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about: Regina Weinreich

  • Vaneese Thomas: Launching “Blues for my Father” at the Cutting Room

    Venasa4
    Just after the Father’s Day weekend, when Vaneese Thomas sang backup for Aretha Franklin at sold out shows at Radio City Music Hall, the singer had a launch for her new album, “Blues for my Father.” Her father was Rufus Thomas, a great singer who worked as a d.j. at a local radio station in Memphis, and who introduced Elvis Presley back in the day. Vaneese Thomas, the sister of Carla Thomas and Marvell Thomas, told the crowd at The Cutting Room that their dad was never inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an injustice, given that he helped found the ideals by which many others who followed him were inducted. Segueing into tunes she wrote for this album and others, songs like “When My Baby Gets Home,” “Southern Girl,” and “I Got the Blues,” she brought down the house with a first rate band, some very cool backup singers including her pal Berneta Miles, and violinist Katie Jacoby, behind her for “Blue Ridge Blues.” A good time was had by all.

    Regina Weinreich

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  • Kino! Festival of German Film Opens with Christian Schwochow’s West

    West-Poster
    A pretty, blue-eyed blond and a young boy say a tearful goodbye to one man, and in the next scene, leave by car with another. Border patrol, strip searches, humiliating intrusive interrogations lead to a refugee camp with more of the same. According to filmmaker Christian Schwochow after a screening of his nail-biting drama West, a film he co-wrote with his mother, Heide Schwochow based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Julia Frank, this was not an unusual situation for citizens leaving East Berlin for the West. In fact, this story, involving trust in the time of the Stasi, hews close to his family experience, and others’ he and his mother knew. As opening night of the Kino! Festival of German Films, this past Thursday at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, West is of a particularly German narrative, as is another fine movie, Hanna’s Journey, directed by Julia von Heinz, about a Berlin-based student who goes to Israel to complete credits in community service, needless to say, a transformative adventure.

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  • Sandra Bernhard: Provocateur at Guild Hall

    Sandra Berhard
    Sandra Bernhard makes me laugh. Her brassy, wild mouthed persona has always seemed an exaggeration of femininity, her humor bold, her image could be menacing as in her role in The King of Comedy, Martin Scorsese’s 1983 movie starring Jerry Lewis, out there as in a 1992 nude spread for Playboy, or mock kitten as in her stand-up routine, “Without You I’m Nothing, and With You I’m Not Much Better,” wearing little under a mink. When I heard she would be performing at Guild Hall on June 20, I wanted to know what she would bring to the East Hampton vacation community, after her sold out performances at Joe’s Pub. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to this funny woman, and found her dead serious about her work. 

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  • Charlie Rose and Richard Plepler Honored at the Museum of the Moving Image Benefit at the St. Regis

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    You’ve got to love a guy whose ex-wife speaks well of him, and so, in crafting a speech to honor Charlie Rose, Gayle King, called her to get some anecdotes. King was not the only one at the podium. It takes three women to toast him, and so his co-anchors on CBS This Morning, King and Norah O’Donnell presented along with Yvette Vega. Even the gracious Richard Plepler in receiving his award, managed to contribute two impersonations in gathering information on Charlie Rose: Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton. Wanting to keep “shalom bayit,” Plepler thanked his wife. That and the hilarious John Oliver –deploying tee shirt cannon jokes–made for an unusually warm and entertaining benefit for the Museum of the Moving Image. As John Oliver made clear, “It’s worth going to Queens. It’s not just an airport!” Fareed Zakaria complained about following John Oliver, and nicely held his own. 

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  • Greta Gerwig: Riding The Village Bike

    Village Bike
    Greta Gerwig is a big girl: she’s tall, and gangly in an appealing way, and like the “Girls” on the HBO series, she’s emblematic of the new woman finding her way through life’s challenges. That was her appeal in Frances Ha, directed by Noah Baumbach, and that’s what she embodies as Becky in a new play, The Village Bike, by the British playwright Penelope Skinner now making its American premiere in the MCC production at the Lucille Lortel Theater. Gerwig is even big in a video projected over the stage, riding a used bicycle, a pregnant woman with a big libido.

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  • Sarah Paulson in Conviction at Bay Street Theater

    Sarah Paulson
    “Did you have sex with that woman?” This is not a question from a bygone era’s congressional hearing, although the echo is unmistakable. Rather it comes from a wife, Leigh (Sarah Paulson) whose husband Tom (Garret Dillahunt), a dynamic theater teacher has been convicted of inappropriate behavior with a female student, and is just back home after having served three years in prison. Leigh is 99% sure he’s innocent, but Carey Crim’s Conviction, now in its world premiere at Bay Street Theater, is concerned about that 1%, and the effect of that margin of doubt not only on her, but their son Nicholas (Daniel Burns), and their best friends Bruce (Brian Hutchison) and Jayne (Elizabeth Reaser).

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  • Robert De Niro’s Anxiety of Influence: Remembering the Artist Premieres

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    Back in the 1970’s when Robert De Niro was breaking out in films—Bang the Drum Slowly, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver—his dad Robert De Niro, Sr. was a painter of note, influenced by the European modernists Manet, Matisse, and Picasso, but never to equal the fame of his actor son. By the time De Niro, Sr. died in 1993 of prostate cancer, he left behind a significant body of work, journals and other writings revealing pride in his actor son, homosexuality, and depression. Now De Niro, the son, encouraged by his Tribeca Films producing partner Jane Rosenthal put together a documentary about his father, Remembering the Artist, directed by Perri Peltz and Geeta Gandbhir that will air on HBO on Monday night.

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  • Glenn Close Drops to her Knees at the Sundance Institute Celebration

    Glenn CloseA plastic faced Glenn Close swivels her hips mechanically in The Stepford Wives or cackles maniacally as Cruella DeVille from 101 Dalmations, just two memorable images from a startlingly versatile film career. Last night at Stage 37, she was not celebrating the commercial moments, but rather her work in smaller, independent films like Robert Altman’s Cookie’s Fortune. Presenting the Vanguard Leadership Award to her at a gathering of filmmakers, actors, and distributors at the Sundance Institutes’ Celebration, Jeremy Irons who made three films with her and traveled from England to be there, said, when he heard he would co-star with “Glenny” in The Real Thing in 1982, he thought she was a man, an idea that was almost prescient given her passion project where she, as Albert Nobbs, plays a woman who passes as one.

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  • Mike Myers Makes Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon

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    Who is Shep Gordon? Aside from his career in rock & roll, as Alice Cooper’s manager among many other high profile clients, Shep Gordon invented the concept of the celebrity chef and adheres to the teaching of the Dalai Lama; he is, however, not a celebrity, a status he claims to prize. All of that is about to change. In Mike Myers’ directorial debut, Supermensch, the question of why Shep Gordon is no ordinary mensch is treated with enormous humanity, largesse, and humor. Not merely a supermensch, Shep Gordon is now a star.

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  • Megan Hilty at the Café Carlyle

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    The television series Smash may have ended, too abruptly for some, but its memory lingers. At center in the first season, Smash featured the competition between two very talented young women to bring Marilyn Monroe to life in a new musical. Megan Hilty as Ivy Lynn effortlessly looked the part. Last night the Cafe Carlyle was filled with fans for this bold blond, now pregnant, with a confidence that suggests Lorelei without the fragility. Singing the classic from Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” Hilty knew how to work that intimate room, even asking for a volunteer to tape her on iPhone for the daughter she and guitarist Brian Gallagher are expecting. Few performers become that familiar, and few shows are this engaging.

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  • Burt’s Buzz and Elena: Documentary Premieres

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    Burt of Burt’s Bees, honey-bee pollen and beeswax skin care products sold in supermarkets and pharmacies all across American, really exists, and he even looks just like the illustration on the yellow packaging: a bearded Walt Whitman type with shades and hat. Amazing! As the documentary about him, Burt’s Buzz, reveals about the originator of this brand, an unambitious hippie who resides in Maine, Burt has little use for money, gadgets, internet, the trappings of modernity or contemporary life. He does, however, like land, the more forested, the better. Somehow, beguiled by a woman with designs named Roxanne Quimby, he founded a multi-billion dollar business, and now gets a small fraction of the proceeds. Oh well. Burt Shavitz attended this week’s Crosby Street Hotel premiere of Burt’s Buzz, directed by Jody Shapiro, with Isabella Rossellini as executive producer. After the screening, his golden retriever appeared on Skype and Burt got him to bark hello. I guess he does like some technology. The delighted crowd was treated to giftbags of Burt’s Bees summer sun products, not a moment too soon.

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  • Andy Warhol/ Seeing Red at Guild Hall

    RedOne line gets a big laugh at Guild Hall’s production of Red, the play screenwriter John Logan wrote about the painter Mark Rothko: in his studio, superbly created on the John Drew Theater stage, Rothko (Victor Slezak) pontificates to his new assistant (Christian Scheider) about the empty soul of commercial art. In a hundred years, he says, no one will think the work of Andy Warhol of any importance. If the play is to be believed, Rothko was indeed a small-minded man, competitive with Jackson Pollock in abstract expressionism, deriding Roy Lichtenstein, Warhol, and others in the pop genre. The play’s occasion is a commission that will make him a lot of money, to create art for The Four Seasons, a new restaurant in Philip Johnson’s Seagram’s building. In fact, in its rotation of art, East Hampton’s Roy Nicholson’s work has graced the Four Seasons walls, to be replaced this past year by Robert Indiana’s. As directed by Stephen Hamilton, in Red, Rothko’s conflict about this commercial endeavor vs. his artistic integrity is high stakes, as is his generosity as a human being.

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  • Pre-Tony’s Broadway Tasting: Stars in the Alley

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    Even before I got to Schubert Alley, a tad late of course, the sounds were rocking Broadway. Audiences were treated to a free sampling of numbers from the best of the best accompanied by a terrific orchestra, before the performers, dressed in street clothes departed for their respective shows, just in time to gear up for the matinees. Bryce Pinkham from A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder was the first voice I heard, just the welcome I needed. Nominated for Best Actor in a Musical, he’s up against his co-star Jefferson Mays; it’ll be a tough choice for voters. The show is frontrunner for Best Musical. The superb Les Miz revival features Nikki M. James as Eponine; her solo had the crowd in thrall, even those who were chowing down inside Junior’s.

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  • LeRoi Jones’ Dutchman at The Classical Theater of Harlem

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    The subway may be an edgy experience on a good day, but the 1964 encounter between a black man and a swivel hipped white woman, at the center of LeRoi Jones’ allegory, Dutchman, may terrify today’s rush hour straphanger. As mounted by the consistently wonderful Classical Theater of Harlem in tandem with National Black Theater, this 50th anniversary production of Dutchman, is the most gripping 45 minutes in town.

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  • Katie Couric and Laurie David Are Fed Up: You Are What You Eat

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    The skinny is this: See the documentary Fed Up for consciousness awareness regarding food. Katie Couric and Laurie David have joined forces with director Stephanie Soechtig to shine a light on the realities of the food industry’s sabotage of our health and safety. The simple idea that in our weight crazed country, people can be obese and undernourished at the same time, that labeling food is skewed so that representations of sugar content are hidden, that eating less and exercising more are not the key to weight reduction success, or to health, unless we pay very close attention to what we put in our mouths. Fed up yet?

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  • Gloria Steinem: Reluctant Icon Honored at the New York Women’s Foundation Annual Breakfast

    Steinem2Introducing Gloria Steinem at this year’s New York Women’s Foundation breakfast to the 2,200 guests at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, Abigail Disney recounted the story of Steinem addressing the future “Masters of the Universe” at the all-boys Collegiate School. If you treat women with respect and kindness, and not as objects, you will get the best sex in your life, Disney repeated. And, think of your father. Think of the kind of father you would like to be, and how you can get there. In many ways the anecdote illustrates why Gloria Steinem matters. Yes, Steinem still has “IT,” an ageless beauty, but that is the least of her accomplishments, compared to the values she imparts and exemplifies. When asked to whom she will pass the torch, Steinem says, I’m keeping the torch, and using it to light
    other torches. And in that packed room, she touched everyone.

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  • Steve Tyrell’s Nod to “Beautiful” at the Café Carlyle

    SteveTyrellNow in his tenth year performing at the Café Carlyle,
    Steve Tyrell started his set this week wondering why audiences rarely ask for songs by the songwriters’ names, only by the crooners who made them famous. And so began a show organized around a history of the American songwriter: “Taking a Chance on Love,” Vernon Duke’s tune with John LaTouche and Ted Fetter’s lyrics, Harry Woods’ “The Way You Look Tonight,” “Try a Little Tenderness” and “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.” He sang Isham Jones-Gus Kahn’s “It Had to be You,” and Sammy Cahn’s “It’s Magic,” spontaneously pointing his mike at a woman in the first row who gamely completed the refrain.

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  • Belle: An Austenesque with a Racial Twist

    Belle
    The name of this utterly charming movie conjures images of
    the Disney cartoon feature with a brunette cartoon star singing in the
    library. Dido Belle, however, was a real life mixed race woman, smart
    enough to have had a career in the law, but for 18th century England,
    she went far. The talented Amma Asante’s movie is an Austenesque
    comedy of manners, keenly involved with who shall marry whom, and
    whose fortune is more plump than so and so’s social standing, but
    here’s the delicious twist: Belle is desirably financially endowed,
    but as a mulatto, and illegitimate, she is of dubious position.
    Thoughtful and daring, she influences an important decision, changing
    the course of British history.

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  • Here Lies Love: Imelda Marcos Back at The Public Theater

    HereLiesLove
    Early on in this exuberant immersive dance extravaganza,
    the young Imelda Marcos in a tattered frock sings of a time when she
    had no shoes. Of course, when she rose from local beauty queen to be
    The Philippines’ first lady, shoes became her trademark of excess,
    only enhancing her epic myth. Now back at The Public Theater after a
    several month hiatus, ever so slightly tweaked, the play about her,
    David Byrne’s Here Lies Love retains the energy, superb acting,
    singing and dancing of last year’s staging, and is the season’s
    must-dance event.

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  • Rob Reiner Honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 41st Chaplin Award

    Rob Riener
    Needless to say, certain tropes follow actor/ director/successful-son-of-a-famous father Rob Reiner around: one is the epithet “Meathead” from his role on the great television sitcom “All in the Family,” and the other is “I’ll have what she’s having,” the signature Katz’s deli line uttered by Reiner’s mother Estelle upon seeing Meg Ryan’s character Sally fake an orgasm in the hit movie “When Harry Met Sally.” These bits were lovingly deployed last night at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Tribute to Rob Reiner. In one of the evening’s special moments, Ryan and her “Harry,” Billy Crystal walked hand in hand across the Avery Fisher Hall’s flower festooned stage, with Crystal quipping, “We are finally under the chupah. For anyone waiting for the sequel, this is it.”

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  • Ralph Steadman in For No Good Reason

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    Is there a vicar in the room, asked the British artist Ralph Steadman at the premiere of Charlie and Lucy Paul’s documentary about him, For No Good Reason. His work instantly recognizable from his collaborations with Hunter S. Thompson, most notably for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and articles for Rolling Stone Magazine, Steadman is a mix of perversion and honesty, the very qualities he admired in Thompson and another one of his literary heroes, William S. Burroughs. A vicar might have rained on all of their parades.

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  • The Woody Persona: Bullets Over Broadway and Fading Gigolo

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    In the hilarious old-school tradition, Bullets Over Broadway at the St. James Theater, based on Woody Allen’s 1994 film of the same name, features a writer who makes a Faustian bargain with a mob boss, Nick Valenti (Vincent Pastore) who makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Of course, Woody wrote the book for this musical, so it may not be so surprising: That David Shayne in the person of Zach Braff, frenetic, neurotic, a shpilke-ridden nerd, evokes the Woody Allen persona we have come to know and love in his films.

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  • The Railway Man: Colin Firth Working on the Railroad

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    Patti Lomax never heard of Colin Firth when he came to visit her husband Eric Lomax in Berwick Upon Tweed, their home in the northernmost part of England, just a 45-minute train ride to Edinburgh. Firth was researching his role in The Railway Man, based on Lomax’ life story. When other women were swooning over Firth’s Mr. Darby in Pride and Prejudice, she told a reporter at the film’s premiere party at Rouge Tomate this week, she was not attending movies because her husband had a neurological disorder, perhaps connected to the time he was a British prisoner of war, in forced labor in Singapore, and tortured by his Japanese tormentors. “They captured a great deal about Eric,” she noted in praise of Colin Firth’s performance, that of the actor Jeremy Irvine who plays him as a younger man, and the production under Jonathan Teplitzky’s direction.

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  • Kevin Spacey: Museum of the Moving Image Tribute

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    Sprinkling his talk with the “F” word, Kevin Spacey recounted the wellworn story of how his idol Jack Lemmon encouraged him when Spacey was a 13 year old. “That was a touch of terrific,” Lemmon said to the aspiring actor, after seeing him perform at an acting seminar in Los Angeles, and 13 years later Lemmon auditioned him for the Broadway production of Long Day’s Journey into Night, to play his son. He became his mentor, friend, and father figure. Yes, as we know Spacey is a major movie star: clips from The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Margin Call, Glengarry Glen Ross, and many other films at the Museum of the Moving Image’s annual fete this week on Park Avenue attested to that fact. But for this viewer, his Richard III at BAM was Spacey at his very most stellar, followed by a modern version of that Shakespearean malevolence on Netflix’s House of Cards. You could say, mean and vicious are his calling. However, when MMI chairman Herbert S. Schlosser fainted at cocktails, Spacey was the first by his side.

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  • Sam Moore’s Tribute to Martin Luther King/ SeriousFun Gala Remembers Paul Newman

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    It might have been your typically rousing Sam Moore concert at City Winery this week, featuring the Soul Man’s classic repertoire, starting with  “Let the Good Times Roll,” “Knock on Wood,” “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” “Hold On [I’m Coming],” and with two young women he met at a concert, “Something is Wrong with My Baby.” But just as this great night was escalating in excitement, Sam wanted to remember Martin Luther King whose death day is April 4. And so he added a new song, “They Killed a King.” It may have added a sentimental touch to a performance that is smooth and soulful, but, as Moore’s wife Joyce explained, Sam knew him. He finished a generous session exclaiming, “Now, let’s get crazy,” for “I Thank You” his signature “Soul Man,” “Dance to the Music,” segueing to the music from Shaft. The octogenarian has never seemed younger.

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