AndrewAndrew (PatrickMcMullan)

And thank God we did, because you know it’s not a Paley Party until AndrewAndrew—the “iPad deejays/brand consultants,” as they were referred to on Girls (although that leaves out the duo’s other vocations as theater and restaurant critics, hosts of an East Village radio show, fashion designers and interior decorators)—show up.

Though their shtick would lead you to believe that there are no differences between the two men, who live together and dress exactly alike, that’s bull. For instance, one is taller. The other is very passionate about the Citi Bike program, and can spend an entire car ride from Midtown to Pravda on Lafayette Street, where Andrew Saffir was hosting the after-party for HBO’s Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, patiently explaining that “if we had a Citi Bike right now, we could [put] it into the back of this cab and take it with us.”

It takes a certain kind of person to sustain what is probably the longest-running piece of lifestyle performance art in New York, and the fact that there are two of them makes the Andrews remarkably good sports about a random fan who attaches herself to their side for an evening. (Although one mortified documentary filmmaker confided to us outside Paley: “I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to ask them about being gay!” Well ... yeah. But that’s just a weird question to open with, no matter whom you’re talking to.)

The two traipsed down Lafayette like princes among their subjects.

“AndrewAndrew, we love you!” one girl said. To which one of the consummate professionals responded, “And I love your shoes!”

Outside the Warby Parker showroom, a group of young hipsters fell over themselves to get a glimpse of New York’s hottest deejays. “Hey Andrew, you were on my show!” screamed one lanky guy as we walked past.

We queried if he was talking about their cameo on Girls.

“Probably?” said non-Citi Bike Andrew.

“Look, see? They have the bike stations right next to Pravda!” said Citi Bike Andrew.

We wondered: was it true that there had been a prop-issue tiff on the Girls set?

“Oh that, that wasn’t really a fight,” laughed non-Citi Bike Andrew. “They wanted a shot that would show the club from our perspective at the deejay booth, so we set it up, and they brought us a bottle of champagne with glasses.”

“But then they brought over these little cherries to go with it,” continued Citi Bike Andrew. “And we were like, ‘We would never have those.’” Apparently it struck a nerve with the duo’s brand authenticity. Either way, the shot ended up being cut from the show.

But of course the boys are defined by so much more than their relationship with Lena Dunham. That much was obvious when we introduced them to the show’s co-stars Alex Karpovsky and Billy Morrissette for the first time. (Hey, they were only in one scene.)

“What do you think about our idea to have theme holiday parties at the opposite time in the year?” non-Citi Bike Andrew asked. “Like, this Friday we’re having Oktoberfest. And then we get Christmas in July, and New Year’s Eve—and everyone can dress up!”

We admitted it sounded like fun, but what happens come February, when they’ll have to find a suitable celebration that happens in August?

“Hmmm,” they said, furrowing their brows in unison, which, we had to admit, was pretty impressive to watch, Citi Bikes or not.

Gerard Butler, sandwiched between producer Alan Siegel and director Antoine Fuqua. (PMc)

On Monday evening, Gerard Butler stood outside The Darby, waving around a cigarette animatedly, flanked by a model on either side. His gesticulations punctuated his excited rant on why these ladies--who were already at the Cinema Society after-party for his latest film, Olympus Has Fallen--should actually try to see it.

"It's not JUST an action film," said Mr. Butler, which is true. It's technically an action thriller, with the following premise:

Agent Mike Banning (Butler) is a Secret Service agent assigned to Presidential Detail. After a tragic accident, he is demoted and assigned to desk duty. When the White House (Secret Service Code: "Olympus") is captured by a terrorist mastermind and the President (Aaron Eckhart) is held hostage, Banning finds himself trapped within the building. As the national security team scrambles to respond, they are forced to rely on Banning's inside knowledge to help retake the White House, save the President, and avert an even bigger disaster.

In Mr. Butler's mind, this is the equivalent of Sex and the City 3. "I get mad when people say, 'Oh, it's such a boys' movie,'" he said, craning up to face the two towering women who stood a good half a foot above him in their heels. "It's actually quite a chick flick too." We're assuming by "chick flick," Mr. Butler meant that there are women in the film. (Specifically, two women: Melissa Leo and Angela Bassett.)

"It's totally for women," he said, still in pitch mode. "And you don't even have to be American to like it! I'm not, and I liked it."

Fair enough.

When one of the models coyly asked if he'd be bringing a beautiful girlfriend to the L.A. premiere, the suave 300 actor replied, "I don't know, what are you doing the 19th?"

When one of the models coyly asked if he’d be bringing a beautiful girlfriend to the L.A. premiere, the suave 300 actor replied, “I don’t know, what are you doing the 19th?”

But Mr. Butler wasn’t just a hit with the ladies. He also chatted up Cinema Society founder Andrew Saffir, a longtime friend. “Gerry”—as most of the chummy attendees referred to the actor—must have gone through one too many waters during the film, however; as the night progressed, his trips to the bathroom became longer and longer, until one fan floated the theory that he might have slipped out the back, causing mass panic among the troops of models.

Outside, a group collected, including Mr. Saffir’s right-hand man, Shane Kidd, Pravda co-owner James Huddleston and Walking Dead actor Norman Reedus, whose strange habit of introducing every woman as “Potato” led to more than one confusing encounter.

The after-party was on the move, but in order to have a true Monday-night blowout at 1 a.m., it needed two things: a location and glamorous women. Since the latter would only be moved to action if “Gerry” was coming, and seeing how “Gerry” had slipped back into the now-empty Darby to spend another half-hour of quality bathroom time, the outside of the bar began to look like a strange version of a middle school dance: girls on one side, boys on the other.

Eventually Gerry Butler did manage to get whatever it was out of his system and made it back out to the sidewalk, where he announced that he would be accompanying the small band of partiers to The Rusty Knot on the West Side Highway. Sadly, by the time the cabs made the long, seven-block trek to the next location, the bar had already closed. And somehow, Gerry Butler had managed to disappear without a trace.

Billy Zane, searching for just the right words. (Nicholas Hunt / Patrick McMullan)

“This party is the tits!” someone yelled last week inside Richie Notar’s new Midtown glamor spot, Harlow. Shindigger had to agree, although more appropriate expressions did come to mind, considering it followed a screening of the family-friendly film Oz the Great and Powerful presented by the Cinema Society and Gucci.

Without a munchkin in sight, the crowd was as lubed up as the Tin Man, and Shindigger had every intention of following the partygoers down that yellow brick road.

At the bar, we ran into the French-born artist Anh Duong, who explained that she had just come back from Puerto Rico and had barely gotten out of the house today owing to the weather and a general drizzly malaise. “This is a time of the year when not much is happening in New York, and everybody is just coming out of the long winter and just waiting for spring to arrive.”

Nearby was designer Charlotte Ronson, getting cozy with a friend at a candlelit table. She said the movie was a welcome break, as she’s been nose-to-the-grindstone nonstop since showing her fashion collection at Lincoln Center. “Work, work, work!” she huffed.

Also nearby was Billy Zane, cramming an amuse-bouche into his mouth. “The food is stunning—the chicken is pretty exceptional,” said Mr. Zane, who imbibed the passed hors d’oeuvres with equal zeal. “The bar has a subtle hand—this is a basil gimlet.”

Mr. Zane is promoting his latest film Electrick Children, which stars up-and-coming leading lady Julia Garner. “I’m a new father, so I’ve been spending quite a bit of time at home in Los Angeles, and it’s just really lovely to be back on the block downtown.”

A photographer interrupted us, and the actor happily mugged for the camera, then quickly ordered him to take another shot for insurance. We shifted conversation to the film at hand, and he seemed to search for the right words. “I appreciated the scope and pure escapism. It was very generous,” he said.

Another moviegoing dad in attendance, John Varvatos, was more enthusiastic. “We loved it!” he said.

“It was one of the most visually inspiring movies I’ve ever seen!” he gushed. “I can’t wait to take my 4-year-old to see it.” But the merry outing would have to wait, as Mr. Varvatos was bound for Los Angeles for a fund-raiser and to begin filming Fashion Star. Apparently, the only two places worth gallivanting between this time of year are New York and L.A.

Shindigger’s favorite little fashion prince, Harry Brant, decked out in “old” Galliano, floated by our table. It had been a while since he had shown up at a Cinema Society affair.

Thoughts on the movie, Mr. Brant?

“I’ve never seen such impressive special effects! I want to go to Oz,” he confessed. “I loved it!”

We wanted to know if Daddy Brant (a k a billionaire Peter Brant) had made any purchases at the Armory art show. “My dad actually picked out a couple of pieces,” he said with a knowing smile.

Shindigger went on an adventure in search of red wine and bumped into Padma Lakshmi, who has been busy organizing this season’s Blossom Ball. Had she had a chance to try Harlow’s food? we wondered. “I did have some mini mushroom tapas, which were lovely,” she said.

Growing weary of the endless merriment, Shindigger asked Daniel Benedict—who accompanies Cinema Society founder Andrew Saffir to nearly every one of these screenings—exactly how he keeps his energy up.

“Vitamin C and plenty of rest,” he laughed. “Or a disco nap!”

Ah, yes, the glorious disco nap. “What time is ideal for one?” we asked.

“6 to 6:20 p.m.! Honestly, I shut my eyes for 20 minutes and then—I’m not joking—Vita Coco Coconut Water. I have one every night before I go out.”

“Yeah! Very hydrated,” interjected Carson Kressley with a crude wink, before taking a sip of his drink.

Queen Lakshmi beckoned. “Daniel!” In a flash, Mr. Benedict was gone.

Shindigger polished off the rest of our wine with Mr. Kressley. We wanted to hear his thoughts on the film before we exited Harlow.

“The visuals were delicious,” he said. “But I thought the China Doll was a little strangely slutty! At the end, when she was like, ‘What did you get me?’ to [James Franco’s character] and he replied, ‘Not what you want!’ I was like, oh my God, are they having a kiki right now? I don’t think that was on purpose!”

Obviously Mr. Kressley didn’t get the memo about it being a family-friendly night.

blehay@observer.com

Brad Pitt, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson at No. 8 (PMc)

Last night the Cinema Society and Men's Health presented Brad Pitt's latest feature (besides those Chanel ads), a dark shoot-em-up called Killing Them Softly. The after party, held at No. 8, was jammed back full of celebs, though Mr. Pitt, Harvey Weinstein, Jack McBrayer, and Amy Adams remained secluded from the whole ordeal by two large security guards who literally linked arms to stop the crush of people from trying to wiggle their way into the VIP area.

Besides being an odd hodge-podge of fame, can we just examine, for a moment, Jack McBrayer's IRL persona, which is not very distinguishable from that of his 30 Rock character, Kenneth Parcell? I.e., when telling the actor how much we liked his animated performance in Wreck-It-Ralph, he replied, "Awww, gosh, thanks!" Which is definitely something we can all imagine Kenneth saying, yes?

Nearby, Chris Noth was giving advice to a young woman with dark hair. "If you aren't doing what you love, I'd just say quit. Is your agent getting you work these days?"

Two feet away, Ray Liotta had stopped to talk to Fisher Stevens. "Fuck that motherfucker," he said, in response to a mutual acquaintance. "Just fuck that guy."

Upstairs, Patrick Wilson conferred with Rose Byrne and a bevy of beautiful models while Boardwalk Empire stars Bobby Carnivale and Billy Magnussen mingled with friends on the stairs.

With bodies crushed at the bar to get to the liquor sponsor of the evening, DeLeón tequila, we kept being nudged in the back by a very tall young man with a newsboy hat and a wispy beard. ("What kind of drinks are they making? What does your tattoo say? Etc.)

Finally we handed Matthew Lillard the drink menu so he could check out for himself, and remarked how much we had loved Scream as a teenager.

"Did you know that it came out on Thanksgiving weekend?" he asked. "It was this brilliant piece of counter-culture programming, ever. That was all Harvey."

And what was Mr. Lillard doing in New York these days?

"Oh, just hanging out with this guy! We're making a movie together," he said, waving down the person on the other side of us.

"Hello, I'm Patrick," said Sir Patrick Stewart. We all ordered some sort of whiskey/bourbon and soda/water combination and raised our glasses.

With all the blood and guts and gore that make for (apparent) box-office gold during the holidays seasons, we asked Mr. Lillard if he had any favorite non-violent Christmas classics.

"Well, there's really only two, and they are cliche," he admitted. "There's the Jimmy Stewart one, and A Christmas Story."

Had he heard about the terrible straight-to-DVD sequel of the A Christmas Story that recently came out?
http://youtu.be/YHJNBZ2rrMM

"Don't tell me that...I wish you hadn't told me that," Mr. Lillard groaned. "In fact, you didn't tell me that. I am glad that I have never been told such a terrible thing."

He told us the next time we were in Ohio, we should go visit the Christmas Story house, which had artifacts from the film. We promised we would. Sir Patrick Stewart was with his partner, Sunny Ozwell.

As we left, we passed the crowd surrounding Mr. Pitt even within the relatively contained VIP section. He had long hair. Angelina Jolie was not with him. Harry Belafonte was, though. We quickly finished up our bourbon and left onto the wintery streets, where paparazzi still mingled, huddled together for warmth and determined to get a picture of Mr. Pitt leaving the Chelsea club before the night was over.

Olivia Wilde, Harvey Weinstein at 'Butter' (PMc)

Last night at the Cinema Society's after party for the premiere of the dark satire Butter, The Observer found Animal Practice's Justin Kirk lounging around on one of the black leather couches at Double 7, just one day after his show's second episode.

Animal Practice has been getting a lot of love, so much so that New York magazine dedicated four whole pages in this week's issue to its star. Not to Mr. Kirk--who had just finished up the last season of Weeds, on which he stole the show as Nancy Botwin's free-spirited brother-in-law Andy--but to Crystal, a capuchin monkey who earns $12,000 per episode on the NBC hit.

We just had to ask ... did Mr. Kirk feel a tiny bit jealous of all the monkey business?

"Whatever, I've been in New York magazine before," the actor replied with faux bravado.

"It's been great working with Crystal; she's bringing a lot of good press to the show, and the whole cast has just been so fun to work with." Mr. Kirk had adopted the glazed-eyed monotone of someone who's just been on too many junkets. We waited.

"Honestly, the whole press thing has been such a circus. I'm just glad that the episodes are now airing, and that the whole show can just ..." He held his arm out straight and dipped it up and down.

"You know."

We couldn't resist. "Has it literally been a circus?"

Mr. Kirk smiled and rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. Gotta love the monkey."

Meanwhile, the movie's stars Ty Burrell, Alicia Silverstone, Yara Shahidi, Olivia Wilde and Jennifer Garner all made entrances at the nightclub (only Ashley Greene and Rob Corddry dipped after the screening), along with Dominic Cooper and Kelly Bensimon.

There was a noticeable tension between Ms. Garner, wearing a hip-hugging red dress, and Ms. Wilde, in a flowing green gown: the two never posed together for pictures, sat at opposite tables all night, and didn't so much as look at each other, while their publicists hovered by their clients' arms, shooting wary eye-daggers in each other's general direction.

Butter's director, Jim Field Smith, was holding court near the bar. Before the film, we had snuck in late and stood in the back of the theater as Mr. Smith introduced the movie, using a very complicated roller-coaster metaphor that we won't even try to recreate here. When he got to the part about it being a a subversive, dark satire, producer Harvey Weinstein turned to us and agreed: "That's true, it's very subversive."

The British Mr. Smith is best known for Matt LeBlanc's comeback on his show Episodes, another "dark, subversive satire" about American culture, as seen through the eyes of two British screenwriters who move to Hollywood and clash with all the oafish, West Coast stereotypes. As his new movie is an Election-style commentary on the politics of the Iowa State Fair butter-carving contest, we wanted to know one thing.

"Why do you hate America so much?"

"I don't!" He exclaimed. "Look, when it comes to elections and government politics, the British are even more insane than you guys. I like America. I think the film redeems the culture that at first you think it's making fun of."

(To be fair, despite Mr. Weinstein's statement, Butter is not that dark or subversive, although it does qualify as a satire.)

And what about that five minute roller-coaster metaphor speech?

"Oh God, what was I going on about with that?" He moaned. "I don't even like roller coasters."

We didn't bother asking how he felt about monkeys.

Although Cinema Society's Vanishing on 7^th Street's screening afterparty at Beauty & Essex was not the official start to Fashion Week, it had the blessing of the God of Going Out himself, Russell Simmons. No Fashion Week could possibly begin without a sighting of the nocturnal Mr. Simmons.  The Observer caught up with him while he was sitting with his friend, Eve.

 "Have you met Eve?" He asked. "She's a rapper, although do you prefer to be called an actress?"

 "I would say that I'm an entertainer," she said, while pulling on her cocktail.

 The Observer complimented her on her tattoos.

 "I love my tattoos, they are all varied and tell a story," but before we could ask her to illuminate us as to what some of those stories were, a huge tray of cocktails fell right at the table and shards of glass flew everywhere.  No one flinched.

 Picking up a pair of discarded sunglasses on the table, Eve put them on and turned to Russell, 'Don't you think these look just like my Ray-Bans?"

 Speaking of Fashion Week we asked Russell which shows he would be attending.

"Oh Tory's, of course. She's a friend of mine, Tommy, and Charlotte Ronson. You know, only the ones I need to support."

 Star of the film, Hayden Christiansen, was happy to have a quick chat about his latest vacation to Barbados with his family.  

 Looking very dapper in a Burberry suit and skinny tie he told us about the best restaurant on the island, called Chicken Rita's. "It's the best fried chicken you've ever had in your life.  All Rita makes is fried chicken and friend fish."

Other attendees included: Amy Sacco, sporting a new pair of glasses, the ludicrously tall director Brad Anderson, Natasha Bedingfield, Madonna's ex-Carlos Leon, Oliver Theyskens, Adam Dell, Jennifer Creel and Bettina Zikha.