Apparently I’m not alone in my growing disgust with movies glorifying the physical and mental abuse of people in general and the butchering of women in particular. I had nightmares following the news of the three kidnapping victims in Cleveland who escaped unspeakable horrors after being imprisoned by a maniac for a decade. But I Read More
To the new trend of female-empowerment comedies written, produced, directed by and starring tough, ambitious, talented women, add Kat Coiro’s L!fe Happens. I liked Jennifer Westfeldt’s Friends With Kids better, because it made more of an attempt to include men in the love, sex and parenthood equation. In L!fe Happens, the women do everything on their own. Almost. So far, I don’t know of any women who serve as the sole contributors to their own sperm banks. Still, as a riff on the perils of single motherhood, L!fe Happens and Friends With Kids would make a keen double feature. Read More
While it seemed most of the action at the Sundance film festival had been happening at night behind colossal bouncers, The Observer caught wind that there was an equally exciting, yet slightly bizarre, scene taking place in the light of day: celebrity gifting suites. We took the opportunity to start our day a bit earlier to see what all the commotion was. Read More
Back to the darkness of wedding-bell blues. Another Happy Day is another strained comedy about another dysfunctional family, but with some fine performances by a stellar ensemble of first-cabin performers that are definitely worth applauding. Despite the obvious comparisons to Jonathan Demme’s sprightly Rachel Getting Married, Noah Baumbach’s dreadful Margot at the Wedding and a dozen other movies about how weddings bring out the worst in everybody, this one does mark an auspicious feature debut by a very talented writer-director, Sam Levinson, whose career is totally worth keeping an eye on.
I tend to forget how marvelous Ellen Barkin can be until she gets the rare chance to pull out all the stops in a movie like this. Read More
Last night, the Cinema Society hosted the premiere of Straw Dogs, a remake of the classic 1971 flick starring Dustin Hoffman. This time around, however, the film stars James Marsden, Kate Bosworth and Alexander Skarsgard, all of whom attended the premiere last night at the Tribeca Grand. Other guests included Carrie Preston, Celine Rappray, Nicole Read More
Meredith Melling Burke, the senior market editor at Vogue, tweeted the following at 3:02 p.m. yesterday afternoon: “Shazammed the gorgeous opening song at Calvin Klein and downloaded it – James Blake’s “The Wilhelm Scream.” So moody and pretty xx mmb.” Indeed, just seconds after The Observer took a seat at the Calvin Klein Read More
It’s that time of year again when we get to marvel at the many things worn at Anna Wintour’s party the Costume Institute gala at the Met. This year’s theme, “The American Woman,” was perhaps a little bit easier for sartorially challenged celebrities to understand and therefore please their red carpet audiences.
After all, the Read More
In an age where Damien Hirst errata have joined gold and United States government bonds in the shrinking pantheon of safe investments, can contemporary art still be dangerous?
More to the point, can contemporary art be dangerous when it’s held in something of a polyurethane uterus, a haute-culture billboard designed by deconstructivist goddess Zaha Hadid, Read More
In Vogue’s February issue, Kate Bosworth addresses her much-publicized bouts with extreme weight loss.
“Whenever anything happens that’s very painful or stressful, we all lose weight—my mother, my aunt, my grandmother,” the 25-year-old actress told the fashion glossy. “I honestly thought something was wrong with me….I was concerned Read More
We knew it’d be good when we walked in and immediately spied a bar: the one element fashion shows have been missing all week. The crowd included Vogue editors, straight from the Erin Fetherston show, Dash Snow look-alikes, straight from perhaps the methadone clinic, and rapper Nick Cannon, wearing a suit and spiriting fiancé Selita Read More
