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Carrie Knockoff
5 December 2008 8:41 AM, PST
It was a worshipful crowd at the screening of HBO's "Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven," at the Bloomberg building Wednesday night. Luminaries from the culinary and broadcast worlds sat spellbound through the documentary directed by Andrew Rossi, which relates the saga of Sirio Maccioni's reign over three incarnations of the legendary eatery. At the after-party in the restaurant, designer Adam Tihany and Maccioni, who'd been feuding, seemed to bury the hatchet. Nicole Miller was fetching in a green dress of her own design.
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Not A Gay Mood At Sundance
5 December 2008 6:36 AM, PST
Organizers of the Sundance Film Festival insist 2009 is going to be their biggest year yet - an assertion that gay-rights activists will not be pleased to hear.
While the star-studded event announced the 118 movies in its lineup yesterday, activists remain up in arms over the festival's involvement with supporters of Proposition 8, the amendment that passed in California, banning same-sex marriage.
The festival is held every year in January in Park City, Utah, the state that's a stronghold of the Mormon Church, whose elders "organized its followers to support the amendment banning same-sex marriage . . . and encouraged them to give generously to the cause,
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Nixon's The One
5 December 2008 3:30 AM, PST
Richard M. Nixon would surely be appalled at the idea that Hollywood is using him as a surrogate for George W. Bush - named the worst president ever in a recent poll of historians - in Ron Howard's highly entertaining "Frost/Nixon."
Though the two chief executives are loathed by many, Nixon is by far the more tragic character.
As portrayed in Oliver Stone's "W.," Bush the younger is a bumbling child of privilege who leveraged
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By LOU LUMENICK
Can't Lose With These Blues
5 December 2008 2:16 AM, PST
A great ensemble cast and a terrific, blues-oriented '50s soundtrack make "Cadillac Records" a treat despite a script that crams in almost as many musical bio-pic clichés as the spoof "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story."
Booze, drugs and various forms of corruption and racism pop up like clockwork in the loosely factual script by director Darnell Martin, who returns to theatrical features after years of working mostly in TV following her much-praised debut, "I Like It Like That" (1994).
Fortunately, Martin has been more successful in rounding up
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By LOU LUMENICK
Glamorous Gal Picks Practical Over Bling
5 December 2008 1:57 AM, PST
Ziegfeld Theater premiere of Harvey Weinstein's hopefully Oscar-maybe film "The Reader" starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. Whatever Kate's eating, I want some because she's looking glamorouser and glamorouser. Anyway, she blows in, and the heavy glass door whanggggs back nearly changing director Stephen Daldry's profile. "Not my fault," she said, "Somebody else was holding the door." Ok by Stephen Daldry, who was happy because he'd managed to quietly dart into some dark outside
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By CINDY ADAMS
Harvey's Peace Feeler
4 December 2008 10:15 PM, PST
Harvey Weinstein seemed to extend an olive branch to producer Scott Rudin Wednesday night. The two waged war over the release date of their Kate Winslet vehicle, "The Reader" - Weinstein pushed to get the film released in December so it could garner Oscar consideration, while Rudin wanted to wait until '09 so it wouldn't compete with his other Winslet flick, "Revolutionary Road." The spat culminated in Rudin taking his name off "The Reader." But at the Ziegfeld premiere, Weinstein told the
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Undisciplined Violence, Punitive Damage
4 December 2008 9:35 PM, PST
'Punisher: War Zone" is as strangely violent as a night out clubbing with Plaxico Burress.
When Frank Castle prowls for revenge after mobsters wipe out his family, a punch to the face results in a cave-in that suggests a hammer meeting a watermelon. A gunshot leaves half a head neatly chopped off, as though with a cleaver. Sudden impalings are also a big favorite.
Returning in a sequel to a 2004 movie that was not crying out for one, Castle, a k a the Punisher (Ray Stevenson), has
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By KYLE SMITH
Nobel Son
4 December 2008 9:31 PM, PST
Alan Rickman has fun playing a lecherous old bastard of a professor in "Nobel Son," a pulpy would-be comic thriller, but the movie doesn't deserve him.
Rickman's arrogant chemist wins the Nobel prize, and while he's in Stockholm to accept it, a ludicrous kidnapping plot sweeps up his son and a mysterious figure who lurks around campus (Bryan Greenberg and Shawn Hatosy, neither of whom has enough presence for his role). There's also Eliza Dushku as a poetess who
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By KYLE SMITH
Ciao
4 December 2008 9:29 PM, PST
Finally, a gay love story minus sex (except for some fondling) and nudity. For this we are indebted to "Ciao," directed by Malaysian-born Yen Tan.
The story is so minimal that it almost doesn't exist: Mark, a 20ish Dallas dude, is killed in an auto accident before he can meet Andrea, the hunk in Italy he's been swapping e-mails with for a year.
Jeff, Mark's best friend, invites Andrea to fly to Texas anyway; and the two spend a weekend talking, talking, talking and talking, mostly about Mark. Sometimes they're joined by Ellen, Jeff's stepsister,
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By V.A. MUSETTO
Brotherly Love Meets Autism
4 December 2008 9:26 PM, PST
Hollywood movies tend to romanticize the men tally challenged. Not first- time Australian director Elissa Down, who draws on her own experiences for "The Black Balloon," an unsparing but sympathetic look at a family with an autistic teenager.
The main protagonist is 15-year-old Thomas (Rhys Wakefield), who struggles to balance his love for and his growing mortification at his afflicted other brother, Charlie (Luke Ford, Brendan Fraser's son in "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor").
Among other things,
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By LOU LUMENICK
Gala Suits Brace For Barbra
4 December 2008 9:35 AM, PST
The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, better have all hands on deck when Barbra Streisand comes to town for its 31st Annual Honors gala on Sunday.
Back in March of 2001, Streisand appeared at an "Innovators & Navigators" conference at the Bacara Resort in Santa Barbara sponsored by now-defunct Talk magazine. According to an event organizer, Babs drove hotel staff up the wall by making a number of outlandish requests in her contract rider.
"It was totally insane," says the source. "She requested that there be no oysters in her room at any time; that every square inch
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Ivanka's Working It
3 December 2008 11:05 PM, PST
'My Father always impressed upon me the idea that America is a meritocracy and that you must work for everything you get. I hope to share a positive perspective with the women of my generation," says Ivanka Trump, age 27.
Her motivational book comes from Simon & Schuster's Touchstone next autumn.
R
Ussell Crowe is still working on losing the 50 pounds he gained when he co-starred with Leonardo DiCaprio in the Ridley Scott film "Body of Lies."
In February, the New Zealand star will begin filming "Nottingham" under Ridley's direction - a different look at the Robin Hood legend.
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By LIZ SMITH
A Day In The Life Of Dustin Hoffman
3 December 2008 11:04 PM, PST
Coming out this month is "Last Chance Harvey," starring Oscar win ners Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson with James Brolin and Eileen Atkins. So I asked if, when making a movie, Dustin has any special routine. He said:
"I live the same life every day. All the time. I go to bed 9 o'clock. Always wake up 4 in the morning, so I don't need an alarm clock. Make my own coffee,
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By CINDY ADAMS
It Specks For Itself
2 December 2008 10:39 PM, PST
I never knew dust could give me such pleasure. No, I don't snort the stuff; rather, I have had the plea sure of viewing the charming German documentary "Dust."
It seems that dust has gotten a bum rap. It isn't just something to be swept under the carpet. It is "a mixture of various particles which can have various forms, colors and sizes, and different physical and chemical characteristics."
Not only that, but when dust particles collide, they create planets. (Does that mean that Earth was once just a speck of dust?)
The doc is directed by 66-year-old Hartmut Bitomsky, a writer,
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By V.A. MUSETTO
3 Films Tied Atop Spirit List
2 December 2008 10:37 PM, PST
The dramedy "Rachel Getting Married" star ring Anne Hathaway, the border smuggling thriller "Frozen River" and the Mississippi family drama "Ballast" topped nominations for the Indie Spirit Awards yesterday.
Each had six nods, including best picture, best director and best actress. The awards, honoring independent films, will be handed out Feb. 21 in Santa Monica, Calif., on the eve of the Oscars.
A special award for best director, casting director and ensemble cast was won by Charlie Kaufman's quirky directing debut, "Synecdoche, New York," which also picked up three nominations,
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By LOU LUMENICK
BEYONCé Is Queen For A Movie Night
2 December 2008 10:33 PM, PST
Now, about Beyoncé's arrival at the AMC Loews Theater for the pre miere of her movie "Cadillac Re cords." There was her bodyguard - earpiece, phone, umbrella and whatever else he was packing - who could've called Kareem Abdul-Jabbar "Shorty." There were film p.r. reps and record p.r. reps, one male equerry to hold her hand as she stepped in, another to hold the train on her gown, a female buffer to designate those to whom she'd speak, plus her mother, plus husband Jay-z, who'd arrived alone 20 minutes earlier in natty dark suit,
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By CINDY ADAMS
Honchos Left Out In The Cold
2 December 2008 10:28 PM, PST
Paramount Vantage is off to a bad start hyping its expensive Leonardo DiCaprio-Kate Winslet flick, "Revolutionary Road," as an Oscar contender. On Monday, the studio so overbooked an industry screening at the AMC Loews 34th Street - featuring a live Q&A with Leo and Kate - that nearly 200 were turned away, one movie honcho told us. Those kept out included members of guilds representing actors, writers and producers, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, some of whom vote for Oscar nominees. "Scott Rudin,
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Sex Suit Hits Ex-met Shamsky
2 December 2008 10:26 PM, PST
The ex-wife of Art Shamsky claims the Mets legend gave her a sexually transmitted disease after repeatedly cheating on her with both men and women.
In a sordid lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Kim Shamsky says that during their 13-year marriage the famed outfielder and first baseman "engaged in acts of adultery with both men and women," without her knowledge. His romps included "acts of 'unprotected' sexual and deviate sexual intercourse," according to the suit.
The court papers state that Kim, suspecting her hubby was fooling around, submitted to a number of medical tests. After one examination, she was informed by
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Holiday DVD Picks
2 December 2008 2:10 PM, PST
The Post's Chief Film Critic Lou Lumenick presents 26 DVD Picks for the Holiday Season.
Columbia Pictures Best Picture Collection
Eleven complete features, with supplements, in an album showcasing "It Happened One Night,'' "On the Waterfront,'' "Lawrence of Arabia,'' "Kramer Vs. Kramer'' and 7 other multiple Oscar winners from the storied studio. (Sony, $136).
O-tay! All 88 sound "Our Gang'' comedies produced by Hal Roach, most restored, in their first authorized DVD collection. Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Darla and many other gifted child performers (including
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By LOU LUMENICK
Madge, A-rod Hunt Love Nest
2 December 2008 4:02 AM, PST
Madonna and Alex Rodriguez are quietly shopping for love nests on the Upper East Side and on the East End, sources told Page Six.
A knowledgeable real estate source tells us the kabbalah-crazed pop queen and the skirt-chasing power hitter are "discreetly looking at properties between Fifth and Park avenues, from just above 60th Street through the 80s.
"Madonna personally came to look at one house a couple of months ago, and Alex has been looking recently," the insider said. "We're talking about private, double-width mansions in the vicinity of $30 million to $60 million."
Madge and A-Rod are also interested in scoring a
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