Olly, olly oxen free!

Earlier this month, the stars, titans of finance and assorted rich people who call Superior Ink home got some good news: the building, which was seriously damaged in Hurricane Sandy, was ready for re-habitation. Residents have been able to return since December 8, several sources told The Observer.

In mid-November, management informed residents—which include  Mark Jacobs and Hilary Swank and Kings of Leon's Caleb Followill—that they might be not be able to return for months because seawater had entered the building's pipes. Some residents were reportedly quite miffed that they would have to extend their stays at The Mark and The Pierre.

Fortunately, they were able to resume the luxurious life on West 12th Street sooner than expected. Much like 88 Greenwich Street, which re-opened after eight weeks, significantly shorter than the four months that management originally predicted. Hey, better sooner than later! Unless you've just moved all your belongings into a six-month sublet.

And the building's re-opening hasn't only meant the return of residents, but also sales listings--more than a few were pulled from the market after the Hurricane struck, including units 14A, B and C.

The units, which are listed with Corcoran's Robby Browne, Chris Kann and Jennifer Ireland, were all pulled from the market on November 16, the day the news broke about the possibility of a displacement lasting many months. And they all returned this week, asking their pre-Sandy prices—$15.7 million, $9.5 million and $15.7 million respectively. Mr. Browne did not return a request for comment.

But it seems that neither the storm, nor the damage it caused, nor subsequent displacement slackened potential buyers' interest in the building. In fact, a two-bedroom, two-bath unit on the third floor entered contract just two weeks after Sandy spewed its seawater into Superior Ink. Last listed for $5.24 million with CMB Realty, LLC brokers Mete Basakinci and Leila Chaouche, the unit was officially in contract on November 18, according to Streeteasy.

Earlier this month Town Residential broker Brett Miles told The Wall Street Journal that buyers were still eager to seal the deal on a $4.4 million two-bedroom that they signed a contract on a few days before the storm struck. He also said that he'd pulled a one-bedroom listing off the market after Sandy, only to have other brokers continue to call about it.

At the moment, the only other available units in the building are the $14 million townhouse and a rental that is available Jan. 1 for $15,000 a month.

kvelsey@observer.com

Steve Ross, head of the Related Companies, is one of the city's most influential developers--he is hard at work on Hudson Yards and Hunters Point South, among so much else--as well as one of its richest, worth $3.4 billion, putting him at No. 277 on Forbes' Rich List. He also owns the Miami Dolphins. You'd think the guy could afford a piddling $5 million apartment, but of course he doesn't have to.

The Real Deal got word that Ross recently took control of a fourth-floor unit at Superior Ink, the record-setting condominium in the West Village designed by Robert A.M. Stern, for free.

Yep. $0.00. For a 1,929-square-foot three-bedroom with master bedroom and living room looking out onto the Hudson. The apartment was never listed, but you can get a gander of the downstairs unit on Streeteasy.

This is not the first time Ross has gotten such a sweet deal; his 35th-floor apartment at the Time Warner Center also came free in 2006. Naturally, he built both projects, so he'd kind of just be putting money back in his own pocket were he to buy the apartments.

Still, not everyone has it so easy. William Lie Zeckendorf had to pay more than $10 million for his penthouse at 15 Central Park West, the blockbuster condo across from the Time Warner Center he built with his brother Arthur. (He is at work on a record-breaking $40 million sale, so don't feel to bad for William Lie.)

Among Ross' new downtown neighbors will be Marc Jacobs and Hilary Swank.

It's good to be the king.

mchaban@observer.com

Conviction, directed by Tony Goldwyn, is the inspirational true-life story of a high-school dropout named Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) who devoted 20 years of her life to becoming a lawyer in order to prove the innocence of her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell), who was wrongfully accused and sentenced to life in prison for a murder he did not commit. Her unshakable belief in his innocence and her determination to expose and reverse a travesty of justice provides the raw material for an expertly detailed, soundly constructed film about family love that is undeniably powerful.

Betty Anne, a Massachusetts wife and mother of two from the wrong side of the tracks, and Kenny, who has neither an education nor a solid family background, were deserted by their father and raised by a trashy, self-absorbed mother who shipped them both off to a string of foster homes. Practically joined at the hip, they learn at an early age to depend solely on each other, but although they both eventually marry and start their own families, Kenny is always a rowdy prankster--violent, wild and impulsive--who spends most of his time on the wrong side of the law. So, in the rural hick town where they lived, when the body of a woman is found in a bloodstained trailer house in 1980, he is a natural suspect, but because of a lack of evidence, he is cleared and released. Two years later, two so-called "witnesses" come forward to testify they heard Kenny confess to the brutal slaying. With the relentless push of a crooked, man-hating cop (the excellent Melissa Leo), the case is reopened and Kenny is sentenced to life without parole. Betty Anne's world falls apart, but her faith in her sibling remains undiminished. While working as a waitress in a pub and trying to raise two sons, she gets her high-school diploma and earns a B.A. degree, neglecting her husband and wrecking her marriage in the process, but somehow manages to save enough money to enter law school and pass the bar exam.  Fueled by unconditional love, she intends to overturn Kenny's conviction while acting as his lawyer. 

With the aid of her best friend (Minnie Driver), she pulls every lever in the legal system, only to find the evidence in the case has disappeared. Appealing to famed lawyer Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher) and his newfound knowledge of miraculous DNA testing to exonerate Kenny, Betty Anne pores over every shred of the investigation from start to finish, searching for blood work from the first trial to force an acquittal, bending a few laws herself to reach the truth. Meticulously examining every clue to piece together the missing elements of the puzzle, director Goldwyn and screenwriter Pamela Gray build a film of crime, suspense and adventure with breathless pacing and all the earmarks of a first-rate mystery story. Ms. Swank, who specializes in roles of bravery and true grit, and the always colorful and versatile Mr. Rockwell, one of the screen's youngest and most appealing character actors, exude amazing chemistry as the brother and sister living through two decades of hell. It's a thrill to watch his transformation from cocky young stud to hardened convict without hope, showing the cruelty and indifference of the American prison system at work. The flawless supporting cast includes a juicy performance by Juliette Lewis as a brainless witness whose lies under oath for personal reasons in order to ruin Kenny's life. 

Filled with nuance, intricate emotion and a refreshing absence of melodramatics, Conviction is a moving exploration of light and love shining through the darkness of despair. Its impact cannot easily be shaken. 

CONVICTION
Running time 106 minutes
Written by Pamela Gray
Directed by Tony Goldwyn
Starring Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver, Peter Gallagher, Juliette Lewis

3/4

When this Canadian clambake was started back in 1976 by three eager film buffs in a Toronto saloon, they couldn't convince one Hollywood studio to send them a full-length feature. Thirty-five years later, TIFF is arguably the friendliest, most popular and best organized movie convention in the world. This year it sold 300,000 tickets to 300 films in 11 days, generated a revenue of $170 million; published a program book 448 pages long; and boasted a staff of 100 full-time employees, 19 programmers and an army of 2,000 unpaid volunteers in orange T-shirts who do everything from ushering to pouring salt on your popcorn. TIFF has come of age, and this year it has even moved into a brand-new permanent home at the Bell Lightbox, a sci-fi superdome on the site of an old parking lot owned by the father of director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters), replete with art galleries, film libraries, five state-of-the-art screening rooms and two restaurants where the flacks and hacks gather to meet, greet and tweet. They're still $25 million short of their $196 million fund-raising campaign goal, but ready or not, they opened anyway, staging a Sunday afternoon block party with balloons, fireworks, live rock bands, celebrity arrivals and trucks of free cupcakes. One caveat: Along with smaller, glam-free flicks, the dynamic has changed geographically, too. Now that festival headquarters has shifted miles away, from the swanky neighborhood of Yorkville to the seedy downtown entertainment district near the waterfront, the annual Brangelina parties, shopping sprees at Tiffany's and posh luxury hotels are a thing of the past. With screening venues sprawled all over the city and the press agents and stars 10 miles away, it is nothing to spend $40 on a taxi ride between movies to share a cocktail with Catherine Deneuve. The red carpet premieres are on one side of town in traffic gridlock, but the boldface names have to travel to the gift lounges on the other side of town to collect their free swag bags of Hermés scarves, Gucci handbags and Canadian maple syrup.

Things were off to a rocky start. The TIFF opened in the middle of a bedbug invasion that left audiences at the early press previews complaining of bites on their thighs, backs and rear ends, and so armies equipped with pesticides invaded the combat zone in the days before the official red carpet rolled out, and sponsors and organizers have promised an "itch-free festival." So far, so good. But when all is said and done and the last projector starts rolling, the only that matters is the movies. Excelsior! This year, the richness and diversity has a higher quality than usual. From documentaries about disgraced New York governor Eliot Spitzer and the decline of American public education (starring Bill Gates), to a graphic gay porno film called L.A. Zombie that has been banned in Australia, there is something for everybody. After the opener, a campy musical about hockey with Olivia Newton-John that was generally dismissed as an embarrassment, things picked up with two of the best films I've seen in decades. Actor Ben Affleck has triumphed as both star and director of The Town, a cajones-in-your-face crime drama about the brutal crime scene in Boston's historic Charlestown neighborhood, labeled the bank robbery capital of America. Mr. Affleck is wonderful as the leader of a gang of violent, ruthless thieves who makes the mistake of falling for the pretty, blindfolded hostage who can turn them in to the Feds. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) is especially creepy as the most vicious thug in the group, and Jon Hamm, in one of his first major roles since Mad Men, emerges as a powerful screen force in the role of a witty, hard-boiled F.B.I. agent. Set in the Boston alleys and Irish bars familiar to Scorsese and Eastwood, and featuring a $3 million robbery during a pivotal Red Sox game in Fenway Park, it is a film with a grip as smart and unforgettable as it is fresh and surprising. The Town is the best heist movie--as well as the most intensely plotted, brilliantly written and carefully directed film about the complex members of a criminal gang--since The Asphalt Jungle. Equally memorable is Never Let Me Go, a lyrical, haunting and lushly photographed adaptation of the great book by metaphysical novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains of the Day), about idyllic children growing up in a baronial English country school who love, laugh and learn about life as all children do, until we discover [ed note: Spoiler alert!] they are clones in a dystopian government project, secretly marketed for the purpose of donating their organs to society in order to save mankind. Carey Mulligan, the Oscar-nominated marvel from An Education, leads a splendid cast that includes Keira Knightley, Charlotte Rampling and Sally Hawkins, in a cautionary tale about the dangers of science vs. humanity. One of the few films I've seen lately that audiences and critics were still debating fiercely days after its premiere, Never Let Me Go is a heartbreaking, imaginative work of art that left me devastated. So did Hereafter, a touching triptych of stories related to the theme of life after death; it finds Clint Eastwood in a more muted tone than usual, with Matt Damon as a sensitive psychic.

After nine months of Hollywood drivel, TIFF is always the launching pad for works of more serious ambition. Common underlying themes in the films coming this fall include people seeking dignity in the face of overwhelming adversity and the sad desperation of terminally lonely people trying to connect in a troubled world--to someone, some place, some sense of justice and meaning, anything! As the director of Trust, actor David Schwimmer does a disturbing job of tackling the terrifying world of Internet predators. In this powerful drama, an emotionally vulnerable 14-year-old in Chicago falls for a boy she believes to be a cute California volleyball player in a popular chat room, but when he arrives in person, while her parents are out of town, he turns out to be a 35-year-old rapist who is nothing like his photos or promises. The story centers on the disastrous effects of the rape on the girl as well as her parents (Clive Owen and Catherine Keener), as they all cope with a nightmare that changes their lives forever. Tony Goldwyn's Conviction is the inspirational true-life story of Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank), a Massachusetts wife and mother who devotes her life to proving the innocence of her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) after he is sentenced to life in prison for a murder he didn't commit. Neglecting her husband and two sons while scrimping and saving to put herself through law school, she pulls every lever in the corrupt legal system with the aid of famed attorney Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher) to reopen the case, only to discover after 16 years of work that the DNA evidence has been destroyed. The film chronicles her undying faith as she overcomes one obstacle after another;  Ms. Swank is aided by a first-rate cast (Juliette Lewis, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver and others) and a script that plays like a detective yarn. The ending will leave you cheering. Beautiful Boy is a wrenching story about two parents in a rocky marriage (Maria Bello and Michael Sheen) who are shocked to heartrending depths of despair when their perfect 18-year-old son commits a mass shooting on his college campus before taking his own life. In the hot new "hunky alpha males in jeopardy" genre, nothing could be more harrowing than 127 Hours and Buried. The first one is writer-director Danny Boyle's first film since the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, the true story of adventurer Aron Ralston, who fell through a crevice on a hiking trip through Utah in 2003 and lay pinned under a boulder for 127 hours until he was forced to cut off his own arm to save his life. A graphic story of courage and survival guaranteed to make you pinch yourself to keep from fainting, with James Franco giving a heroic performance, it forced several members of the audience to be carried out on stretchers during an early preview in Sundance. Not for sissies. In Buried, Ryan Reynolds is a civilian truck driver delivering kitchen supplies in Iraq who wakes up in a wooden coffin underground with no oxygen and a cigarette lighter running out of fluid. With my heart pounding and nerves jangled, I was only able to stand it until the snake showed up. But I wasn't bored.

If proof was ever required that the movie business has changed, consider Robert Redford. The once glamorous and hugely powerful commodity is here like everybody else, shlepping a new film he directed with independent money called The Conspirator, hoping to interest a distributor. It will need all the shlepping it can get. The Conspirator takes place two years after the Civil War during those dark days of April 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. John Wilkes Booth, who was gunned down before the curtain fell, is just a peripheral player in the aftermath of the shooting at Ford's Theatre. Seven men and one lone woman--all civilians--are accused of being co-conspirators in a corrupt trial that should have been tried by a jury, not a military tribunal. The war department, run by Lincoln-appointed Edwin Stanton (Kevin Kline), is so hell-bent on pacifying a country desperate to avenge the president's murder that it sacrifices the Constitutional rights of an innocent woman without a shred of evidence. The result is a shameful trial that is both immoral and illegal. Mary Surratt (Robin Wright) is guilty of nothing more than the misfortune of owning the boardinghouse where Booth sometimes visited and his followers lived, but even after the court finds her not guilty, Secretary of State Stanton changes the verdict and makes Mrs. Surratt the first woman ever sent to the gallows in the U.S. With excellent performances by Ms. Wright (she's dropped the Penn), James McAvoy, Tom Wilkinson, Evan Rachel Wood and Danny Huston, a carefully researched screenplay and the kind of period authenticity most indie-prods on a reduced budget only dream about, Mr. Redford has provided a worthy footnote to a part of American history they do not teach in classrooms. The Conspirator has "worthy" stamped all over it with a capital "W," but to me, it lacks momentum, its commercial prospects seem dim and with a running time of more than two hours, it is somber to the point of tedium.

Not bad for a first week in Toronto. And still more new films by Jean Luc Godard, John Sayles, Ken Loach, Francois Ozon, Stephen Frears, Darren Aronofsky, John Carpenter and Werner Herzog to sift through, plus Kevin Spacey as crooked politician Jack Abramoff, and Mickey Rourke as a broken-down jazz musician stranded in the desert who falls in love with the Bird Woman in a traveling circus. So many movies, so little time. Sleep, balanced meals, exercise--they're all on hold. You live on pizza, candy bars and eye drops. Then you prop your eyes open and head for another double feature.

rreed@observer.com

Based on a true story, Conviction stars Swank as Betty Ann Waters, a Massachusetts woman who quits her job and goes to law school in an attempt to get her wrongfully convicted brother out of jail (hey, Sam Rockwell!). And that means tin-eared Boston accents! And tears! And dramatic music that sounds ripped out of The Lovely Bones trailer! And, well, we just got tired of seeing this kind of performance from Swank around the time of Amelia.

That said, it's all perfect Oscar-bait — though if the trailer gave away any more of the movie, it would have shown the closing credits. And any film that tracks Sam Rockwell's looks from "used car salesman" to "cast member on Oz" can't be all bad, even one directed by actor-turned-director Tony Goldwyn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCwlaLyjtcA

The prospective buyer hovered almost a foot above Mr. Zollinger’s alert follicles. Her natural height combined with 5-inch studded black wedges and high-end leggings made her a formidable elevator companion. The salesman was undeterred.

“God, I don’t know why I have no voice today!” he said, a hoarse cusp creeping in at the end of his sentences. “I just woke up and it was gone! And I love to talk.”

“Oh, come on, you had too much fun last night,” the buyer purred with a rasp more pronounced than Mr. Zollinger’s; unlike him, she did not apologize.
“I wish! No, my friend and I just drank some Champagne and watched movies. He likes to come over because he lives in midtown”—midtown, pronounced with heavy horror, could easily have been replaced with “the gulag” and no change in tone would have been necessary—“and, you know, everyone wants to be downtown now, it’s cool and hip. That’s why people just love Superior Ink so much.” A true Willy Loman, no anecdote unfurled without a sales pitch woven neatly in the telling.

But Mr. Zollinger is right. People do seem to love Superior Ink (one broker compared it to 15 Central Park West, the most expensive condo, sales-wise, in New York history).

Of the 68 original units in the 17-story tower, only five are still available. Owners include Oscar favorite Hilary Swank; designer Marc Jacobs, who bought one of the townhouses for over $10 million; Nascar champ Jimmie Johnson; South African Internet billionaire Mark Shuttleworth; Showtime CEO Matthew Blank; Broadway theater owner Jordan Roth; Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander, who bought the penthouse for $25 million last September and one week later re-listed it for $39.5 million; and real estate super-broker Doug Harmon.

THE RELATED COMPANIES, led by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and famed for its co-development of the Time Warner Center, bought the former Superior Ink factory, a discreet warehouse quietly hugging the highway on the corner of Bethune Street at the edge of the West Village, for $41 million in the fall of 2006 (remember, the penthouse alone is currently listed at $39.5 million). Much to the chagrin of nostalgic locals, it was leveled, and out of its Old New York ashes rose a historically conscious condo colossus designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern.

Mr. Stern, who has established himself as master of the prewar parody building, comes off the camphor-like success of 15 Central Park West—also his design. “It’s not a shrinking violet and it’s not a Me-Too building,” Mr. Stern said Tuesday of Superior Ink.

The row of seven townhouses line Bethune Street and are connected to the tower and on-site parking garage, providing the amenities and security of condo living with the suburban benefits of a townhouse. The townhouse facades smile gayly with bay windows and curling metalwork railings, like an elegant Disneyland offshoot—SuperiorLand! Related paired Mr. Stern with Yabu Pushelberg, who designed the starkly modern interiors.

On Sunday afternoon, the tower seemed empty and very much still under construction. Workmen and movers milled through the halls, almost all of whose floors remain bare, awaiting the arrival of the carpets, hand-tufted in Nepal. The only residential activity was a young woman riding the elevator with her wide-eyed maltese. But Susan de Franca, Related’s sales director, assured The Observer: “Over half of our buyers have moved in; construction ended three months ago. It’s just that many of our buyers have weekend homes, so Sunday is quiet.”

The mezzanine level hosts the common rooms, which include a brightly colored children’s playroom equipped with a petite table and chairs, a canister of markers doughnuted in a deftly designed crevice in the middle of the table; the room is conveniently connected to the Equinox-outfitted fitness center and Pilates room (Related owns Equinox). Next door, in the intimate screening room, L-shaped couches hug the corners like lichen, and two centered metallic leather armchairs emit the sheen and shade of film canisters. In the entertainment lounge, symmetrical built-in bookshelves frame a series of Rorschach-like butterfly prints against the back wall boasting Assouline publishing titles, including Panama: A Legendary Hat, three copies of Ricky Lauren’s Cuisine, Lifestyle and the Legend of the Double RL Ranch and Hitchcock Style.

ASKED TO SEE a waterfront-view condo still on the market, Mr. Zollinger, the salesman, smiles knowingly. “I have the perfect one for you to see—it’s 3,234 square feet.” Eight-C is the last great apartment available in the building, four bedrooms with a den, which, Mr. Zollinger is quick to point out, could double as a fifth bedroom. Mr. Pushelberg’s interior design is certainly stark, with dark gray cabinetry patterned with strange striations and a Brancusi-inspired bathtub that seems better suited for a slick hotel. Walls of windows provide an unobstructed view of New Jersey. “At night the lights of the Jersey Sho—uh, City—are incredible!”

“You know I actually think I sold that apartment last night,” Ms. de Franca told The Observer over the phone from Aspen. “Yes, here in Aspen, I’m serious! I’m actually vacationing with two building owners who are already in occupancy. I didn’t even have to sell it—they sold it for me! By the end of dinner, their friend was asking me, ‘Do you have any left?’ And I told him, ‘Actually, we have one great unit left!’”

Aside from the celebrities, who is ballasting Superior Ink as the new It building? “You can’t pinpoint one kind of buyer. They’re really all people at the top of their industries,” Ms. de Franca said. “We have people from the entertainment business—a lot of people from the entertainment business, actually—the real estate, sports, activists—”

Activists? “Well, I mean people who are active and athletically inclined because you’re right next to the Hudson park and bike path.”

cmalle@observer.com

When Amelia Earhart, the world’s most famous aviatrix, disappeared in midair on July 2, 1937, somewhere over the Pacific between New Guinea and a Howland Island refueling station, 22,000 miles into the first equatorial flight around the world, she became the greatest unsolved mystery in aviation history. Why has it taken so long to get her story on the screen? Shirley MacLaine tried in vain for years, and others experienced the kind of daunting challenges that could only be equaled by Amelia herself. Here, at last, is the biopic we’ve been waiting for, neatly wrapped up in a broad but sketchy screenplay by Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan, directed by India’s Mira Nair and starring diligent, indefatigable two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank. It has beautiful cinematography, a star performance that is shocking in its authenticity, a careful eye for nuance and detail and an irresistible blend of action and romance that should spell automatic success. I am sad to report that the one thing Amelia doesn’t have is excitement. The real Amelia had gonads. Amelia has none. It’s a respectable film that is too meticulous to be dull, but the way Ms. Swank plays her, she’s an icon so aware of her self-important image that she couldn’t be blasted out of her complacency with a hydrogen bomb.

This Amelia is a spirited, dauntless, reckless woman with blinders on, but curiously unemotional even in the face of the ultimate crisis. When she runs out of fuel and faces her own mortality, her tough, heavy-drinking and basically unshakable navigator, Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston), sweats, shakes and starts praying. But Amelia is as stoic as Lincoln. You want to pinch her. The light dawns. Maybe it’s this sense of marble-faced, dispassionate tranquility that made a cinematic dossier on the life of Amelia Earhart so resistant to adaptation in the past. There is evidence here that despite her heroics, she just wasn’t the stuff of movie heroines. You don’t really learn much about her growing up in Kansas. You just know she’s in love with the freedom of flying (cut to birds), the independence of the sky (cut to clouds) and the beauty of airplanes (other girls were attracted to boys; Amelia hung out in hangars). Following the success of Lindbergh, she finds the key to fame in a man’s profession when she is sponsored by eccentric publishing tycoon George Putnam (Richard Gere) to become the first lady pilot to cross the Atlantic, but gets no further than a segment from Boston to Newfoundland. The movie chronicles the weather problems and near-death escapes from open doors that would have sent other women to the nearest secretarial school for safety. Not Amelia. On her first solo Atlantic crossing, in 1932, from Boston to Ireland, she lands by mistake in a sheep pasture in Wales, but it results in worldwide publicity, dinner at the White House, endorsements for Eastman Kodak, a series of best-selling books, her own brand of Amelia Earhart luggage, a line of fashion styles at Macy’s and a close, lasting friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt (Cherry Jones), whom she takes for midnight rides in the cockpit. Idolized, celebrated and toasted as “Lady Lindy,” she makes enough money to finance her flying expeditions and purchase the love of her life—the famed twin-engine, orange and silver Lockheed L-10 Electra airplane in which she eventually disappears in 1937. She believes in herself to the exclusion of sex, marriage and the distraction of human relationships, but finally manages to have two affairs—with the controversial Putnam, whom she reluctantly marries in 1931, and with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), aeronautics executive and the father of Gore Vidal. Both affairs have to be predicated on the promise of independence and a minimum of emotion. (Amelia loves her Electra more than her husband or her lover.) She won’t rest until she’s flown around the globe, although many women pilots had died trying it. Despite faulty landing gear, electrical storms, sleep deprivation and other health risks, she and Fred Noonan leave Miami in June 1937, backed by Putnam’s love, loyalty and money. Driven and determined to prove something to the world—and to herself—Amelia almost makes it, ignoring Noonan’s advice, taking off from Calcutta in a monsoon and shrugging off her detractors’ accusations of being a crazy, irresponsible, foolish, fame-seeking celebrity. Based on this movie’s research, you begin to agree. Halfway between New Guinea and California, the radio transmitter goes dead, cutting off all signals, and a dead battery in the U.S. Navy signal transmitter makes it impossible for her to receive any incoming instructions. It was the last anyone heard of Amelia Earhart. They’ve been looking for her ever since.

Lots of facts, lots of calendar entries and a collage of information from aeronautical files provides the necessary tools for a documentary, but not enough heart-pounding adrenaline for a tragic historical film biography. There is so little warmth in the character of Amelia that I’m not sure I like her very much. I liked the movie a great deal more, in spite of its shortcomings, but the most amazing thing about it is Hilary Swank. With short russet hair, a nose covered with freckles and a total abstention from makeup, she looks exactly like the subject. Then, miraculously, when you see actual newsreel footage of Amelia Earhart, she looks so astoundingly like Hilary Swank you’ll think you’re seeing double.

rreed@observer.com

It sounds familiar. Almost exactly one year ago, New York wrote, "tipsters say that the Academy Award–winning actress, soon to be seen in the Richard LaGravenese romantic comedy P.S. I Love You, is looking for a loft—and we hear that she may have already signed for a two-bedroom at Superior Ink, the West Street celebrity-magnet tower designed by Robert A.M. Stern."

At 5:19 on this week’s warm Monday night, the Charles Street home of Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe was deserted. A few sad Christmas wreaths still hung from the doorways of neighboring West Village townhouses. The shittiest car on the street was an old white Acura, weirdly guarded by the Club. The second shittiest car was an ancient station wagon with wood paneling, the back seat and trunk full of junk. Someone may very well have been living in it.

It was just a few hours after The Insider’s Marc Malkin had reported that Ms. Swank and Mr. Lowe had been separated.

A woman who bore a striking resemblance to Ms. Swank, with long dark brown hair and a slim figure, darted from her house and headed into her silvery blue Lexus SUV, parked right outside.

At 5:30 p.m. a few Villagers walked their gerbil-like dogs down the street. One man’s brown cocker spaniel took a long piss against the wall of 29 Charles Street. A very old man, bent with age, strolled slowly down the street and stooped further over, ostensibly to look at the dog, but from a distance it appeared as if he was looking at the pee as it glistened under the orange street light.

A man named Daniel, who wore a leather jacket and ported a skinny black Pomeranian in a red sweater named BeeBop, said that high-profile Hollywood breakups seem so 2005. He hadn’t yet heard about the Swank-Lowe schism, but said, “They were so boring anyway. Maybe Hilary will date someone exciting and we’ll never hear of Chad Lowe again.”

Daniel’s favorite breakup of last year was Brad and Jen. “It’s cliché,” he said, “but their breakup was so tawdry. But I’m most looking forward to the Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes debacle. I can’t wait for the tell-all she’s going to write about him.”

A pair of beige pug puppies bounced around the corner to West Fourth Street. They seemed happy and young and full of life. It wasn’t so long ago that Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe seemed just like these little young things. And now, on this quiet—and expensive—Manhattan lane, their love had evaporated like so much dog urine seeping into a crack in the sidewalk, all the while being ogled by an old man.

—Raegan Johnson

The Life of Leisure

Janet Maslin described the actor Viggo Mortensen as “a poet, a musician, a photographer and a painter,” in addition to his role as a “performer,” at last weekend’s New York Times Arts & Leisure Weekend.

Ms. Maslin, The Times’ former film critic and now a reviewer of books, was perched high on a stage, in a pleated miniskirt and spiky tall boots. Mr. Mortensen was seated beside her, channeling Brokeback Mountain—very Jake Gyllenhaal circa 1970—in a cowboy outfit and twitchy mustache. It was one of the kickoff events of The Times’ three-day arts festival, in which the high culture of the city was packaged and sold, mostly to those from out of town, as a sort of drop-in tourist experience, or perhaps a reverse Outward Bound trip—in any event, a weekend rife with questions about the nature of the roles of consumer, participant, performer and critic.

Many of the featured guests were movie stars, but one could feel the organizers’ strain in trying to locate bona fide celebrities who could project enough substance to qualify for a culture event hosted by the newspaper of the cultural capital of the world. The “smart” actors like Mr. Mortensen, as well as Robert Redford, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Larry David, were all to make appearances.

The crowd that had gathered to hear Mr. Mortensen was made up of very enthusiastic women, rows and rows of them in all ages and sizes, and most had digital cameras up their sleeves. As the former husband of rock goddess Exene Cervenka bantered with Ms. Maslin—“I was very happy to be directed by David Cronenberg, because he is a subtle artist,” said Mr. Mortensen, and “Many interviews you’ve done are with lady journalists, who seem to like you a lot,” from Ms. Maslin, etc.—arms shot up above the crowd like periscopes to take pictures. In fact, the entire conversation—during which Mr. Mortensen was leaning forward and speaking in a breathy soft voice—was peppered with the little bleeping sounds of dozens of cameras image-capturing.

Mr. Mortensen made it clear that he was not just all fluff and cheekbones and referred to himself throughout as an “artist.” Ms. Maslin displayed some of his books of paintings and poetry. He showed off one of his “No More Blood for Oil” T-shirts.

Some of the women in the audience asked questions of Mr. Mortensen. “How does your spirituality shape your work?” asked one in a Texas accent, her gold crushed-velvet top shimmering.

“I think that artists, to a large degree … they’ve taken potentially the place of priests,” said Mr. Mortensen. “Certainly of government leaders.”

“I would like to thank you, because you’ve inspired me to explore my artistic side,” said another woman.

“I love your poem ‘The Oceans,’” said another.

“Would you ever consider running for office?” asked yet another.

“Nah, I think I’d rather direct a movie. We have a democracy of the inane now; we have a failed state,” Mr. Mortensen said, now a sort of lefty Vincent Gallo. “No industrialized country in the world has the degree of fundamentalism right at the center of it that we have.”

Then they made him read one of his poems, called “Done,” during which some of the ladies closed their eyes or read along.

As the discussion ended, it became clear that most, if not all, of the women in the audience were members of viggochronicles.com, a fan Web site that had alerted them to his Times festival appearance.

Two sweet young things in the crowd—Megan Shoemate, 14, and Nicole Johnson, 15, both of Norwood, N.J.—had learned of the event through viggo-works.com, and they seemed a little shy.

“We both love Viggo,” Ms. Johnson said in a near-whisper. “He’s one of the best actors out there, and his art is just touching.”

In the lobby, a group of women had gathered. “Are you from Chronicles?” said one, who was dressed all in black, with wavy brown hair down to her bum. “It’s a wonderful site.”

“Well, it’s over, isn’t it!” sighed another, also in black, but with shiny sliver appliqués on her cardigan. “I drove all the way from Virginia just to see him.”

The monolithic CUNY building on Fifth Avenue at 34th Street had been well appointed for the occasion. Little piles of food had been scattered thoughtfully about, as if the attendees were wayward mice who might slow down for a nibble. In most of the rooms, there were flat-screen televisions looping sponsor advertisements. In the basement, where the books and CD’s were sold—there was a reminder of the stuff to buy before every presentation—there were slivers of sandwiches of Brie and jam, and bites of chocolate brownie. Upstairs, in the evenings, the makeshift “Level Lounge” opened its doors, offering sticky vodka cocktails and trays of cheese and figs. At any given moment, couples were standing or huddling together on the pleather couches, looking slightly stunned.

The froth of the Friday-evening program was counterbalanced by a more somber Saturday afternoon. There was a respectful interview between fragile author Joan Didion and The Times’ Joseph Lelyveld, followed by a discussion with two precocious chefs and one restaurateur.

The chefs, Bobby Flay and Kurt Gutenbrunner—who is Austrian and flamboyant and was dressed much like a pirate—talked to Karen Waltuck of Chanterelle and Times food writer Kim Severson. The men in particular seemed to bristle over the theme of the conversation, “To Grow or Not to Grow,” about whether restaurant expansion was a good thing.

In fact, they seemed resentful of the now-common implication that the food isn’t as good once a chef opens more than one venue and can no longer be everywhere at once.

“As chefs now, we feel like we have to apologize to the media,” Mr. Flay said, insisting that he spends “90 percent of his time” rotating between his three locations in the city.

Then all three of them confessed that there is rampant theft of the salt and pepper shakers in their restaurants.

Mr. Flay also said that he had prepared bananas foster crêpes, buttermilk flapjacks with apricots and nuts, and the biscuits and gravy at his brasserie, Bar Americain, that morning.

It was by far a more jovial atmosphere than the one that permeated a later gathering, called “Feminisms.”

It is perhaps inevitable that by staging an event with such a title, and inviting four women of differing communities and generations—in this case, the artists Joan Snyder, Barbara Kruger, Collier Schorr and Tamy Ben-Tor—to discuss the subject, a fight of some sort will ensue. In this case, it came when the youngest of the women, Ms. Ben-Tor, disrespected her elders by saying that feminism is a waste of time.

“I don’t think that my work is feminist,” Ms. Ben-Tor declared at one point in her thick Israeli accent, after a discussion about the lack of prominent women artists and art teachers. “I think that feminism is an ideology. It is O.K. if feminism serves the weak. But I don’t think I am weak.”

Ms. Ben-Tor had her white-blond hair piled dramatically atop her head, and she wore maroon culottes and an electric red sweater—a strong contrast to the basic-black look sported by everyone else.

“I think it’s kind of awkward, this situation, because I don’t believe in it at all,” she said as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and smirked.

The other women were a bit horrified. The moderator, art critic Roberta Smith—one of the few critics seemingly willing to interview people working in her field, and who had announced early on that she didn’t “think of herself as a feminist”—became visibly agitated, and tried to prompt Ms. Ben-Tor to acknowledge that she had benefited in some way from the advancement of women’s rights. But Ms. Ben-Tor wouldn’t budge.

At one point, Ms. Schorr said that, as an artist, she didn’t appreciate being relegated to appearing in “gay shows,” for example, prompting some women in the audience to jump up and take the microphone.

“I just want you to know how it feels, as a lesbian filmmaker, to hear that,” began one, a compact woman with spiky silver hair.

“It has become a dirty word, feminist,” said Ms. Snyder. “It’s a dirty thing to be called a feminist; that’s why young women don’t want to be called feminists.”

Over time, what happened is that the people attending particular panels came to resemble the speakers more and more. When the film director Jim Jarmusch was up, the line into the auditorium was filled with gangly dudes with vertical gray hair and trench coats. When it was the writer Patricia Cornwell, it meant that the audience was packed with women who looked as if they might be well-dressed suburban lesbians. Many of them had hearty builds, short hair and sensible sweaters.

At that panel, those women were interspersed with the keen young law students who had come to see Scott Turow, who was sharing the stage with Ms. Cornwell.

Ms. Cornwell confessed that she owns two Harley Davidson’s—a V-Rod and a Deuce, both “tricked out as they should be”—and said that one of her strategies for learning to write dialogue was to eavesdrop on people in restaurants.

“We really enjoy The Times, and we thought that this would be quality,” said one of the women in attendance, Pam Reed of Suffern, N.Y.

“It’s a Sunday—getting into the city is nice,” said Anne Burns, also of Suffern.

“Anne is a voracious reader,” said Ms. Reed.

“Sometimes we listen on audio,” said Ms. Burns.

“I think that’s a bit of a cheat,” said Ms. Reed.

“It makes sense if you’re going on a long trip some place!” said Ms. Burns.

—Sheelah Kolhatkar

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