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about: Regina Weinreich

  • Bright Star Shines Brightly

    Bright-star
    The actor Ben Whishaw has that dying poet thing down. In Jane Campion's new movie Bright Star, he is a tender presence, portraying the ill-fated John Keats who dies at age 25 before fulfilling the bright future suggested by the poetry that survives him, including “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “Endymion,” “Lamia,” and his famous odes. To make such a stunning movie that can convey the poet, his muse, and their world, that at the same time defies the conventions of period drama, is indeed a feat that augurs a bright future for the Australian Campion, and her distributor Apparition in their debut venture. Hosting the movie's stellar premiere at the Paris Theater with an afterparty at Rouge Tomate, Apparition's Bob and Jeannie Berney were joined by Campion, Whishaw, Abbie Cornish who plays Fanny Brawne, the poet's neighbor and muse, Paul Schneider as Charles Browne, his friend and fellow writer, composer Mark Bradshaw, producer Jan Chapman, and a collection of the finest directors: Mira Nair, Tamara Jenkins, Sofia Coppola, Julie Taymor, and fiction writer Joyce Carol Oates, among them, who all happen to be women. An impressive turn out for a special luncheon the next day at the Plaza's Oak Room, included producer Christine Vachon, director Joan Micklin Silver, and Barbara Kopple. You can hear the award buzz with such fine films as “Bright Star,” Kathryn Bigelow's “Hurt Locker,” and the forthcoming “Amelia,” directed by Mira Nair: this is our year.
    At this point, so many years after the second wave of feminism in the 1970's, is it fair to ask: are women different? More, is their aesthetic different? Let's not forget: Among her many distinctions, in 1993 Jane Campion brought us “The Piano.” Under her distinctive direction, in a role of innocent betrayal, young Anna Paquin won an Oscar and a maverick Harvey Keitel famously and unselfconsciously bared all, providing full frontal views. Paul Schneider who plays Keats's brash and bloated friend Charles Browne with a heavy brogue, offered some insight. Surprisingly, Schneider is slender and hales from Asheville, North Carolina. As a measure of tribute to Campion, he said, if asked to do so, he would trust her to film him nude too. Given the emotion of the love story, Keats with his Fanny Brawne, the movie is chaste, with a PG rating; no bodies writhing suggestively, and yet the screen quivers with repressed longing. After much acclaim at Cannes, Campion, who wears her grayed hair straight and a silver peace sign around her neck sat down to croissants at Soho Grand Hotel with a group of reporters in mid-summer and addressed some issues:

    Q: The opening image is a closeup of a needle piercing fabric. Why was it significant to emphasize this detail?

    Sewing was really important to me. I took 4 years off to be with my daughter. I wondered what would happen. I took up sewing. At the same time I read Andrew Motion's biography of Keats and was drawn to the love story said to have inspired the poem, “Bright Star.” Fanny Brawne was an ardent seamstress. I began to embroider pillow cases. I collect women's sewing, embroidered table cloths. The work takes hours and hours and there is no recompense. I see this work as a metaphor for women's lives: no body gives a damn.  

    Q: You spoke about that at Cannes and challenged women to speak out, to be tougher. What is the situation for women making film in Australia? 

    Feminism flourished in Australia because it had no natural predators. There was no dialogue, therefore, no combat. Feminism swept like a bush fire. Women got public funding. Guys were searching around to find a woman to front their projects. Jan [Chapman] gave me my first job after film school. Before you hire her, they said, meet some guys. Jan gave me a script for television feature and we got to know each other. She's honest and smart, the pre-eminent film producer in Australia, and never lost her humanity. I like to work with friends. I've worked with males too.

    Q: Do you fear that critics will disparage this movie as a chick flick?

    Men love this movie. They love the idea of being loved by a woman like that. It's surprising: it gives them permission to be emotional as well. Tenderness, delicacy, emotion, what's wrong with these things? Men love tenderness. People are witnessing what it is to be in the body of a human being. The romance in the movie is painful-like an addiction-a disease. Romance involves identity loss-merging with the other. In a healthy relationship, you maintain your own identity. You come together and apart. Some people don't like that: you mean I have to be myself? Bugger.

    Q: Please talk about becoming an artist. 

    I felt I was hiding and it was uncomfortable. I was in art school and the subject was not involving. I wanted to expose myself, my real concerns, what I was really curious about. What was holding me back was fear of exposure. When you are young you are innocent. You become self-conscious and then you have to earn that innocence again through knowledge. I feel like I've become innocent again. But I had to work for it. 

    Q: Can you talk a bit about how your work with these actors.

    You have to say this is it, you don't have to try to be Keats, or try to be Fanny-just BE Keats, Fanny, that's all you've got. I trust the actors to bring their own kind of fusion. Ben [Whishaw] is exceptional, a little inscrutable, kind, like an angel. Abbie Cornish-she's very unusual and independent. She has a strong intuitive sense in performance; she protects her choices and is not easily dissuaded against what she thinks is right. Paul Schneider can be spontaneous and funny. When I contacted him he said, It's so weird that you rang me up because I have a ticket to “The Piano” in my wallet all this time and that's why I went to art school, film school. He showed me the ticket. He could be the Jack Nicholson of his generation. He'll be singled out by critics. He is so funny to work with. One day he was pretending to breast feed off the second assistant. That is how wild he is.

    Q: Is it easier today for young people?

    You have to be a kind of freak-not listen to public opinion–got to have a little more enthusiasm than fear.

    Q: In your movie, Fanny's family is so supportive of her. Did you take that from your own family?

    From my research I learned Mrs. Brawne was very well liked. My own family is a lot tougher. They'll say your hair looks terrible when no one else will tell you. That's their idea of love. My model for the Brawne family is my yoga teacher's family, an Indian family. They are so accepting, gentle and loving. And I could see from being around them how powerful that can be. That's probably why Fanny survived the experience. Her mother really did say to Keats, you can come back and marry our Fanny. She probably guessed he wouldn't be coming back, but she was exceptional and kind.

    Q: In fact the mother-daughter relationship seems quite unusual. Was your mother supportive?

    My mother could crush me. She was orphaned at the age of 9. She really didn't have much to lean on. There was alcoholism, depression. It was important for me to go through that with her. She was astute: If she read a poem or Shakespeare, she would get to the heart of that meaning. Being with her taught me: jobs are probably more secure than husbands.

    Q: Who inspires you?

    Louise Bourgeois, Alice Munro, the Brontes, George Eliot. Michelle Obama. My next project is a film of Munro's story, Runaways.

    Q: Only 3 women directors were nominated for an Oscar. Do you think you will be nominated?

    I'll be thrilled for the film. More people will hear about it.

  • Crude

    Crude

    The name of this riveting documentary, the latest by Joe Berlinger, puns on its subject, oil, at the same time that it indicts an industry for its indifference to a people and part of our planet it views as expendable. In Ecuador, in a place that was once a paradise, slick inky pools stagnate where fresh water used to flow, and people die like flies. The water is an undrinkable brown, and children suffer incurable skin disease or succumb to cancer. An on-going lawsuit against Chevron (which purchased Texaco), for drilling in the '60's and '70's provides a narrative thread with a charismatic cast of characters including a native, Pablo Fajardo, an attorney whose brother was assassinated because he tried to investigate “the situation.” Fajardo received the 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize and is honored at a concert by Sting. At the time he was thinking, Who is Sting? What are the Police? 
    “Crude” opened this week. The actress and movie producer Trudie Styler who with her husband Sting created The Rainforest Foundation attended the screening. In Crude, she is seen wearing a white scarf; speaking with the Ecuadorian people, she promises to bring their message to our world. Knowing this is just a temporary measure, she brings water containers to catch fresh rain. The real goal is to have Chevron clean up the mess. I asked her what were the conditions of her visit. “You have to wear layers,” she told me, “to prevent being bitten by chiggers. We stayed in pensiones and ate fruit. The Amazon is unspeakably hot, and then there's the pervasive smell of gasoline.” Joe Berlinger said that after he became aware of the problem, he could no longer return to his home in Westchester, to his children who each have their own room, without addressing this egregious situation. Documentaries always depend upon those found gems, in this case, Sara McMillan, Chevron's Chief Environmental Scientist who attests without irony, without question, that she would never condone the actions of a company in polluting, or behaving negligently or criminally. Of course there are those who will take her at her word and believe that the Ecuadorians are seizing the moment to make big bucks from a huge, wealthy corporation. That's why you have to see this film. She provides great humor and the filmmakers use her commentary judiciously. When I say how much I enjoyed her interview, Berlinger smiles wryly and says, “yeah, she drank the Kool-Aid.”

  • Au Revoir Les Enfants

    Louis Malle
    On the final evening of Guild Hall's superb film series programmed by Gavin Wiesen who also led the Q&A, the actress Candice Bergen introduced her late husband Louis Malle's masterpiece about growing up during the German occupation of France. The events take place in a convent school outside of Paris where Julien and his older brother board. Three new students are introduced to the mischievous crowd, and before too long Julien forges a friendship with the very talented Jean after a bit of rivalry. Needless to say, the newcomer is Jewish and after a betrayal, by the end, the Nazis have sniffed out these children pretending to be Catholic, leaving an indelible impression on young Julien (the Louis Malle surrogate). Bergin said that of all the films Malle made, this was the one he waited to tell, it was that close to the bone. She said that after the film had been nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1987, the filmmaker flew his children in from France, to attend the Hollywood ceremony–he was that sure–only to suffer the embarrassment of losing. After that, he returned to making films in Europe. Alan Alda, Bob Balaban, and Joy Behar, were among those who stopped to chat, wanting to congratulate Candice Bergen and Chloe, her daughter with Malle, on this fine evening. Stories of the Occupation have only just begun. Malle's realistic memoir is a perfect counterpoint to the playful pastiche of Tarantino's Inglouious Basterds and anticipates the film of Irena Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise.

  • Tarantino’s Red

     IngloriousBasterds2

    Quentin Tarantino's saturated colors in his new work, “Inglourious Basterds,” illustrate his concern with make-believe. Which is why when a steamed up friend called to say he is an “Anti-Semitic” jerk, the audience at the Academy of Motion Pictures's screening she attended speechless in dismay, I knew that despite my being beach-side and remote from its NY premiere and other press openings, I needed to see it toute suite. “I can't wait to hear what someone like you thinks of it,” she said. Someone like me being a noted child of Holocaust survivors who often writes about films on or related to the subject.
    I am late to the table on Tarantino's epic fable, but I take him at his word when he says this is a spaghetti Western with WWII iconography. If anything, the movie is an equal opportunity offender, being neither about the Holocaust, nor about Jews. It is about the color red. Tarantino's red is hot like Valentino's red, deeply satisfying and passionate, which makes it cool. From Diane Kruger's lipstick and nail lacquer, to Melanie Laurent's dress for Goebbel's movie premiere, to Nazi banners and heads as they are being scalped, this red is as thrilling as seeing cartoon Jews enacting violence to cartoon Nazis. For anyone who has grown up with the image of Jews as hapless victims, despite the historical record of ghetto uprisings and other acts of resistance, the punishment enacted by Brad Pitt's Lt. Aldo Raine, painfully carving out swastikas in the forehead of his Nazi survivors to permanently brand them seems fanciful and reasonable. So marked, they must always remember while others never forget. In the movie in my brain about what happens next in America's Nantucket for his charismatic SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), –well, unlike most real life Nazis (read: murderous Anti-Semites), he's got some 'splainin' to do.
    And as red is subject, the subtext is language. (Note the title's deliberate misspelling.) Brad Pitt's Anglo-Italian is as funny as his Tennessee drawl, giving him away just as a German's accent cannot be placed causing a barroom bloodbath. Revealing a gift for comedy, Pitt gets bigger laughs as his character is clueless about how much his sound betrays. On a more serious note, early on when the multi-lingual Landa sniffs out Jews from under the floorboards of the farmer's house in the movie's chapter 1, their ignorance of English helps his firing squad with easy extermination. What might Tarantino be saying about language, verbal and visual? Daring to play fast and loose with WWII pop-even kitsch– images, for me he suggests the dearth of issues they are really speaking about, or merely covering up. What I have to come to terms with regarding Quentin Tarantino is how much I want to hold onto history, even with fictions where I am required to let it go.

  • Baader-Meinhof Complex a new film based on true event

    Baader-meinhof-
    Ulrike Meinhof, a prominent left-wing journalist in '70's Germany found the revolutionary spirit of the R.A.F. so appealing, she abandoned her children to join up with a counterculture much like the U. S. Weather Underground in its terrorist tactics. Andreas Baader was one of its leaders along with Gudrun Ensslin and other young people who protested the policies of their elders during this volatile period of the Vietnam War when Germany became an accomplice to America's war in Southeast Asia. The writer Stefan Aust's riveting Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F. (Oxford) came out in the mid-'80's and now a film, directed by Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn)–epic length, Oscar and Globe nominated for Best Foreign Language Film–opens on Friday. All 150 minutes of it are mesmerizing thanks to the fine work of the German actors: Martina Gedeck as Ulrike, Moritz Bleibtreu as Andreas and Johanna Wokalek as Gudrun, with Bruno Ganz as the Head of the German Police Force who brings them in. A fast-paced action adventure that takes you from Meinhof's troubled marriage through the current events of the time, the police taking action against peaceful protesters through the group's bombings of key government buildings, bank robberies, their schooling in terrorism at an Al Fatah camp in Jordan, incarceration, solitary confinement, trial (dialogue verbatim from actual transcripts), and suicides. If you've been napping during this summer of economic woes, this film will wake you up.
    What makes the coming of this film in the present moment so fascinating is that we have all but forgotten the intensity of that period, the fervor of politics, here protesting the Vietnam war, in Germany, resisting American imperialism supported by the contrite German establishment of the post-World War II era. An audience as interesting as this subject assembled for a private screening last week, hosted by The Atlantic: Dick Cavett, Bob Jamieson, Morley Safer, S. I. Newhouse, Lillian Ross, Susan Brownmiller, Alix Kates Shulman, Dick Wittenborn, Tova Feldshuh, Albert Maysles, Julie Taymor, among them. But oddly, Brooke Astor's son and his wife, embroiled in a much-publicized trial for tampering with his mother's will, sat in the third row. Fortunately those who stayed for the Q&A with author and Der Spiegel editor, Stefan Aust, interviewed by Boykin Curry, were more concerned with history than with the tribulations of the super rich and greedy, however juicy the scandal. 

    Audience responses to the film were favorable: Several felt that the film glamorized the revolutionaries who were essentially using acts of terror to make their points. While it was hard to stay neutral, the film made efforts to do so. Bernt Eichinger's screenplay, on which Aust consulted, is careful to illustrate the loss of revolutionary vision. Pointing out that terrorism is like a religion, Aust spoke about the dilution of ideals: the second generation wanted to get the first out of prison, but after the first generation committed suicide, what did they have to do? They lost their focus, momentum. As we filed out of the theater, a Harvard student, an intern at the New York Observer stopped me to ask, Do you think this film is specific to Germany? My response was an immediate, No. I replied by recounting heady times in America: the tear gassing, and mace and weapons used against college students of that time, of how an American vice president declared war against the young, calling college students, draft evaders, “Effete snobs.” These were the sentiments reflected in movies like “Easy Rider” and “Joe,” that eventually led to the tragedy of Kent State, of an older generation so bewildered by the youth rebellion, they used violence as a knee-jerk response. The more radical factions of SDS, the accidental blowing up of a townhouse used as a bomb factory on West 11 Street were some of the manifestations of revolutionary zeal turned violent. Everyone needs to see this movie to remember a time when feelings were more aroused by ideologies than buried by the long sleep of consumer culture. Wrong-headed, extreme in principles and procedures, terrorism can never be condoned, glorified, or presented as an option. How do you explain “The Baader Meinhof Complex?” As Aust said, “They were in love with a myth, the myth of revolution.”

  • George Hamilton’s Mother

    George hamilton_ Women of the 1950's were transitional-that is, they were betwixt what Richard Pryor referred to as the “Great Pussy Drought” and the era of sexual liberation of the 1960's and beyond. One such woman, Ann Devereau, the actor George Hamilton's mother, fled her philandering husband in 1953 in a baby blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible, her sons in tow. Now her cross-country journey has been made into the film, My One and Only, starring Renee Zellweger and featuring a car load of character actors from Chris Noth to Troy Garity, Eric McCormack, and Nick Stahl, each one portraying a would-be suitor, as a woman then was simply defined by, legitimized by, respected through her marriage. Kevin Bacon plays her bandleader husband in this beautifully shot road movie. This picaresque of adventure after poignant adventure with disappointing men reminds us of the long way women have come. Her son George, the one who grows up to become the famous actor, is a break through role for the very talented Logan Lerman. After a private screening at Goose Creek in East Hampton, Zellweger sat with her parents for a Mexican dinner at Blue Parrot, partly owned by Jon Bon Jovi who greeted friends celebrating the new film. The party was sponsored by Carolina Herrera, who designed Zellweger's gown for her Oscar win as Best Supporting Actress in “Cold Mountain." Chatting at one table was Bob Colacello, the Vanity Fair writer who rightly proclaimed that this restaurant retained the feel of the old Hamptons; art dealer Larry Gagosian reminded everyone of how George Hamilton was always seen sunning with a visor to intensify the rays; designer Marc Jacobs in signature kilt and Doc Martens hugged Gagosian as he spoke, and handsome Argentinian Nacho Figueras, was so old-school gentlemanly he kissed my hand as we were introduced. He loves Montauk best of all the towns out east, the world famous polo player said, but he has to live in Bridgehampton, near his horse. Producer Norton Herrick, a real estate mogul from New Jersey, talked about his career turn to film, about distributing this gem himself. George Hamilton, deeply tanned, was looking ahead. He loved the way he was depicted in the movie, he told me, and wished he could be that young star, starting out now.

  • Surf and Turf

    Surifing3Montauk's Ditch Beach is a natural for surfers. That's why the auction held at the Surf Lodge last weekend sponsored by Cavi, and with proceeds going to a needy local family, featured specially crafted boards and artwork depicting this beach's bluffs and beauty. Now refurbished from its local Irish pub flavor, the interior of this elite spot has the ambiance of a lava lamp. But outside, perfect for sunset ogling, mannequins sporting Cavi's special surf-side attire served as backdrop for photos and paintings from local artists wanting to contribute to a worthy cause. Walter Oost the famed Sports Illustrated photographer donated a framed collage of his journals, his wife Eva, one of her classic floral paintings. Jewelry designer Helen Fiquellora was on hand, having contributed a white gold surfboard charm on a chain. No fewer than five women had on her signature gold hoop earrings with diamond chip. Being a non-surfer, I appreciate the splendors of Ditch differently; from the shore, I envy the agility and passion of those wet suit clad silhouettes riding the waves:

    Moody morning
    Surfers crest in the mist.

    Few haiku poets attended the annual East Hampton library book sale on Saturday, unless you count Billy Collins' baseball haiku. Writers of all kinds sat at tables amidst piles of their books. Celebrity hounds gathered around Barbara Walters and Alec Baldwin for their memoirs, Candace Bushnell, Jay McInerny and Dirk Wittenborn for fiction, critic Morris Dickstein has a new book about the Depression with the legs of showgirls on the cover; painter Eric Fishl and writer A. M. Homes' new collaboration drew crowds, and Charla Krupp sat ready to tell everyone how not to look old. Food writer Florence Fabrikant left early as her name card beside a vacant chair read: Sold Out. Try Bookhampton.

    And another author was in town as well: former presidential contender Howard Dean spoke about his new book, Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform at the Springs home of Bonnie Maslin and Yehuda Nir. Before praising President Obama's health plan, Dean too was humbled by nature, worried about competing with the setting sun

  • Turning Japanese: Tennessee Williams and Robert Wilson

    Tennessee-WilliamsWhat are the chances that on a given day you can see performances by American theater masters influenced by the Japanese arts? On Sunday afternoon, a little known, experimental work by Tennessee Williams, “The Day a Man Died,” was performed at East Hampton's Ross School. Forget the romantic reveries of “Glass Menagerie,” “Cat on a Hot, Tin Roof,” and “Streetcar Named Desire”-the plays on which Williams' iconic legacy is based. Part of the Tennessee Williams Festival that also revived “Sweet Bird of Youth” in Provincetown earlier this summer, the one-act play features a painter inspired by Jackson Pollock in a final swoon. According to director David Kaplan, “Williams seems to have been aware of and appropriated the effects of the Japanese Gutai artists, who crawled in the mud, painted with their feet, shot paint from guns, crashed through paper walls, and staged performances well before the artists commonly credited with their invention, Robert Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow, and Yves Klein.” Williams had known Pollock in the '40's and after a 1957 visit with Larry Rivers in Southampton, the playwright constructed this theater piece illustrating the artist's passionate painting as crazed performance. The actor Jeff Christian in g-string is head to toe encrusted in color: red, yellow, his spine delineated in black. His mistress (a fine-boned Jennie Moreau in a Liz Taylor a la “Butterfield 8” wig) bares her breasts, cajoles the artist and feeds his self-doubt. Subtitled “An Occidental Noh Play,” the work nods to the 14th century form that combines music, dance, and storytelling. First staged in Chicago, the play is presented in conjunction with the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center's exhibition: “Under Each Other's Spell: Gutai and New York.” At the reception held at the Pollock-Krasner house, the director of this historic Springs foundation, Helen Harrison, spoke about her early misgivings when offered the script to “The Day a Man Died,” but then revisited the work after its success in Chicago. The actress Sylvia Miles who had starred earlier this summer in the Williams work in Provincetown attended, and in a brief tete a tete with Moreau, the young actress invited the legendary Miles back to Provincetown for a final performance: “Come up. Let's play.” 

    Robert Wilson

    “KOOL: Dancing in my Mind,” a multi-media performance /portrait of the choreographer and dancer Suzushi Hanayagi by Robert Wilson, Carla Blank, and Richard Rutkowski was conceived as a tribute to the Japanese artist who collaborated with Wilson on 15 works. Originally part of the Guggenheim Museum's stunning exhibition, “The Third Mind: American Arts Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989,” the work was revived at Guild Hall for two sold-out performances. On Sunday evening, Robert Wilson introduced the performance explaining Suzushi's important influence, and how, sad to say, having not heard from her, in 2007 he found her in an Osaka nursing home in a wheelchair suffering from Alzheimer's. Nevertheless the artists planned their final collaboration, as Suzushi assured Wilson the subtitle of the piece. With Rutkowski's archival video of the Japanese performer in kimono melding traditional dance with modern moves, six dancers of varied age and gender performed excerpts from her collaborations with Wilson and Blank: 1990's solo experiments with jazz, classic Japanese dance, juxtaposed with video portraits of Hanayagi's face, hands, and feet. Each gesture of the moving figures could be frozen as a complete thoroughly absorbing, emotional work of art. In movement, the work is sublime.

  • Alec Baldwin hosts It Might Get Loud

    It miht get louwd 2

    On Friday night, East Hampton's Guild Hall was packed for the Hamptons International Film Festival SummerDoc's screening of a new documentary opening next week. “It Might Get Loud” limns the history of rock & roll from the perspective of three generations of electric guitar players, interweaving interviews and performances, archival and live, featuring Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, U2's The Edge, and Jack White of The White Stripes. This film offers an insider glimpse of these artists, the back story of their music performed on instruments they found or invented, the evolution of their craft. Taking a page from legendary films like “Last of the Blue Devils” which brought together Count Basie, Big Joe Turner, and Jay McShann for a jazz summit in Kansas City, this film climaxes on a day when these guitarists came together to play, teach, and share their stories. Let's just say, hearing the opening chords of “Stairway to Heaven,” I was transported to the person I was back in the day. Clearly I was not alone: Alec Baldwin moderating the Q&A, evoked the excitement of those years, describing the anticipation of a new Led Zep album, having the joint rolled in the ready, and laying out (he demonstrated almost falling off his chair) listening. This movie has that nostalgic pull, as well as bringing something new. Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (Academy Award winning “An Inconvenient Truth”) fielded questions and rock journalist Lisa Robinson said she thought Keith Richard was the best guitar artist ever. No one mentioned a pivotal guitar event: Bob Dylan switching mid concert from acoustic to electric guitar, being hissed as a sellout and stormed off the Newport stage by an angry crowd, The sound of the electric guitar, now the mainstay of the rock idiom, was that controversial.

    The Blue Parrot was the scene of the after party hosted by Tom Scott of Plum TV. Over marguerites, guacamole, and quesadillas, Davis Guggenheim told me, he was not of those Guggenheims: “While they were sipping champagne in their Venice villa, my grandfather was selling shoes in the Midwest.” His wife, Elizabeth Shue, sorely missed from movies after her tour de force performance in “Leaving Las Vegas,” said she has two new films, one an indie, the other commercial and sure to give me nightmares. When asked, who was the bigger pain in the ass to work with, Al Gore or the famously difficult Jimmy Page, Guggenheim declined to comment.

    Regina Weinreich

  • Nora Ephron Does it Again: Julie & Julia

    Merylstreep_child

    Sir Howard Stringer introduced Nora Ephron at the Julie & Julia premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater on Thursday night, calling the writer/ producer/ director who is also a dynamite cook as readers of her best seller “Heartburn” know, “a woman for all seasonings.” Little wonder that she would concoct a most delicious movie combining the memoirs of the legendary Julia Child and Julie Powell, an aspiring writer who in a year cooked all of the recipes contained in Child's classic “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” and blogged about it along the way. Fans of “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You've Got Mail” will be happily enchanted with Ephron's new romantic comedy, with the twined love stories of Julia and her husband Paul, and Julie with Eric (Chris Messina), where the worst that happens is a fight, resolved the next day. Ah, if only all marriages were so smooth. The casting of Meryl Streep and Amy Adams is perfection. Stanley Tucci in a sly performance as Child's husband from heaven characterizes him as one of our very best comic actors. He and Streep were sublime in “Devil Wears Prada,” as were Streep and Adams in “Doubt.” You simply never grow tired of them. Streep actually outdoes herself as Julia Child. Wearing period hats, ensembles with a strand of pearls, designed by Ann Roth, she's so obviously having the time of her life, as she did in last year's best bad movie ever, “Mamma Mia!” Licking beurre blanc, flipping frittatas, towering over everyone else (Child was 6'2''), affecting the weird cadences of Child's accent-it doesn't get better than this. The after party at the Metropolitan Club featured various restaurants' excellent attempts at Julia's signature dishes. Toni Morrison, Patricia Clarkson, Marshall Brickman, Mira Nair, Barbet Schroeder, Ken Auletta, Hannah Pakula, Sally Quinn and Ben Brantlee, Nan and Gay Talese, were in the crowd sampling Tribeca Grill's beef bourguignon and Mary's Coquilles St. Jacques. Perhaps Streep will be adding this one to her long roster of Oscar nods. She received very high accolades indeed: two officials of Paris's Cordon Bleu Culinary School who knew Child quite well deemed Streep a “superb fake;” she beamed with pleasure.

    Regina Weinreich

        

  • Do You Like My Hat? Polo in Bridgehampton/ Samuel Waxman Foundation for Cancer Research

    Polo

    The six Saturdays of the polo matches in Bridgehampton are more than just sports. Viewers sip champagne or Stoli cocktails, munching on popped potato chips and mini-Crumbs cupcakes, and mill around looking for A-listers. Yesterday, some actually attended to the players: Black Watch vs. Great Oaks, while I chatted with John Gruen of Optyx, one of the sponsors, who is so kind and clever, an artist in the eye glass world, and, wanting to upgrade the shades I bought at Loehman's, I tried on Persols and Ray Bans. Sunglasses with decent protection seemed a healthy purchase I could easily justify in this economy. When I was introduced to Todd Rome of Blue Star Jets,however, it was hard to say I would be in need of a personal jet any time soon. But wanting to be hip and nice, I pointed out my hat, acquired at the polo event some years ago, to which he gently hmmmed and said I should throw away this relic from a long defunct company and get one of his immediately. Oops. Scrambling with both feet in my mouth, and while photographers were now shooting Todd Rome with Bravo's Real Housewives of New York, I snagged a new hat, which except for the name looked very much like the old hat, navy with white logo, happy that there are some people left who can enjoy his services.
         Onto the home of art dealer     Louis Meisel and his wife Susan. hosts of the annual fund raiser for Samuel Waxman's Cancer Research Foundation in their sculpture garden. I was pondering an irony: my mother, the late Pola Weinreich died in the care of this world-renowned oncologist at Mount Sinai in 1996. Should I say something, remind him of an event commonplace to him and devastating to me? A sign of a good doctor, he very much wanted to talk about her demise and the deadly disease that he was hoping to cure in his lifetime with the foundation he created 30 years ago. Amidst the gambling tables and set up for the silent auction, well-wishers greeted him as we chatted. Restaurants offered their wares: Bobby Van's served steak sandwiches with creamed spinach, Shun Lee had Peking duck, Town Line BBQ had ribs. Annie's Organic Café and Market had scrumptious tofu topped with peanut sauce, and some handmade fruited and nut morsels from Chocolate Infusions to die for. Most surprising, Susan Meisel, the hostess herself served up her signature pigs in blankets and yummy chicken fingers. “You'll be back for more,” she grinned. They say she's vegan.

    Regina Weinreich

  • Yoo Hoo Mrs. Goldberg

    Molly Goldberg

    The documentary “Yoo Hoo Mrs. Goldberg” is a heimish and a fascinating trip down memory lane for those of us who remember Gertrude Berg on television, schmoozing with her neighbors, her ample arms perched on the windowsill. Before her success in the salad years of television, she and her fictive family “The Goldbergs” were on radio, giving voice to the early version of the family sitcom that became the meat and potatoes of programming. This fine biopic limns that career, revealing the elegant Park Avenue businesswoman behind the scenes. No surprise that the originator of the uber-Jewish mom, Molly Goldberg, was a model of multitasking, creator, writer, producer, and star. To make a feminist statement would be beside the point. She was a mensch. Ambitious and talented, Berg saw media as a frontier during the early part of the 20th century when America saw the stock market crash, ignored the plight of Jews during the Holocaust, and witnessed the witch-hunt known as the McCarthy era. Berg's character is best seen when she stood by her co-star Philip Loeb when he was black-listed; losing sponsors, she refused to fire him until she could no longer keep him on the show and survive. A heartbreak to everyone, Philip Loeb later committed suicide. And the slot held by “The Goldbergs” went to a new show, “I Love Lucy.” “Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” follows upon Aviva Kempner's distinguished achievement in “The Partisans of Vilna” and “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg.” Already a hit where it is screened in Manhattan, “Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” opens this week in Sag Harbor. Don't miss it

    Regina Weinreich

  • The Cove’s Killing Field

    Cove6 If you are old enough to remember the tv show Flipper, featuring a dolphin jumping high out of the water and sporting a shit-eating grin, you will be amazed at the documentary, The Cove, which tells the story of how the show's host, Richard O'Barry after years of buying new Porsches on his earnings, turned his life around. When Cathy, the main “star” died in his arms, he realized the cruelty to creatures inherent in dolphin entertainment, and became an activist in preserving dolphins' right to swim the oceans wild. But the sad story does not end with freeing these “entertainers” from stressful captivity. As founder of the Dolphin Project, O'Barry delved further into ocean life and found out that in Japan, the government sponsors the killing of thousands of dolphins per year in a remote cove in Taiji. A driving question becomes: why would anyone want to kill these intelligent, human friendly fish-eh, actually a kind of whale? He assembled divers, fellow activists, and filmmakers. With cameras hidden in fabricated rocks, his team filmed the killing so that people could see exactly what is going on, even as the media attempts to hush what is tragic not only for this species, but for our planet. One of the many reverberations of this dolphin slaughter is how the government made dolphin meat part of the mandatory school lunch program, even knowing the high percentage of dangerous mercury found as a result of industrial plants dumping waste in the world's waters. Mindful of the health risks to children, two Japanese local politicians bravely defied the government. Producers Jim Clark, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Fiisher Stevens spoke at a Q&A following a special screening last Wednesday hosted by Ben Stiller who attended along with his dad, Jerry Stiller. Jane Hightower, author of “Diagnosis: Mercury: Money, Politics & Poison” also spoke, and Ric O'Barry got a standing ovation from a crowd that included Nora Ephron, Nick Pileggi, Matthew Modine, Griffin Dunne, Famke Janssen, Adrien Grenier, Josh Bernstein, among many others. Guests filed out of the movie sheepishly remembering Flipper and other amusements like swimming with dolphins, hoping fish would not be on the menu at the after party. In fact, many who had also seen the documentary “Food, Inc.” despaired there was nothing left healthy to eat. Fortunately, the nutrition conscious and very fine restaurant Rouge Tomate did not disappoint, serving salads prepared with seasonal, locally available produce and delicious duck, excellent cheeses and filet mignon. 

    Regina Weinreich

  • Meryl Romer is So Sure at Iridium

    Meryl
    The photo on her debut CD “So Sure” shows Meryl Romer with a knowing, come hither look, deep cleavage, saying she’s got the goods. As a vocalist, she’s new but her sound rooted in jazz traditions makes you think, where has she been? But that is the story of her music. In three original songs, by writer/producer Casey Collins and composer Eric Moon, “I’ve Waited Long Enough,” “Right on Time,” and her signature “So Sure,” Romer recounts a personal saga that explains the right turn she took somewhere in her ripe ‘50’s to pursue the passion for music that was lurking within her since childhood. Covering Sinatra-famed standards like “Big Spender” or “Lady is a Tramp,” or Cassandra Wilson’s “Solomon Sang” and Toots Thielemans’ “Bluesette,” Romer suggests her jazzy influences. With “You’re a Big Boy Now” from Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks,” she spills into rock with a new arrangement. Backed by a first-rate band: Erik Deutsch on piano, Bill Kopper on guitar, Jonti Siman on bass, Marc Dallo on drums and Mike McGuinness on tenor sax, Romer knows how to put on a great show. As the packed room at Iridium could hear last week, any time might have been “right on time,” and this time is more than good.

  • Tennessee Williams in Revival

    Last night, Williams's “Sweet Bird of Youth” had a one-night performance in Provincetown at Norman Mailer's house starring legendary actress Sylvia Miles as the Princess. This must be Tennessee's year. In East Hampton,Guild Hall, Tennessee Williams's “Glass Menagerie” opened for its 3 week run of a stunning production directed by Harris Yulin featuring

    Ami erving

    Amy Irving as Amanda Wingfield, a role that rivals “Gypsy”'s Mamma Rose for iconic American uber-mom. Fine-boned Irving in her lace dancing dress captures the delicacy and tough-as-nails spirit of this character as she cripples her children in her ambition for them. Irving makes us understand why this woman does what she does, nattering at Tom, spousifying him in the absence of the husband who abandoned them many years before. Grooming the painfully shy and limping Laura for her gentleman caller, the very handsome John Behlmann, becomes her life's mission. We watch Laura, played beautifully by Louisa Krause, as her prospects diminish. What makes this production so special is Ebon Moss-Bachrach's portrayal of Tom, son, brother, narrator of this memory piece-most of all a writer re-imaging his youth. This actor made me understand what was so off in the recent Broadway revival with Christian Slater miscast, slick in this role. Ebon Moss-Bachrach as stand in for the artist himself speaks William's poetry, his translucent eyes reflecting thwarted hope and misery: he wants to please mom and help sis, he is not a bad person but emotionally frail as Laura is, he lets them down, taking his only way out when he can. This is a family story, a tragedy of the decline of Southern refined values, auguring the speed and flash of the American future. The humble candles go out in their St. Louis flat, with its view of the neon Paradise Dance Hall, and as Tom reflects, the light coming is lightening by comparison. Paul Bowles's original incidental music is among this production's many joys.  
        

  • Pushcart Performances at Guild Hall


    Guild Hall logo2


    “There's food, water, and stories,” said Cedering Fox, producer of Los Angeles based Word Theater on Saturday night at Guild Hall in East Hampton at a program featuring a dozen actors reading short stories. “I believe that storytelling is a primary need.” The daughter of the late poet/artist Civ Cedering whose Sagaponack home was the impressionable site of artistic gatherings, Cedering Fox met renowned poets as well as Bill Henderson, founder/publisher of The Pushcart Prize. In 1975, Henderson wrote to Anais Nin, Paul Bowles, Ralph Ellison and others for suggestions of accomplished young writers. Thus began Pushcart Prize, dedicated to publishing the best of the small presses. Saturday's program, a collaboration of Fox's and Henderson's passion for literature included readings by Lynn Whitfield, Samantha Mathis, Amber Tamblyn, Linus Roache, Darrell Larson, Edi Gathegi, Nicole Ansari, and Janel Moloney. Brian Cox read a story by Marvin Cohen called “The Human Table” with relish. Now he is eager to meet the New York based writer who famously cruised New York cocktail parties just to eat. Sean Young who seemed to disappear from Hollywood -she says she's been blacklisted- read Janice Eidus's “Not the Plaster Casters” with fervor for the protagonist who makes casts of rock stars' privates. Jackson Rathbone traveled 5 hours from the set of a film he's making in Philadelphia, just to read “The Bank Robbery” by Steve Schutzman, and then performed with Ben Graupner of the 100 Monkeys after the readings. Amy Irving who is starring in the upcoming Guild Hall production of Glass Menagerie read, as did John Heard, from Ian Frazier's “Tomorrow's Bird.” “Cedering suggested I read it as if I liked the idea of crow dominance of the bird species,” he told me, providing some insight into Fox's directing technique, how she blocked each story with each reader, getting the beats. “I've seen Cedering put together a lot of these events,” said Heard, “but this one was the best yet.”