By Rex Reed 6/19/12 3:55pm

movies

A directing Allen, STILL not in New York.

To Rome With Love: Woody Allen’s Latest Postcard From Across the Way Reads Like a Hallmark Valentine

Big talents, like everybody else, deserve a day off. And sure enough, in the illustrious Woody Allen canon, To Rome With Love is a very minor entry that should be accompanied by a sign that says “Gone fishing.”

Having forsaken New York (temporarily, I hope) for an uneven European tour that includes stops in London, Barcelona and Paris, Woody now sends home a pretty but vapid tourist postcard of Rome that is nothing more than stale bolognese coarsened by a compendium of numbingly familiar clichés. Just how stale is evident as a cheesy rendition of “Volare” overwhelms the opening credits. From there, his 44th film as a director is a labored farce that makes few demands on the talents of its all-star cast and ends up as boring as it is preposterous. Read More

By Drew Grant 5/08/12 3:09pm

After parties

34 Photos

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After-Party Attire: Best of the Met Costume Institute’s Gala

While the Met was swarmed by A-listers Monday night, we only heard news about Beyonce‘s dress this morning. Upstaged by the attendance of Tim Tebow, these celebrities dispersed to three locations the Met in order to fully dance away the pain: the Ukrainian Institute of America, the Boom Boom Room, and Crown all hosted parties that were hit up by roaming models, actors, and musicians. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 4/18/12 5:00pm

Shindigger

Elizabeth Olsen, home gourmand

A Prayer for Champagne in Spring: The Relais & Chateaux Dîner des Grands Chefs

While it’s not particularly our forte, The Observer fasted on Monday. Mostly fasted, rather. It was a religious holiday of sorts, indeed more of a pilgrimage, for which we practiced the ancient art of self-denial. Relais & Chateaux’s Dîner des Grands Chefs was our evening’s sacrosanct destination, and we intended to arrive with a pilgrim-pure palate.

As we approached Gotham Hall’s regal colonnade, we were beginning to feel slightly faint. Swaying ever so slightly in our heels, we dashed upstairs, past the congested red carpet, for some sustenance, which, before we could object, came in the form of a flute of 1999 Cuvée Louise Pommery Champagne. We weren’t alone in our pre-sunset indulgence: after a lap around the room, we noticed 25 empty bottles of bubbly neatly (and proudly) displayed at the bar. But a few minutes later, the tally was trente-cinq. At that point, we stopped counting. Read More

By Drew Grant 4/03/12 6:14pm

movies

Carrie-MacLemore, Greta-Gerwig, and Megalyn-Echikunwoke in 'Damsels in Distress'

Knights-Errant Steer Clear in Damsels in Distress

It would be easy to compare Whit Stillman’s latest feature, Damsels in Distress, to other flicks about the dangers of female friendship: It’s Heathers without high school, or Mean Girls at college. After all, the movie begins with young, brunette ingénue Lily (Analeigh Tipton) during her first day at Seven Oaks College, being swooped in on by a pack of three severely affected juniors who immediately offer her friendship. Greta Gerwig is the blonde queen bee, Violet, and her two cohorts include the British Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and the ditzy Heather (Carrie MacLemore). These three are seemingly on a mission of good: they run the school’s suicide-prevention center and spend most of their time “helping” the brothers of D.U., one of the school’s Roman (not Greek) fraternity houses. Read More

By Sara Vilkomerson 3/17/10 12:44am

Stiller Waters Run Deep

GREENBERG
RUNNING TIME 107 minutes
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Noah Baumbach
STARRING  Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans

3 Eyeballs out of 4

When Noah Baumbach’s wonderful (and still totally underappreciated) The Squid and the Whale came out in 2006, it quickly sent a wide swath of New York’s male population spiraling Read More