By Rex Reed 6/13/12 12:09pm

movies

Baldwin and Crusie in Rock of Ages. (David James)

Rock of Ages is a Head (Against Wall) Banger

As rock musicals go, Rock of Ages can’t go fast enough. This sloppy freak show is two minutes shy of two solid hours of screaming swill, without a shred of freshness, insight, cleverness or coherence to be detected within a two-mile radius. It’s based on a noisy Broadway jukebox joke that was never much to write home about in the first place, but it still had a soupçon of humor and banal charm, both of which are bewilderingly missing on the screen. The fact that the show is still running testifies to the confounding disregard for taste and intelligence rampant among today’s mass-market audiences. I haven’t seen a movie this bad since Battlefield Earth and Howard the Duck. Read More

By Drew Grant 6/05/12 5:36pm

Movie casting

A match made in...somewhere (Getty Images)

Woody Allen’s Stunt Casting: Andrew Dice Clay, Louis C.K., Alec Baldwin Star in New Feature

Monday evening, Woody Allen announced the cast of his yet-to-be-titled film, set in San Francisco and New York. (This is different from his upcoming summer feature with Jesse Eisenberg, To Rome With Love, which is set in Rome.)

The cast is…eclectic, to say the least. To say the most would be calling it the work of either an insane genius or just a regular insane person. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Read More

By The Editors 5/29/12 7:17pm

Opening Shot

Thomas and Baldwin at Cannes.

Cannes It!

It’s finally time to break out the fans, air conditioning window units and anything else that helps cool off sweltering New Yorkers. Memorial Day weekend brought some wonderful weather, though not as nice as the view coming in from Cannes. Read More

By The Editors 4/10/12 7:09pm

Opening Shot

Cashman. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

It’s (Celebrity) Stalking Season!

The flowers may be in bloom, but temperatures are still a little blustery here in New York. Maybe they’re just mirroring the icy relations between some of New York’s biggest figures and their Fatal Attraction fans. Read More

By Drew Grant 4/10/12 12:04pm

Celebrity Stalkers

Alec Baldwin and fiancee Hilaria Thomas (Getty Images)

Alec Baldwin Has an (Alleged) French-Canadian Stalker

While Jessica Paré made us swoon as Don Draper’s young wife from up North–bringing her own style to the French classic(?) “Zou Bisou Bisou” in the premiere of the 5th season of Mad Men– not all Canadian residents are so enticing. At least not for long: Alec Baldwin‘s wine-and-dining of Quebec native Genevieve Sabourin in 2011 ended in a case of le canard déchaîné  when the wannabe actress was arrested for stalking the 30 Rock star outside his apartment Sunday night. The news of  his engagement to 28-year-old yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas allegedly sent the spurned Canuck into a tailspin, according to sources. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 3/27/12 6:45pm

Shindigger

Baldwin and Thomas.

Baby It’s (Still) Cold Outside: Singing and Shivers at the New York Philharmonics Spring Gala

It was a quintessentially March evening. Though the sun was shining bright, the breeze added enough of a chilling twinge that guests shivered as they checked their coats at Avery Fisher Hall. The troupe was gathering for the New York Philharmonic’s spring gala, and given the ambiguous weather, their outfits bespoke the seasonal purgatory.

Some donned bright patterned frocks, deciding to ring in the season with open, if goose-bumped, arms, while assorted grand-dames entered in full fur coats. Half of the gentlemen had dusted off their Easter ties, but the rest chose more subdued neckwear hues. Overall, the group’s collective attire oscillated undecidedly somewhere on the spectrum between lion and lamb.

The Observer walked up the stairs toward cocktail hour directly behind a bronzed and conspicuously trim Alec Baldwin, and his yogi belle, Hilaria Thomas. Where had they been basking, we asked. “We went to Florida for the weekend. It was unusual, because I’m not much of a Florida person,” Mr. Baldwin said. “We had three days, or two and a half days …” he began. “Of paradise!” Ms. Thomas interjected, finishing his sentence with an adoring, eyelash-fluttering gaze.

“We would exercise in the morning and then lay by the pool all day,” Mr. Baldwin admitted. “And then exercise at night,” Ms. Thomas added. The Observer blushed. “Yeah, we had a lot of exercise.” Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 2/14/12 4:24pm

off the record

Atlantic

The Atlantic Cover Story Traveling Dinner Series Makes Its First Stop in New York

Last night Atlantic Media chairman David Bradley had a couple dozen of New York’s non-fashion elite to dinner at Eleven Madison Park, kicking off a new monthly series that aims to capture the engagement with Atlantic cover stories demonstrated online by Facebook recommendations in a more intimate, in-person format.

Unlike the ill-fated salons proposed by The Washington Post in 2009, lobbyists can’t buy a seat at these off-the-record dinners; The Atlantic picked up the tab. The aim of the series, which may move to Los Angeles, Chicago, Silicon Valley, or Washington, D.C., depending on the cover story’s content, appears more earnest. Read More