By Rex Reed 10/09/12 8:08pm

movies

The Bellhop Rings Twice: Hardboiled Throwback Hotel Noir Aims for Nostalgia—Result is a Big Sleep

I’m all for refurbishing film noir and all the private eyes in trench coats, redheads in silk dressing gowns, sweaty weirdos chain-smoking unfiltered Camels and revolvers with silencers that go with it. But Hotel Noir, written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, is too stylistically derivative of Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Jean-Pierre Melville and Paramount B-movie hacks on the studio’s payroll (like George Marshall and Frank Tuttle) to smack of anything fresh and original, and too pokey and pedantic to keep you awake. It was filmed entirely inside the old Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles in 15 days for less than $300,000, so such luxuries as period cars, exotic locations and noirish Art Deco sets were out of the question—and it looks it. Neither a fogbound Alan Ladd crime picture nor a clever parody like Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, it lurks somewhere in the shadows in between. They aimed for Raymond Chandler and ended up with Mickey Spillane.

Still, the cast is worth watching, and it’s clear that Mr. Gutierrez loves the genre. Read More

By Rex Reed 1/17/12 7:18pm

theater

Harris and Gugino. (Roundabout Theater Company)

Rosemary Harris and Carla Gugino’s High-Octane Performances Fuel The Road to Mecca

It wouldn’t be accurate to label British-born Rosemary Harris “the first lady of the American theater” as long as Julie Harris (no relation) is still alive. But with all the other greats long departed, she’s pretty much in a class by herself. For a good example of just how rare her patrician yet persuasive ability can be in holding a restless audience spellbound in an otherwise painful and pedestrian play, all you have to do is get through the Roundabout revival of The Road to Mecca at the American Airlines Theater on West 42nd Street. For the record, it marks a celebration of her 60th year as a Broadway star. Even as a baggy, arthritic old eccentric with shapeless gray hair clinging to worn sweaters better suited to a dust bin, she is positively divine, but she deserves a better vehicle.

This dreary fugue about independence of the mind and soul in South Africa is a crashing bore by Athol Fugard, the overrated, long-winded playwright whose debatable reputation as the most important voice in South African theater has been inflated beyond justification simply because he’s just about the only voice there is. Read More

By Doree Shafrir 9/04/08 7:15pm

The Ladies of Entourage Are Not Hoochie Mamas, Thank You Very Much

At the Entourage season five premiere Wednesday evening at the Ziegfield Theater on 54th Street, attendees would have been forgiven if they assumed, incorrectly, that the premiere was being filmed for some meta-meta-upcoming episode. There were screaming fans, and the boys—Adrian Grenier, Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara, and Jeremy Piven—were dressed in suits, and Read More