

    Golden Globes2914
    Say whatever you will about the Golden Globes awards ceremony, the foreign press organization made some good choices. OPPENHEIMER was predictable as Best Picture, perhaps the most globally relevant history-based drama of the season. And, POOR THINGS, Best Comedy, a movie that, in addition to being a hilarious, unpredictable romp, globe trots. As the organization has now in its rebranding created a category for commercial distinction as well as artistic merit, a slot that features BARBIE for its financial success, Oscars take note: perhaps it is time for a new Academy Award category: Most Perverse.

    Two contenders this year would be POOR THING’s for Bella’s (Emma Stone) sexual curiosity and Dr. Godwin Baxter’s (William Dafoe) mischievous Dr. Frankenstein inspired creations. SALTBURN, a movie that astounds in the characters of Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) and Elspeth Catton (c) would be a prominent candidate for “Perverse.” While many of the Globe host’s jokes went flat, one stuck out—no pun intended—the one about Bradley Cooper’s nose and Barry Keoghan’s penis. Eh, perverse takes many forms.

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  • Martin Scorsese Talks about How Visiting Oklahoma Changed Him: 89th NYFCC Awards

    AMatin ScoreasyOne pleasure of the swank New York Film Critics Circle dinner at Tao Downtown: the awards are announced well ahead of the early January date. This means that speeches are prepared; presenters get to, well, speak critically—and, at length. When MAY DECEMBER director Todd Haynes awarded scriptwriter Samy Burch, he went far to explain her unique strategy in engaging the audience. She in turn explained what he meant to her, as a fan of his work, for his decision to make this film, and as a model for how to be in this industry. All season, from the Gotham Awards and through his recent career achievement award and exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image, Todd Haynes had been raving about Charles Melton’s sensitive performance in May December. Here, the winner for Best Supporting Actor, Melton is the IT man of the season.

    Poised as her movie is on a roll, Best Actress winner Lily Gladstone, clad like a gold statue—(hint, hint), spoke about the Best Film, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. Already a winner at the Gothams, Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece remains a uniquely American story and tragedy: focusing on Oklahoma and how the discovery of oil there made the Native American landowners both wealthy and vulnerable to the deceits of white predators. Marty talked about how having the time during the pandemic to visit Oklahoma to take in the sights, and sound, and spirit, led to his decision to make this film of David Grann’s book.

    Hard to beat at the Oscars, NYFCC’s Best Director winner Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER is “Killer’s” strongest contender, with the atom bomb’s origin story perhaps having more of an international resonance. Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema was honored as well with Benny Safdie presenting. Van Hoytema apologized, “I did not write anything in my speech to thank the actors.”

    Frederick Wiseman, winner for Best Documentary, for his MENUS-PLAISIRS-LES TROISGROS, zoomed in from his Paris apartment. At 94, he made a riveting epic-length film –and an appreciative appearance. Justine Triet’s ANATOMY OF A FALL won Best International Film with the New York critics. France did not put forward this excellent movie for the International Feature Oscar, but look for it on the Best Film list.

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  • Sarah Paulson in Appropriate Makes for Sensational Theater

    Accosiate3
    If you see a plantation, the ghosts of slaves must be haunting. That’s the complicated plot of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ play Appropriate at the Hayes Theater in a nutshell. As Toni, the eldest sibling preparing the property for sale, Sarah Paulson is perfection, plucked from her mean-as-can-be role in Steve McQueen’s award-winning movie, 12 Years a Slave. Caretaker to her ailing dad before his death, even she is clueless about his secrets—starting with, but not exclusive to, his racism against blacks. This being theater, his legacy of outsized hateful behavior goes far. In Ibsenesque fashion, it is fair to say the sins of the father are visited upon the sons. There are two: Corey Stoll plays a New York sophisticate called Bo who arrives to survey the spoils with Rachael (Natalie Gold), his “Jew” wife (that’s what dad called her) and their two kids. And, Michael Esper’s Franz brings along his girlfriend River, in Elle Fanning's Broadway debut. As family histories go, this one has everything—drug abuse, rape, murder, and some kinky obsessions. But in the end, it’s all about the real estate.

    At the matinee I attended, even the theater ushers gushed at the writing. It is indeed a marvel that so much drama can shape a family backstory. Without revealing a lot, let’s just note: Siblings on call to cash in on this Arkansas property have much to mull over. High histrionics ensue—and each cast member takes a moment to shriek. Franz seems the most fragile, having disappeared for a while in the effort to change his life. As a young man, while living here in this house, he got an underaged girl pregnant. Now, he’s an agent for redemption. His girl River resembles a flower child—although Bo thinks she’s Native American, adding to the levels of identity here misnamed.

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  • Isaac Mizrahi’s Snazzy Reboot of Prokoviev’s Peter and the Wolf at the Guggenheim

    Peter and the wolf 2023
    Prokoviev’s     classic Peter and the Wolf is reimagined at the Guggenheim Museum, an ingenious recreation from Isaac Mizrahi. The fashion designer cum cabaret performer has worked costuming for theater for decades, and for the Guggenheim’s program of “Works and Process” the Peter and the Wolf story is set, where else, but in the neighborhood, in Central Park.

    Grandfather (Norton Owen), deaf and disoriented, speaks, through Mizrahi’a narration, with a Yiddish accent. Mizrahi-dressed, Peter (Kara Chen) wears a beanie with propeller, and Bird (Paige Barnett Kulbeth) wears gym shorts. Most brilliant of all, ill-fated Duck (Marjorie Folkman) looks like an edgy Park Avenue matron in tulle tutu and beaded cardigan, head covered in a schmatte. Cat (Zac Gonder) is suitably clad in velvety paws and pompoms, fashionably black with white and pink trims, while the gray Wolf (Daniel Pettrow) sports Ugg-like feet, with the Hunter (Derrick Arthur) an oversized boy scout. The look of this Peter and the Wolf is reason enough to attend, better still, to entertain your grandkids and their mother too. A more formidable reason is the talent of the musicians and dancers, who bring this simple story to life—with Mizrahi as host explaining how the instruments “color” these delightful characters.

    Max (8) and his brother Zac (5), my companions, mesmerized by the musicians warming up, did not want the 30-minute performance to end, even after Wolf was suitably punished after eating Duck whole. This moment, offstage, could have been a deal breaker. No one wants Duck to disappear in Wolf’s belly. Spoiler alert: Duck is seen at end, knitting in orange, just like her webbed feet—disaster averted.

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  • ORIGIN Premieres at Alice Tully Hall: A Docu-Drama of Ideas About Societal Divisions

    AAAAt the swank premiere of Ava Du Vernay’s new film ORIGIN at Alice Tully Hall last week, made evident: this director is fearless. Taking Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, a 2020 best-selling book by Isabel Wilkerson, DuVernay created her own genre, taking the lessons of the book, folding them into the narrative of the writer writing the book, and adding elements ripped off the headlines.

    The film starts with the actual soundtrack of Trayvon Martin’s murder, significant because this horrible killing put the situation of innocent black men at risk on the proverbial map. But on the geographic map, DuVernay’s reach brings together key far flung places—Germany, India, the United States, to show how caste, not race, drives the methods of subjugation, dehumanization, humiliation, creating cultural divisions, separating target groups from equal status.

    Lately, research into the Nazi agenda illustrates how antisemitism of the 1930’s was informed by the study of how Americans constructed slavery. Filming in Berlin, DuVerney’s fictional Isabel, in a fine performance by Aunjanue-Ellis Taylor visits the famed Jewish Museum archive. The film transitions to a story of a Nazi party member who refused to signal “heil” because he was in love with a Jewish woman. Having stripped Jews from citizenship, confiscated their property, murdered them, the concentration camp system seems a logical consequence of this ideology—if you claim supremacy–no matter how baseless, heartless, inhumane, and self-serving.

    The caste system in India works on a similar level of dehumanization. Focused on the Dalits (“Untouchables”), the film shows men neck deep in sewage, made to clean without the use of tools, with their bare hands—it’s an image you cannot unsee.

    The story of artist Al Bright makes for a riveting mini-movie, when as a 9-year old he was not permitted into a swimming pool with his teammates. That he was led around the pool on a rubber float, repeatedly told not to touch the water, is hilarious in its pointlessness, if it were not a sad reminder of the basic stupidity of segregation.

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  • Matthew Heineman: Pennebaker Career Achievement Award at Hamptons DocFest

    Doc festA sure path to a hit documentary is a subject as brilliant, dynamic and charismatic as musician extraordinaire, Jon Batiste. Filmmaker Matthew Heineman, accepting the Pennebaker Career Achievement Award at Hamptons DocFest this week, told a rapt audience in Sag Harbor how he made his latest film, AMERICAN SYMPHONY, about Batiste on a musical, emotional journey.

    When he scored THE FIRST WAVE, Heineman’s harrowing glimpse of a hospital ward at the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020 seen through the life and death ordeals of several New York families, Jon Batiste talked about preparing an “American Symphony” to be performed at Carnegie Hall. Heineman began filming the original composition’s process, but soon pivoted to the deeper drama of Jon Batiste’s life. His wife, writer Suleika Jaouad’s leukemia had returned after 10 years in remission. She would undergo a bone marrow transplant as Batiste won five Grammy awards. At one point he’s cradling the statuettes; in another he’s holding her, hair shaved, tubes protruding. Heineman’s camera gets up close and personal—for 62 straight days of shooting. The viewer actually feels the emotion that fuels the art.

    As with his oeuvre to date, Heineman’s portrait of this loving relationship stands with his films of courage, even danger. He has embedded with troops in Afghanistan and drug lords in Mexico. War—dire circumstance– seems to be his thing. “Fear drives me a lot,” he said, and he could relate to Batiste’s unwavering care for his wife because his father, who attended the event, had battled cancer. The hardest part was sneaking into the Grammy Awards and filming on his iphone, he said. But as to the art of film, D. A. Pennebaker’s classic DON’T LOOK BACK, an unvarnished look at Bob Dylan back in the day, guided him.

    Besides Jon Batiste, other outsized personalities featured at this content-and-narrative rich non-fiction festival included The Hite Report author Shere Hite, writer Rose Styron, pioneer in dance, stage lighting and design, Loie Fuller, American photographer George Platt Lynes, German artist Anselm Kiefer, “Lambchops” creator/ puppeteer Shari Lewis, television newsman Dan Rather—to name a few.

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  • Barbie at the Peninsula: A Doll Rules

    Barbi
    In the doll metaverse, Barbie is queen. A party at the posh Peninsula Hotel brought together her movie creators with members of the Academy to anoint her with awards. The movie about her has had world domination in sales. Even in Morocco, where I saw it when it was released in July along with Oppenheimer—famously creating the “Barbenheimer” unit—it was a hit, I was happy to report to Margot Robbie, who spear-headed the collaboration with Mattel and starred, and Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, scriptwriters with Gerwig directing. The phenomenon spoke of girl power, and what men have to do to measure up. So where was the movie’s primary Ken, Ryan Gosling?

    Ryan Gosling made the movie a musical, his song and dance numbers major entertainment a la La La Land. Mark Ronson filled me in on creating the movie’s sound: he just followed Greta’s script. There wasn’t even supposed to be music, but fortunately she, a major music maven, and fan, was keen on creating a sound. Eschewing the pink cocktail of the evening—a prosecco with cotton candy, Ronson said he was overstuffed from Thanksgiving with family, and following a routine, waking at 7 to write. How do you follow up on Barbie? Ronson is writing a book on DJing in the ‘90’s.

    “What would I do without acting!?,” exclaimed F. Murray Abraham at the party, agreeing, his White Lotus character should be continued into the next season. “Didn’t you love the writing,” he asked. “I would follow Mike White’s writing anywhere,” he said, so happy to be working. Next up: he’s the husband in the Broadway production of The Queen of Versailles, based on Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 excellent riches-to-rags documentary, with Kristin Chenowith as his wife.

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  • Gotham Awards 2023: Robert De Niro Wants the Truth

    Di Nero Goghem Awards
    If you ask Robert De Niro to speak, be prepared for his tirade on the former president who seeks office again. That omission seemed odd to the guests seated at Cipriani Wall Street this week for the annual Gotham Awards. Then, the actor paused realizing the words he was reading from the teleprompter were not the ones he’d written, so he started over, this time focused on the truth. After all, his movie Killers of the Flower Moon was awarded the Gotham’s “Historical Icon & Creator.” Director Martin Scorsese was not present to hear the Tribute to his film but Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone were, with Gladstone further awarded “Outstanding Lead Performance” for her work in The Unknown Country.

    For those of us who have attended this yearly event, and seen it become less and less scruffy as the awards night for indies—attire: black tie, the Gothams was especially distinct for the presence of actors now able to celebrate after the seemingly endless strike. As Morgan Spector said during cocktails when asked what he’s scheduled to do after the 2nd season of HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” “I’m eager to work.” Many, such as presenters Laura Dern, Willem DaFoe, Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, Coleman Domingo, Penelope Cruz, Adam Driver—the list is long—looked happy just to show up.

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  • The Mother of All Lies/ Down in Dallas Town: Truth in Documentaries

    Mother ofall lies PM
    As the DOCNYC festival illustrated, the genre of non-fiction films remains a vibrant frontier. Asmae El Moudir’s THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES, awarded Best Documentary in Cannes and Morocco’s entry for the Best International Feature Oscar, tells a hidden history through clay figurines. The “Bread Wars” in Morocco in the early 1980’s garnered little attention internationally, but locally, in Casablanca and other cities, riots were brutally suppressed, and silence about the horror was enforced.

    In filmmaker Asmae El Moudir’s home, where she lived with her parents and grandmother, a photograph of King Hassan II hung prominently, her grandmother’s favorite. Her father made clay figures that she used to dramatize—or speak of—the violence in her country’s past. Dividing her time between Rabat and Paris, but preferring home in Morocco, Asmae El Moudir attended a special screening of her film at the Quad cinema recently, navigating the enthusiastic crowd’s amazement at the subtle revelations of truth about an untoward political history.

    On the anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the mysteries linger in the memories constructed of photographs, music, and the site itself. That is the subject of Alan Govenar’s latest documentary, DOWN IN DALLAS TOWN: FROM JFK TO K2. Govenar’s style segues on the slimmest of transitions from a famous Polaroid by Mary Ann Moorman, interviewed for the very first time, to American blues, to the homeless who house themselves in cardboard dwellings at Dealey Plaza, where JFK died in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

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