Audrey Flack and the History of Art String Band offers a crash course in such giant art figures as Caravaggio, Camille Claudel, Lee Krasner, Van Gogh, Picasso, Mary Cassat, and Jackson Pollock. “Oh, oh, action Jackson,” sings Flack, an early photorealist painter, sculptor of goddesses, and resident of East Hampton, strumming her banjo and accompanied by stellar musicians: Johnny (Jackpot) Coughlin, Walter Us, David Roger Grossman, Adam Grimshaw and his wife Deborah Grimshaw, who blows everyone away on violin. Last weekend, the band performed at Guild Hall to benefit individuals with autism and their families. Caroline Doctorow and Evan Frankel opened the set. The evening also featured rare footage by Hans Namuth of Pollock working his drip technique at his home in Springs. Dick Cavett M.C.’d. Filling in the pauses left while Flack adjusted banjo strings, Cavett regaled the crowd with stories about Groucho Marx and Gore Vidal, such as, when asked if he was having a good time, Groucho replied, Yes, but not tonight. Au contraire, this was a very good night indeed.
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In Ethel, a new HBO documentary that premiered at Sundance and was screened in East Hampton as the finale of the Hamptons International Film Festival Summerdocs series at Guild Hall, the fascination with all things Kennedy shifts to the legacy of Robert, murdered in 1968 while campaigning for president of the United States. The filmmaker Rory Kennedy, his 11th child, was born a few months later, and while her quest to mine the material of her father’s life might have been her mission, she focuses instead on the role of her mother in their remarkable marriage, and in the aftermath of his death. -
Rounding his shoulders and shuffling his steps, Alec Baldwin does a sheepish, lowkey Justin Bieber. Strutting tall and leggy, Christie Brinkley does a bravura Miley Cyrus, explaining how the teen’s name morphed from Destiny to Smiley, to, well, you know, and how lucky she was when free tampons poured forth from a vending machine just as she’d run out of change.The body language is all affect but the words come from the actual autobiographies of these famed youth who have barely lived or done enough to merit a complete sentence, but that’s the conceit of “Celebrity Autobiography,”
the hilarious brainchild of playwright and actor Eugene Pack. “We could not make this stuff up,” Pack said of an evening at Guild Hall on Friday night that also included the wisdom of Diana Ross (Dayle Reyfel), David Hasselhoff (Jerry O’Connell), Ricky Martin (Pack), and poetry by Suzanne Somers (Brinkley), to mention a few whose words spoken make for unintentional comedy.
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“Non-fiction for sale here,” hawked comedian Robert Klein, seated in a row of writers under the Author’s Night tent at Gardiner’s Farm this past Saturday. Readers crowded about, one wanting to know whether the location in his memoir’s title, The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue, was in Brooklyn or the Bronx. The Bronx, said Klein, selling soft. Jeffrey Lyons was back with the paperback of his book; Dr. Ruth attended for the first time with what else, sex advice; other authors included David Margolick, Martin Amis, David Baldacci, Robert Caro, Dava Sobel, Ken Auletta, Sam Talbott, Lynn Sherr with Swim: Why We Love the Water. -
Richard Gere in Arbitrage does for Brioni what he did for Armani in American Gigolo. He looks good in a suit. On Sunday night for the new movie’s East Hampton premiere, he wore a blue denim shirt, his signature look out east. The film, written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki, is suit specific, Brioni donated, which is why when Gere’s character Robert Miller burns one to cover up a scandal, it hurts. Playing a rich and powerful mogul is not a stretch for Gere. Married to Ellen (Susan Sarandon), Miller appears to be an upstanding family man, a model billionaire, involved in charities. In the film’s reality, Miller is involved in some high stakes shady dealings with another big time player (Graydon Carter in a standout performance). Honesty is beside the point. -
A fine new musical had its world premiere at Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater last night, Big Maybelle: Soul of the Blues at Bay Street, based on Maybelle Smith, a blues singer from the early 20th century, who once opened for Billie Holliday and toured America in the perilous segregation era, plagued by diabetes, an unhealthy girth, and low self-esteem. The Tony Award winning Lillias White has the chops to portray her, accompanied by a stellar band, narrating a classic horror tale of drug and sexual abuse, but most of all, performing her material with measures of sass and grace.
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“Beach Life,” the new exhibition at Guild Hall features Eric Fishl’s large-scale oils, including “The Gang” from 2006. The 84 x 108” canvas has the artist’s swimsuit clad wife April Gornik walking toward the viewer, and many of his painter posse and others—including Donald Sultan, Ross Bleckner, and Ralph Gibson-– looking on. On Friday evening, many of them were on hand for the show’s opening and Guild Hall’s annual summer gala under a tent at nearby Gardiner’s Farm. Present too: models adorned with gorgeous Van Cleef & Arpels jewels, honorees Esty and Dan Brodsky, and DJ Alexandra Richards. Board member, Alec Baldwin attended with his new wife Hilaria. M. C. Joy Behar quipped, “He’s so taken with his yoga teacher, he can barely breathe.” -
The wow kicks in early at these exceptional shows at museums uptown and down. First at the Whitney: Polka dots, the signature pattern for the artist Yayoi Kusama now in her ‘80’s, are appropriated for fashion. Louis Vuitton is doing for her designs what the luxury line does collaborating with Takashi Murakami. The museum features a roomful of canvases in yellows and reds, a display of summer joy for an artist who retreated from the art world for awhile, suffering a mental breakdown. In July, a party of a press opening at the museum with champagne and hibiscus cocktails, smoked salmon and quiche, was followed by a ribbon cutting at the Louis Vuitton Fifth Avenue store, the dots and her image complete with orange wig in its windows. Compelling and sexy, the museum retrospective features soft sculpture, phalluses embedded in shoes, on a jacket, on furnishings. Old maybe, from the sixties, but newly fresh, and titillating. -
The Big Bang may have been the theme of this year’s Watermill Center extravaganza of a summer gala, with its outsized red phalluses, neon ninjas, and popping balloons, but many East End events make big noise.At the Watermill Center on Saturday night, even a heavy downpour did not deter a dancer clad in wedding white from writhing in dirt. A few minutes in, she was muddied, as if coated in primal ooze. A woman in yellow used a leaf blower to inflate giant white latex that went POP from the exertion. The rain caused onlookers to retreat from the art laden paths the better to view the art for auction under a tent: works by Marina Abramovic, Sandro Chia, William Wegman, Shirin Neshat, Dennis Oppenheim, Alexandra Posen, Lola Schnabel, to name a few. The challenge to stay dry also brought viewers to the edgy video installation, Mike Kelley 1954-2012 in collaboration with the LUMA Foundation, in the center’s exhibition space.
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Is it too soon to think about Oscar contenders for non-fiction films? Several summer/ early fall releases are especially noteworthy. Not only is Ai Weiwei Never Sorry the story of a major visual artist in China who has felt the wrath of his government for speaking out, but a film that utilizes the social media, as this savvy artist’s blogs, tweets, and emails have had a huge impact on his artistic/ political message. -
In case the Hamptons edenic sun and sand are not enough, you can always shop. That was the message at a deluxe event sponsored by Social Life Magazine and Rand Luxury at East Hamptons Studios last weekend. Bringing St. Barth’s to the Hamptons is not much of a stretch, as some of the promo materials pointed out. Surely you will need a Lord of the Rings pinball machine in your mini mansion, or Pac Man. For dining out you may accessorize with diamond jewels from Dannini and a suit with pin stripes woven in of 22 karat gold thread, starting price $30,000. If you want to spend money on something that moves, try a champagne leather lined Ferrari convertible. And while all of this may seem excessive to those of us who remember the times when you were overdressed at the beach if your jeans were clean, this lifestyle jump makes Tiffany’s in East Hampton look quaint. -
The Campaign plays the current election season for laughs. Candidates for Congress, Will Ferrell as Cam Brady and Zach Galifianakis as Marty Huggins vie for votes in a how-low-can-you-go campaign. Forget issues; by the time facial hairs on one provide mud slinging evidence of ties to Taliban for the other, you know the real butt of the humor: the ethics of winning at all cost. -
Before you meet the young boy with a curious accessory, leaves growing from his ankles, in the new movie from Disney, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, you think the message may have something to do with the environment. Although there’s plenty of dirt from the garden, this feature, conceived by Ahmet Zappa and written and directed by Peter Hedges, is more a story about a childless couple, played ably by Jennifer Garner (the would be mom from Juno) and Joel Edgerton (the Australian actor best known for testosterone fueled flicks like Animal Kingdom), who prove they have the right parental stuff.
Coming from the ground, Timothy is not quite real, but once he arrives, he tests the family, and the town, small enough that everyone knows everyone.
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A great showman, Sam Moore brought his creamy sound to a packed City Winery this week for a generous set featuring standards: “Let the Good Times Roll,” “Knock on Wood,” “What I Want,” and “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” As promised, surprise guests joined in: Sam sang “Happy Birthday” to D. A. Pennebaker, who turned 87 last week. And, Valery Simpson took the stage. In the manner of a well-seasoned couple, their patter went something like this: “Do you know the song?” “I’m gonna sing it anyway.”
And they dazzled with “When Something’s Wrong with My Baby.”
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You remember what happened to that queen of yore, the one who in a moment of mythic indifference to her subjects’ suffering suggested they eat cake. That queen is so deliciously portrayed by Diane Kruger in Benoit Jacquot’s fine Farewell, My Queen. In a new documentary, Queen of Versailles, an American version of her, a distortion of her regal imperious posturing is found in Florida. When photographer/filmmaker Lauren Greenfield was photographing Donatella Versace for Elle Magazine, she interviewed a woman who spent about a million dollars a year on her wardrobe, much of it Versace, and learned the woman was building a home in Orlando that would be modeled on the famed French palace as well as the Las Vegas Paris Hotel. Intrigued by the idea of the biggest, grandest house in America in her exploration of the influence of affluence, Greenfield set out to photograph, then film this 90,000 sq. ft. erection. -
At 85, legendary documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles still has “IT.” This week to commemorate The Rolling Stones’ fiftieth anniversary, he was on hand at Guild Hall for a screening of his early film of the iconic band, Gimme Shelter (1970). The next night, he spoke at a screening of The Love We Make (2011), a post-9/11 tribute concert film starring Paul McCartney with appearances by the Stones, the Who, Bill Clinton, Stella McCartney, James Taylor, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, Buddy Guy, Billy Crystal, Ozzy Osborne, Howard Stern, Sheryl Crow, to name a few who performed for the many firefighters and their families. Maysles told the rapt Guild Hall audience the secret of his direct cinema style was just turning the camera on his subjects as they are experiencing something. -
Perusing a photo of his father in a boat on his honeymoon, smile wide and happy, in his documentary Deconstructing Dad, noted film editor and director Stan Warnow says ruefully, I never saw him this way. Filling in the Freudian gap might be reason enough to make this film, but there’s also the fact that dad, Raymond Scott, was famous. Really? Who was he? You might well ask. In this film’s informative and entertaining trajectory, a workaholic emerges behind the made up name, the nose job, and the trophy wife: A genius in the entertainment field, you could say, who as a dad was M. I. A. -
“Hey Meg-a-la,” shouted Rosie O’Donnell, trying to get Meg Ryan’s attention at, yikes, Alice Tully Hall, just after the memorial tribute to writer, director Nora Ephron. Gathering in the lobby for pink champagne, the crowd looked like a who’s who of film, theater, and media: Bette Midler, Charlie Rose, Matthew Broderick, Rob Reiner, Larry David, Annette Bening, Lauren Bacall, Jon Hamm, Mike Nichols, to skim the surface of a very long list, including too Jenny Allen, Halley Feiffer, and Ilene Beckermann, author of the book on which Love, Loss, and What I Wore was based. And then of course her husband Nick Pileggi, and ex-husband Carl Bernstein; marriage to him was the inspiration for her novel, Heartburn. The book was so popular, even Paul Bowles living in Tangier wrote to me about how it made him laugh. -
Director Benoit Jacquot’s take on the last days of Marie Antoinette, Farewell, My Queen, is based on a book by Chantal Thomas, looks at history from the perspective of a servant with a talent for embroidery. I don’t know another filmmaker who studies the behavior of women with quite the care and consideration of this director. Introducing a special screening at MoMA in time for Bastille Day, Jacquot said, “I hope you like French films, because this film is very French.” -
In its current revival at Bay Street Theater, 20 years after it first played to sold out audiences, Joe Pintauro’s Men’s Lives, based upon Peter Matthiessen’s 1986 history of the Baymen on the East End of Long Island seems as weather beaten and vital as ever. Drew Boyce’s set features something of a shipwreck moored on a sandy beach. Around the hull, a fine ensemble: Victor Slezak, Rob Disario, Brian Hutchison, Scott Thomas Hinson, Peter McRobbie, Deborah Hedwall, Myles Stokowski, and Mark Coffin, under the expert direction of Harris Yulin, limns the plight of one family, telling an epic story: man battles nature, learning to survive with its harsh imperatives, and then must face a greater challenge, the onset of the new. Anyone who has lived in these parts witnessing potato fields morph into mini-plantations sees this change with a rueful eye. The real estate is worth more for developing properties than farming. Take that drama to the seas: Men’s Lives is a searing poetic vision of this region’s fishing industry’s demise, and its cost to men’s lives. -
Just days after he married Hilaria Thomas, when he could have been in some exotic place on honeymoon, Alec Baldwin, taking his Hamptons International Film Festival duties very seriously, took the stage at East Hampton’s Guild Hall, to introduce a documentary that’s been garnering buzz at film festivals. A hit at Sundance and Berlin, Searching for Sugar Man is an American Dream story about a ‘70’s singer/songwriter, heavy on social commitment in the manner of Bob Dylan or Phil Ochs who was rumored to have dramatically killed himself at the end of a performance, by gunshot or in a ball of fire. It is not a spoiler to say that Sixto Rodriguez was found alive and well and living in Detroit. -
In a bygone era, drug addled users could score in Union Square; now the health-minded can cop organic kale and cucumbers in a caravan of farm stands. Deftly bringing both the edgy past and cleaned up present together with humor and heart, Nancy Savoca’s new movie, Union Square, features a stunning performance by Mira Sorvino as Lucy, a ditsy but damaged woman who when first glimpsed is bargain shopping at Filene’s and cursing out her lover on a cellphone.The Best Supporting Oscar winner for Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite, Mira Sorvino here demonstrates she deserves a second. Lucy, in spirit, is not far from the sweet prostitute she played in Woody Allen’s comedy. You like Lucy, but, as with any pill popper, you don’t know what she’ll do next. Dressed like a tart, over the top and not just in her high heels, she barges into her sister Jenny’s off-Union Square loft apartment exclaiming, Erase the past and let’s start all over. Oh that family issues could so easily fade!
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For fans of romantic comedy, a play that ends with three weddings is the ultimate fantasy. As You Like It, this summer’s first Shakespeare in the Park offering in its 50th year, is a celebration from the first banjo strums to the dancing at end with Lily Rabe, (Rosalind/ Ganymede) so fine at company’s center. A natural crowd-pleaser, As You Like It as directed by Daniel Sullivan, rises to the traditional Shakespearean hilarity while grounded on John Lee Beatty’s sets in the magnificent park: a log fort, trees fit for tacking on love poems–this enchanting forest appears to go forever. -
Everyone (some real life family and old flames famously excluded) loves Woody Allen.At a press conference at the Regency for his new film To Rome with Love on Tuesday, reporters took that as a given, asking his actors how they get past their own adoration for the auteur. A love fest ensued. Penelope Cruz says she is happy not only to work with him; she gets to hang out. The Oscar winner for his Vicky Cristina Barcelona had, just the night before, heard him play at the Carlisle where, when he’s not shooting movies in Italy, or Spain, or France, he performs with his jazz band on Monday nights. Extending his riffing to filmmaking, he lets his talented cast “go” with the material. As a prostitute in To Rome, Cruz speaks Italian, a language the Spanish star perfected when she worked on Sergio Castellitto’s terrific Don’t Move as a homely peasant woman. Yes, homely! Allen has no problem with foreign tongues, knowing none. In Vicky Cristina, she adlibs “like crazy” with Javier Bardem. Alec Baldwin, seated to her right, quipped, all the adlibbing worked out: they ended up married.
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Barricades lined the streets in the West Village. President Obama was in town, dining at Sarah Jessica Parker’s for a fundraiser in his honor. Aretha Franklin was there leaving in a flash for the Songwriters Hall of Fame, according to my pal Roger Friedman. But this was also the opening of a night of Neil LaBute’s 3 one-acters The Heart of the Matter, to benefit MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theater just a few blocks away. While I had not thought of it before, there is a slight connection: LaBute, a playwright known to skewer human relations, what used to be called the battle of the sexes, could have penned episodes for the Sex & the City women, but they would have been more arch, and much meaner.
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