Wes Anderson
Anderson and Ahluwalia Are Undead
“Have you sat in that car outside? It’s insane!” shouted actor, jewelry designer and general man-about-town Waris Ahluwalia when the Daily Transom cornered him last night at the Hermes store downtown. He and a few other out-at-night types like Kristian Laliberte, Annabel Vartanian, Tinsley-sister Dabney Mercer and Kelly Killoren Bensimon had shown up for another one of those wearying publicity parties, but he was full of vigor, and apparently unaware that his celebrity status is what allowed him to visit the Bugatti Veyron luxury car at the curb outside the store. The car, a joint production between the automaker and the fashion house, was the guest of honor this night. The car retails at $2.3 million. read more »
Natalie Portman Talks About Getting Naked
Natalie Portman is insecure at times, the 26-year-old actress said in an interview with MTV, where she also talks about the consequences of her poor professional choices. “I might think I won't be able to do something, but I'll do it anyway, because I've sort of known that failing isn't that bad. Especially with my job, no one gets hurt. If I mess up, it's like, ‘OK, somebody loses a little money,’ which I know is a big deal to some people, but no one dies,” offered the 26-year-old star of director Zach Helm’s fantasy feature, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, which opens tomorrow. In the interview, Ms. Portman also talked about taking off her clothes for Wes Anderson’s short, Hotel Chevalier, referring to the fleshy episode as “really silly.” Though she purports to not “really have regrets,” she did say that she doesn’t “like the misappropriation of stuff, like when you create something as part of a story and then a piece of it ends up on a porn site.” In her next film, director Jim Sheridan’s drama Brothers, a remake of Susanne Bier’s 2004 Brødre, Ms. Portman will act alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire, who plays her husband in the flick.
Remains of the Day: Natalie Portman, Wes & Owen, Edward Albee
- Natalie Portman pretends she’s important and makes fantastically obvious picks for a charity CD. A Shins remix? No way!
- Nice guy/every-mid-20s-to-30s-something girl’s dreamboat Ron Livingston will break out of Office Space’s shadow and into more dramatic roles in his movies opening this weekend. Damn it feels good to be… Richard Pimentel?
- An interview with Owen Wilson conducted by his bud Wes Anderson will be posted on MySpace at midnight tonight. Synchronize your watches.
- Right afterward, you can see 80-year-old playwright Edward Albee discuss his new works on Channel 13 at 12:30 a.m. and get your culture fix for the weekend. Make sure you watch some dumb VH1 shows and drink a bottle of whiskey right afterward. Good night!
Wes Anderson Gets Eleanor Rigby Award
In Sweden, the land that brought you Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night, Wes Anderson is doing a great public service.Via AP:
Wes Anderson will be awarded the Stockholm film festival's Visionary Award for his humane and humorous portrayals of lonely people.
Anderson — director of offbeat comedies "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" — has created "unique and stylized universes inhabited by characters searching for something to search for," the prize citation said.
"Through his visionary filmmaking, Anderson has given a modern face to the classic auteur," organizers also said Wednesday.
The award will be presented during the Nov. 15-25 Stockholm Film Festival.
The Day in Gossip: George Clooney Boogies With Darjeeling Set; No Free Ride for J. Lo!
Having recovered from his motorcycle accident, George Clooney parties in Litchfield, Conn. with Bill Murray, Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman. This, after he unwraps at Lollipop. [Page Six]
After Jennifer Lopez ordered private car service for everyone and their mother while in New York for the premier of El Cantante, the pregnant star is fighting the limo company over her $16,000 bill. [Page Six]
Jay-Z regrets talk of retirement, now working on music for Denzel Washington’s new film American Gangster. [Rush & Malloy: 2nd item]
Devil Wears Prada producer Wendy Finerman lands in posh digs a few floors away from Mike Nichols and Diane Sawyer. [Page Six]
Ron Burkle—a billionaire!—sues Anne Hathaway’s Italian boyfriend while unintentionally buying up lots of Catholic soil. [Rush & Malloy: 1st item]
In a post-Bar Rafaeli world, Leonardo DiCaprio seeks fresh model meat in the shadow of a weird love-rectangle. [Page Six]
Faye Dunaway walks around Chelsea “wearing one disposable clear plastic glove on her right hand.” [Gatecrasher: 3rd item]
Benicio, Halle, Cate Kick Off 2007 'Quality' Movie Season Early
Fall is the season for 'quality' movies, the kinds of movies that make good showbiz at the Oscars. But that doesn't mean that fluffier stuff can't break out the box office: witness Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married, the No. 1 film last weekend over Elizabeth: The Golden Age. read more »
Jonathan Lethem Selects: This Sporting Life
Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude and “genre bending” hipster, chose several films for Jonathan Lethem Selects, a month-long film series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As the 2006/2007 chair of the Friends of BAM board, he chose High and Low, This Sporting Life, La Collectionneuse, The Lineup, Murder by Contract, Ruggles of Red Gap, Straight Time, Love Streams, and Shame.
Tonight at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., it’s 1963’s This Sporting Life, a movie about a working class coal-miner-turned-star rugby player directed by Lindsay Anderson.
Lethem feeds us a heaping spoonful of pretension (and a name-drop for our own Andrew Sarris!) in this interview on the BAM site:
Matthew Buchholz: Looking at the films you selected for the series here at BAM, is there any thread connecting all of them?
Jonathan Lethem: Well, at the risk of the tautology, "the thread in the Jonathan Lethem Selects films is that Jonathan Lethem selected them," when I glance at the list that resulted I can't keep from thinking that the only thing those films all have particularly in common—apart from the excellence which makes me confident of thrusting them on other viewers—is that they form a kind of descriptive outline (like the arctic explorers standing in an arc around the submerged frozen spaceship in the Howard Hawks/Christian Nyby version of The Thing) around my cinematic obsessions." read more »
Seriously, Game Plan? Kingdom Reigns in NYC
The Rock comedy didn't stand a chance against fall in New York; Lust/Caution, Darjeeling Limited thrive. read more »
Welcome to Wes World
Wes Is More! Pretension Pollutes the New York Film Festival
Trouble at Gino; Artists in the Meat Market
Under destruction?
- The staff of legendary Upper East Side red-saucery Gino (a favorite of Gay Talese, Frank Sinatra, Wes Anderson and Woody Allen) are threatening to walk out over a contract dispute, according to our new guy on the beat, Chris shott--and the owners say they'll shut down before giving in to their demands. Says co-owner Salvatore Doria: "For not much more can you sell a dish of pasta, you know? This is it!" Talese says it's an "unhappy occasion."
- The Slope Opera continues, with Suzy Hansen writing about Stuart and Wright, the first really expensive boutique to open up in Fort Greene. This gives Brooklyn gals more ways (Butter! Bird! Diane T! Do these names mean anything to you?) to dress in $500 outfits while paying $1500 rents on $25,000 salaries. And a way to look like a real original in Manhattan--even if that black flannel dress is its own price tag walking down Smith Street.
- Michael Calderone breaks down the breakdown of the new newsroom being built for The New York Times: "For generations, the layout of the old Times Building has served as the physical manifestation of the organizational culture: From the back-of-the-newsroom clerks to the Sulzberger on the 14th floor, Timesmen have known their place by knowing their places." No more!
- After selling their 63-acre compound in Alpine, N.J. for $58 million about eight months ago, Emily T. Frick and Dr. Henry Clay Frick II, the grandson of the legendary steel magnate, have bought a co-op at the Old Family Names Only, Please address of 3 East 77th Street for $3.9 million.
- Painter Ryan McGinness has bought himself a "sanctuary" in the noisy, dangerous and now completely outre Meatpacking District for a shade under $900,000.
- And Andrew Heiberger, founder of CitiHabitats, solved a difficult political situation with his old firm by kicking back a little work to a dejected would-be partner. - Tom McGeveran read more »
