God having lavished so much on the exterior, Natalie Portman doesn’t deserve an inner life. Only a supernal emptiness could do her justice, and might spare her from the ravages visited on her one true precedent, the young Liz Taylor, a woman smart enough to seek revenge on her own God-given perfection. Ms. Portman is Read More
It’s a pleasure to celebrate Spamalot a lot. For one sensational thing, it has the silliest, riskiest opening number to any musical comedy I’ve seen.
Enter a bow-tied historian with a map of England. “England 932 A.D.,” the man announces solemnly. “A kingdom divided. To the West, the Anglo-Saxons; to the East, the French. Above, Read More
Mike Nichols’ Closer, from a screenplay by Patrick Marber and based on his play, transposes the theatrical version’s two British female leads, Natasha Richardson and Anna Friel, to onscreen Yanks Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman. This somehow diminishes the ethnic intensity of the four-scorpions-in-a-jar plot involving criss-crossing coupling in a London still swinging as feverishly Read More
Who are the 2004 Media Mensches of the Year?
Just a couple of showbiz big shots, Mike Nichols and Tony Kushner, who stuck to their guns and created an epic merger of comedy, tragedy, history and conscience that gave no ground, that gave America a cumulation of the best this city has to offer in Read More
Normal service is interrupted this week by a momentous event.
Far be it from me to embrace theater’s mortal enemy-television-but this is different. On Dec. 7, HBO airs the first three-hour installment of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America , and Part II follows a week later. It’s a bold and magnificent achievement that deserves Read More
Is that the sound of a hot rod peeling out of a suburban driveway again? The opening strains of Billy Joel’s 1977 single “Movin’ Out” are surely dancing in the heads of East End brokers, who once again have one of the crooner’s properties to sell-even though this one won’t be a record breaker.
The Read More
You might think of Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols as a power couple with everything: She’s the co-anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America , and his signature movie has been recycled as a play starring Kathleen Turner on Broadway.
But, apparently, there was something missing: a power apartment with a terrace overlooking Central Park.
If I had to choose a favorite Chekhov play, it would be The Seagull . Who can resist a play about
theater and love? And here we have one about a famous actress and an aspiring
actress mirrored by a famous writer and an aspiring writer. What could be
better-or more deceptive-than a Chekhov drama Read More
Mike Nichols’ What Planet Are You From? , from a screenplay by Garry Shandling, Michael Leeson, Ed Solomon and Peter Tolan, based on a story by Mr. Shandling and Mr. Leeson, fails to get enough laughs to justify the miscasting of Mr. Shandling as an alien sent earthward to impregnate a woman as the first Read More
Upper West Side
NICHOLS AND SAWYER LOSE CENTRAL PARK WEST PENTHOUSE TO ANOTHER BUYER. Despite their stalwart attempts to buy Calvin Klein’s penthouse at 55 Central Park West, Mike Nichols and Diane Sawyer have officially lost their $8.5 million deal, according to real estate sources. In late January, the building’s co-op board approved Steve Gottlieb, Read More
