We talked mob money with writer Gay Talese at the screening of Gomorrah.

After months of speculation, we got to the bottom of Marquee's temporary summer shutdown.

We tallied gifts, drank absinthe, and chatted with godfather Michael Musto at nightlife heir Liam McMullan's 21st birthday party.

Russell Crowe got a little testy at the Body of Lies premiere--par for the course, we suppose.

We partied with Diane von Furstenberg, Tory Burch, Fern Mallis, Martha Stewart and Rory and Elie Tahari as the CFDA welcomed its newest members.

BODY OF LIES
RUNNING TIME 128 minutes
WRITTEN BY William Monaham
DIRECTED BY Ridley Scott
STARRING Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Mark Strong

Body of Lies is yet another in a long, tiresome line of loud, violent, nauseating and incoherent riffs on how mercenary and inhuman the spooks in the C.I.A. are, even to each other. Pointless and plotless, it’s nothing more than a series of gut-blasting near-death experiences, with Leonardo DiCaprio sporting a goatee for gonads. The idea is that a little facial fur might make him look a little less like a Boy Scout. Wrong. Action director Ridley Scott actually expects us to buy Leo as the toughest secret U.  read more »

“There is a danger with being jingoistic—you can’t do that—but this film isn’t about the war,” said the director Ridley Scott at the Sunday night premiere of his new film Body of Lies, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. “It’s really a spy film in the spirit of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, The Third Man, or Spy Game, my brother’s film. And who doesn’t want to be a spy?” (Mr. Scott's brother is the director Tony Scott.)

Mr. DiCaprio fielded questions about his personal life (still no comment as to whether he plans to settle down with Israeli model Bar Rafaeli).  read more »

With only one wide release—MGM’s Awake (No. 6)—the box office had a slow weekend, with few, if any, changes either here or nationally in the top five. But that didn’t keep The Savages (No. 8) from making an impression. On two screens in the city, the Tamara Jenkins family drama starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney averaged close to $40,000—a stellar opening for such a slow time.

In the wake of so many dysfunctional Thanksgiving dinners, perhaps receipts were buoyed by people’s desire to see a family more messed up than their own. The film has also certainly been helped by the skillful word-of-mouth and marketing campaign launched by Fox Searchlight—they of Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine fame. Don’t be surprised if this one meets the same Oscar fate—both good and bad.  read more »

Universal Pictures spent Black Friday doing it's own kind of shopping. The studio made it clear over the holiday weekend that it wants Russell Crowe to replace Brad Pitt as the star of State of Play, after Mr. Pitt walked out on the picture Thanksgiving Eve over disagreements about the shooting script. According to Variety:

U claimed Pitt left a pay-or-play commitment and left open the option of suing him; Pitt's camp claimed he was essentially forced out of a movie he's been eager to topline for almost two years just because the studio wouldn't wait for a strike resolution and a rewrite to bring the script back to a place that made him comfortable.

The box office was awakened this weekend from its fall slumber, as if it too had just been hit by the first cold spell of the season. American Gangster (No. 1) may have only grossed one and a half times as much as Bee Movie (No.2) nationally, but here in the city, it almost tripled the cartoon’s gross, averaging an astronomical $91,969 per theater. Gangster, starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott, broke all types of genre-specific records, en route to smashing the personal opening weekend records for both actors.

A thanks from Universal, who are distributing the film, is in order to the New York Post, who keep giving wood to organized crime and feeding the city’s unquenchable thirst for news about its dons. Like one of Frank Lucas’ finely tailored suits, this film was made for Manhattan.  read more »

Denzel Washington dazzles as drug kingpin while Russell Crowe plays the best good cop in years.  read more »

This weekend, with Halloween safely behind us, along with the obligatory blood-spurting-zombies-eat-your-face-and-rip-your-guts-out gore flicks (please see Saw IV’s $32 million-plus box office gobble last weekend), we can happily hunker down and see a bloodbath the way we like it—all artistic like! The violent, gripping, and thoroughly entertaining American Gangster hits theaters this weekend, bringing the unsurprisingly stellar performances of Denzel Washington—who truly is a movie star, and for our money could out-charisma a Pitt or a Clooney if he had the opportunity—and Russell Crowe. This is the third teaming between Gangster director Ridley Scott and Mr. Crowe (Gladiator in 2000 and the mostly unseen A Good Year in 2006, which had the burly Aussie going for a bit of ill-advised physical comedy).  read more »

Not so surprisingly, Ellen DeGeneres may have lost Iggy but she gained viewers. [Page Six]

Blaine Trump, wife of Donald’s brother Robert, has thrown in the towel on her marriage. [Page Six]

Play-by-play of Hillary’s 60th b-day bash at the Beacon. [Gatecrasher]

Rocker Cisco Adler ran around an L.A. club in his underwear, causing some to wonder, Why so much clothing? [Page Six]

Russell Crowe outed Leonardo DiCaprio as a 17-year-old virgin. [Page Six]

More good goss from Hillary’s party, which “rocked.” [Rush&Malloy]

Lindsay Lohan moved into the Beverly Hills Hotel…uh oh. [Page Six]

Actress Kristen Johnson (3rd Rock From the Sun) threw a tantrum onstage at the American Airlines Theater over forgetting her bleeping lines. [Page Six]

How many bold-faced names can appear in one Page Six item (or in two dining rooms)? A: 23 [Page Six]  read more »

Studio executives—and audiences alike—have emerged from their Labor Day weekends rubbing their eyes and stifling their yawns: “Huh, award seasons starts now?” Well, OK!  read more »