Bana.

A Western-style outlaw flick all dressed up like a contemporary thriller and set in a blizzard in the Upper Peninsula of northern Michigan, Deadfall is an above-average genre piece with a terrific cast that builds to a bloody Thanksgiving dinner shoot-out I found pretty close to unforgettable. Addison (Australian hunk Eric Bana) and his femme fatale sister Liza (the alluring Olivia Wilde), both trimmer and more camera-ready than usual, are a sibling heist team, sliding along a snowy country road in a car full of cash from a casino robbery gone terribly wrong. After a tremendous crash totals their car and leaves them stranded on foot in the snowy wilderness with a lethal storm beginning to swirl around them, they embark on a killing spree on their way to the Canadian border, beginning with the state trooper who arrives at the scene of the accident. Splitting up to make faster time, it is clear from their sexy, incestuous goodbye looks that there is more to their relationship than conventional sibling revelry.

At the same time, a troubled former Olympic boxer named Jay (Charlie Hunnam) is being released from prison in Detroit and heading home to spend the Thanksgiving holidays at the welcoming farmhouse of his loving apple-pie mother, June (Sissy Spacek), and resentful, unforgiving father, Chet (Kris Kristofferson), a former sheriff. Through a twist of fate, Jay and Liza meet in the storm and spend a hot night together in a motel that leaves Liza confused. Maybe this incestuous business with her brother Addison is not what it’s cracked up to be. Anyway, they somehow make it, battered and battling hypothermia, to Jay’s parents’ farm while Addison’s crime spree in the snow makes for some beautiful red-on-white cinematography. His encounter with a hillbilly abusing his family in a country cabin begins to test credibility, as the film intercuts awkwardly with flashbacks to similar childhood tortures in Alabama that provide clues to Addison and Liza’s incest. Things reach a fever pitch when everyone converges on the rural utopia of the farmhouse, replete with student lamps and wooden beams and Sissy Spacek baking pumpkin pies, where they are joined by family friend Sheriff Becker (Treat Williams), who is unaware that the killer is inside and has taken hostages, including Becker’s own deputy Hanna (Kate Mara), who also happens to be his daughter. Suspense grows as the manhunt for the casino killers intensifies and the sexual tensions throb. It all builds to a violent climax as unexpected as it is breathtaking.

The director is Austria’s Stefan Ruzowitzky, whose acclaimed film The Counterfeiters won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2008. The way he balances the moody ambience of a snowbound country town with the emotional twists of the dangerous psychos who invade it is thrilling. The camera work is as beautiful as it is terrifying, with Quebec standing in for northern Michigan in the dead of winter. And the performances are resourceful, superbly etched and expertly nuanced. Eric Bana is at his riveting best—a glamorous, screwed-up wacko capable of blood-curdling horror and shocking tenderness. In the overproduced, over-hyped landslide of year-end releases, it may not get the attention it deserves, but if it’s a slick, hair-raising alternative to the usual bland holiday fare you crave, look no further than Deadfall.

DEADFALL

Running Time 94 minutes

Written by Zach Dean

Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky

Starring Eric Bana,
Olivia Wilde and
Charlie Hunnam

rreed@observer.com

Amber Tamblyn and David Cross.

– Lindsay Lohan and her mom got into a limo fight on Long Island that was so bad the cops needed to be called. Which means it must have been really bad, because limo fights on Long Island is like traffic on the FDR: pretty routine on the weekdays.

– Amber Tamblyn and David Cross got married, and if that thought doesn't creep you out, you should check out their adorable Instagrammed wedding photos from the upstate ceremony.

– Samantha Geimer, the woman who at 13 was at the center of Polanski rape scandal, is now writing a tell-all book. That will not be making Lena Dunham money, even.

– Did you ever want to know what sex with Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis was like? Okay, it's like having sex with Kenyan marathon runners. How delightful!

– Monica Lewinsky is just out and about these days, eating cake in the rain.

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.

Ralph Lauren’s richness of an España that is long gone these days was le look du jour in New York.

There is something organized and memorable about the last day of fashion week. Despite the grueling pace, late nights, early mornings and simply divine personalities we endure, there is an orderly sense of energy at the Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein Collection shows. Publicists are graceful and polite, photo check-in is straightforward, seating disasters are delicately avoided and celebs are accessible, or, if not, polite about it.

Such was the case yesterday morning in West Soho when Mr. Lauren held his 80th runway presentation. His front row of stars dressed in his premium line included Jessica Alba, Olivia Wilde and most of the members of the Ralph Lauren Royal Family.

For spring 2013, Mr. Lauren progressed from something South American to ornate looks that were undeniably Catalan and Castilian, with tomato suede jackets, amethyst silk marocaine trousers, cotton ruffle shirting in white and beautiful scarlet dresses. There were black calf woven totes and hats. The styling seemed a bit overwrought, but the majority of this overload was eliminated when the evening wear flowed in.

Incredible brocade and beaded boleros influenced by los toreros of Spain, black double-faced wool jackets and dresses, a stunning, full-length beaded tulle skirt, and scarlet dresses with embroidery and beading. It was wearable and eternally elegant.

Once we had caught our breath from all that beauty, The Observer beelined it to U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte.

“You’ve been to quite a lot of fashion shows and events this week, what are some of your highlights?” The Observer wanted to know.

“You know what? This right here. I love dressing in Ralph Lauren. It’s just amazing, it fits perfect,” replied Mr. Lochte.

Yes, yes we all love a wardrobe chock full of Ralph Lauren, Mr. Lochte, we’re wearing some ourselves for god's sake! Nevertheless, Mr. Lochte refused to move off-script despite our uninterested posture and facial expresses.

Connor Dwyer and Ryan Lochte

“No other better way to end fashion week with this show,” he continued in his monotone jock voice.

Moving on, we asked the decorated Olympic swimmer if he planned to carry the party on to London, Milan or Paris. He commented that his favorite event was the Us Weekly party.

“Have you got the Fashion Week fever?” we asked. " Will you be going to shows in Paris?"

“You know what? If they asked me to, I’d be more than happy to. I’m getting back into the water next week to train.”

“How has your life changed or your daily regimen after the stardom?” The Observer questioned.

“No it really hasn’t, ’cuz I always have time to find the swimming and workout and change. Nothing has really changed except going to shows all the time,” he huffed, as if it were a chore.

“What would you change about Fashion Week?” we wanted to know, catering to his runway fatigue.

“That there are so many opportunities to see great designers that you can’t really go to everything. You really have to pick and choose.”

Mr. Lochte's all-American sizzle and brawny physique, while a brilliant match for the Ralph Lauren brand, didn’t quite light our fire. Drowning in his pool of mundanity, we elected to approach someone a bit more engaging; we headed toward Vogue’s André Leon Talley, who lingered long after Anna Wintour, Grace Codington, Hamish Bowles, etc. had slithered for the exit of Skylight Studios.

“You looked entranced during the show; what’s so intriguing about him still, even after all these years?” we asked.

“He is a master! This was a tour de force. This show was a virtuoso tour de force,” proclaimed the extravagant editor, replete in his muumuu and couture platinum/gold chain necklace with hanging bone horn. “You can take Spain and you can absolutely sink the theme. The theme never sunk into a disaster because of the details and the workmanship."

Jackpot! Mr. Lochte had sunk our ship, but ATL was keeping us afloat!

“The attitude was modern, but the romance was Spain. But just a hint of it.

Team Vogue, with Mr. Leon Talley on the far left.

"Mr. Lauren is not saying you have to go out of the house in a dress like that. But he’s saying you have to [have a] dash of romanticism in your wardrobe. You have to have that new shoe that looks so marvelous with raffia. Or you just might want to have that perfect double-breasted suit in white.”

Mr. Leon Talley spoke the truth about Mr. Lauren’s heightened excellence in design, construction and materials. “For me it was a couture show. It was like an haute couture show in New York, which is rare.”

Truth be told, we’ll trust ATL for the Fashion Week critique and commentary and keep Mr. Lochte safely at bay underwater.

Handlebar and all, Axl Rose preaches the rock gospel. (Paul Bruinooge/ PatrickMcMullan)

In celebration of the long desired end of Fashion Week, DeLeon Tequila and Nur Khan hosted what would be the last of their fabled Electric Sessions last night at the Hiro Ballroom (which, for the record, is still open) with Guns n’ Roses.

The Observer plays the waiting game.

• Doors at 9 p.m., we pop in around 10:30 hoping to dodge most of the wait for what was rumored to be an 11 p.m. start time. Seems like a decent idea, right?
• 11:15 hits and we bump into a few friends who had just left the temporary palatial penthouse home of Axl Rose at The SoHo Grand Hotel: “Yeah man, we were just over there and literally 10 minutes ago they ordered a ton of room service.” This did not bode well for a packed house hungry for high school rock.
• We spot a glowing Sienna Miller holding court with boyfriend and baby daddy Tom Sturridge, and can’t help but think that dude should lock it down.
• Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis host an impeccably attractive table in the slightly grungy Hiro.
• Even Jared Leto seemed a bit confused as to where the rock band was hiding.
• Checking in with Tyler Winklevoss. We both immediately realize how bratty we feel when we grumble about waiting around for a free GnR show.
• Wanting to get the real school, we shoot Nur a text, who is quick to inform The Observer that Axl is in fact slated to go on at 12:15, and relief washes over us like an awesome wave.

Damon and a homeless dude people were freaking out about. (Paul Bruinooge/ PatrickMcMullan)

A bit more mulling about, and we see Nur take the stage.

• “Yo, shit, that’s Nur dude! They’re totally about to come on!” remarks a hyper observant party-goer.
• In the corner of our eye we spot Justin Timberlake and Matt Damon stopping to strike a pose in front of the camera. Both card-carrying members of the way-more-famous-than-you club.
• Ok, wait. Something’s happening – the lights are dimming, cigarettes ritualistically lighting up, the slow rolling “unnnghhhhhhhhhh” of a bass guitar being flicked on.
• There he is. Axl Rose himself. Handlebar moustache in full effect: “How are you tonight, fucktards!?!” he asks politely before launching into his first song, ‘You’re Crazy.’
• We notice a tweet from a colleague a few hordes of people away: “Holy shit, Axl Rose still has it.” And he did, in fact, still have it.
• Warm up out of the way, Axl takes the microphone to his lips, stares deep into each and everyone’s soul, and posits the question: “Do you know where you are?” We were in the jungle, baby.

Ms. Mulligan, Ms. Williams, Ms. Dunst.

“Wow, this is it, this view, New York City!” Michael Fassbender said after opening the door to the roof of the Standard, where the glass buildings lining the West Side bound forth from the meatpacking district toward midtown.

It was Friday night, and The Observer had just watched the New York Film Festival’s screening of Shame, a sexually violent fantasia in which Mr. Fassbender beds scores of random women in every dirty corner of Manhattan—including a few times against the floor-to-ceiling windows in the rooms of the hotel we were standing atop.

What better venue for the after party?

“This hotel …” the actor said. “I was staying in the rooms, once, and was told, ‘Beware! People can see inside.’”

Mr. Fassbender lit a cigarette and sat down at the table next to three of his oldest friends—buddies from his youth in County Kerry, Ireland. He had insisted on a roundtable conversation.

“How much of the sex was real?” we asked.

Here’s some context: Shame’s tamer scenes, which conceal nothing from the camera, find Mr. Fassbender engaging in sex under the Williamsburg Bridge, sex with prostitutes, sex with random men in a cavernous clubs, and of course sex in rooms at the Standard, for the entertainment of pedestrians on Little West 12th. (Don’t worry—things get wild toward the end.)

“Um, next question,” Mr. Fassbender said. “Now you gotta ask my mates one!”

“What was it like watching your buddy have more sex than you can ever imagine?” we asked.

“Unfortunately I haven’t yet seen his crown jewels!” one of them said. “I haven’t seen the film.”

“It’s really something,” The Observer responded.

“What is?” Mr. Fassbender asked, taking a last drag. “My crown jewels?”

“Well, I meant the film is really something,” we stuttered. “But, yeah, I have seen them now, I guess.”

“But I haven’t seen yours!” he shot back.

Mr. Fassbender downed his martini—his character, Brandon, was fond of the same cocktail, we remembered—and revealed that he hadn’t been with these guys, his closest friends, since 2001.

“We needed a significant break after we had a go at it,” said one of the friends.

Then they all started chiming in.

“We can only see each other every 10 years.

“I just got over it.”

“The shaking just stopped.”

“But we did a road trip together!” Mr. Fassbender interrupted. “And we were gonna call Marco’s ass up in Italy. Why didn’t we do that?”

“Because we were constantly drunk and we had the memory of a fucking goldfish!”

“Ah, that’s right.”

Steve McQueen, the film’s director, chose the Boom Boom Room for the film’s centerpiece scene, in which Carey Mulligan, playing Mr. Fassbender’s chanteuse little sister, sings “New York, New York” as the camera refuses to waver from her mascara-heavy eyelids.

“A lot of New Yorkers live in the sky, work in the sky, spend their time in the sky,” Mr. McQueen had noted during the postscreening Q&A. And when we spoke with him at the Boom Boom Room, it was up against the glass, with the docks and piers dangling out below us.

“This is the first time I’ve been back since we shot here …” he said. His eyes wandered downward. “The view, the expanse of water!”

After another drink next to a table where Olivia Wilde sat with Zoe Kazan, it was time to go. The cast cleared out too: this was just a small respite from the go-go of anyone involved in the New York Film Festival, where the fall’s slew of Oscar-bait pictures make their first impressions on filmgoers.

Two days later, another bash was underway at the Hudson Hotel in honor of Michelle Williams, who plays the blonde bombshell of the title in My Week With Marilyn.

“Does she pull off Marilyn Monroe?” Harvey Weinstein was asked. He was standing next to an enormous tin water pitcher that decorated the hotel terrace. “Well, see the film, then let me know. Me? Oh, I think she definitely pulls it off.”

Ms. Williams was herself at the party, but at Alice Tully Hall later that night she was Ms. Monroe—My Week With Marilyn is, after all, a film with actors playing actors. As we sat down for the screening, buzzed on a Negroni impetuously purchased from a Lincoln Center lobby cocktail cart, Ms. Williams-as-Marilyn began dancing on the screen-within-a-screen, as Kenneth Branagh’s Laurence Olivier sat in his own theater puffing on cigarette after cigarette. If only!

And all of this after our festival began with the earth caroming into a much larger planet in a deafening bonanza of fire—twice, actually—in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, which premiered last Monday. It’s a glorious dismantling of terrestrial cores and emotional cores, an expansive vision set to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

And it wasn’t even the only end of the world going on. Abel Ferrara’s 4:44 Last Day On Earth, which also premiered at the festival, ends as you’d expect, and takes place on the Lower East Side. Oddly, on our way to My Week With Marilyn, we witnessed a plane etching the words “LAST CHANCE” across the sky.

Yet, despite Melancholia’s global destruction, the cast managed to make it to the Stone Rose Lounge for the after-party. (Mr. Von Trier, who infamously referred to himself as a Nazi when the film opened in Cannes, didn’t make the trip—then again, he’s never been to the United States.)

“I would definitely be with my family for sure,” Alexander Skarsgard, who plays Kirsten Dunst’s doltish (and doomed!) new husband, said to The Observer of his doomsday plans. “Where else would you want to be?”

“I don’t know, man” Ms. Dunst said to us. “I’d hopefully be with my family. It would be nice to be in the forest somewhere, chilling out. It’s such an awful thing to think about. What would you do?”

We told her we’d probably try to have a last night of fun.

First though, there were trays of truffle grilled cheese bites to eat, and DeLeon Tequila apple cocktails to down. The end would have to wait a little longer.

nfreeman@observer.com

Ford and Craig.

Cowboys & Aliens is one of the silliest movies ever made, but so many otherwise serious people have attached their names to it that, as Arthur Miller wrote in Death of a Salesman, attention must be paid. Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard are among the tangle of producers whose credits stretch from here to the next millennium, the idiotic screenplay boasts no fewer than five writers, and although I cannot imagine this farcical fusion of two separate film genres (science fiction and the Western) appealing to anyone over the age of 12, the two marquee lures at the top of the cast list are not exactly part of the bubble gum brigade. So with all the elements in place, another in a long line of cinematic comic books could be a surprise hit as it reaches its target audience, right up there next to the abysmal Captain America. Never underestimate the desperation of summer moviegoers to escape reality no matter how much they trash their I.Q.’s. They’ll do anything to get out of a heat wave.

Too bad Mr. Spielberg didn’t also direct, instead of Jon Favreau, a terrible TV actor (Robot Chicken) who has somehow morphed into helming third-rate movies (Iron Man). He doesn’t show a single shred of originality as he piles on the clichés in a parody of everything from The Big Country to It Came from Outer Space, but the one Cowboys & Aliens owes the most to is the low-budget and forgotten The Dead and the Damned, in which a meteor lands in the middle of the California Gold Rush and turns everyone into zombies. The result here is equally hilarious, but Cowboys & Aliens works best when it plays it straight (an idea of Harrison Ford’s) instead of campy. And so, from time to time, it actually holds one’s attention between the episodes of violence and carnage.

One morning in the 1870s, Daniel Craig wakes up with amnesia in the desert near Absolution, Ariz. (played by New Mexico), wearing a strange metal bracelet attached to his wrist that looks like unisex jewelry at the Newport Beach art show. He has no memory of who he is or where he came from. He’s filthy, splattered with blood and barefoot, but with a great haircut. Riding alone into town like Shane, he quickly attracts the attention of a vicious, ruthless cattle baron named Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), his maniacal son (hysterically overacted by the pickle-faced Paul Dano), a comely barfly named Ella (Olivia Wilde), an honest but outnumbered sheriff (Keith Carradine), a well-meaning preacher (Clancy Brown), a nervous, nerdy saloon keeper who needs a Valium (Sam Rockwell) and an Indian cowhand (Adam Beach).

When the Unknown Man is suddenly recognized as the face on the wanted poster in the local jail—a feared stagecoach robber named Jake Lonergan—the sheriff makes plans to cart him off to the federal marshal. But this is a Western, see, so Shane doesn’t die. Thirty minutes into what looks like a routine sagebrush saga, the shackle on Mr. Craig’s arm lights up, a space ship blows up the town, and a monster from another planet abducts half the citizens, including the colonel’s rabid son, Percy. (A homicidal maniac named Percy? These are the laughs, kids.) Mr. Ford and Mr. Craig have no choice but to pool their two-fisted talents in a rescue mission, form a posse and track the monster to a canyon of death. The rest of the movie is John Ford meets The Twilight Zone. Oh, did I forget to mention the Apaches? It wouldn’t be a Western without the Indians. They join the fray too—but what good is a tomahawk against $50 million of computer-generated special effects designed by George Lucas? The penultimate showdown, between the alien invaders and the Roy Rogers boots, spurs, arrows and six-guns, is noisy but less thrilling than expected. Still, the movie aims for nothing but entertainment, and I must admit it’s fun watching two grizzled roughnecks go at it like they were doing something meaningful and important.

What, in the final analysis, is it all about? It seems the extraterrestrial creatures, who seem to know a lot about the stock market, are looking for gold. In the funniest line in the picture, Harrison Ford wrinkles his face of solid granite and snarls: “Well, that is ridiculous! What are they going to do—buy something?”

rreed@observer.com

COWBOYS & ALIENS

Running time 118 minutes

Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby

Directed by Jon Favreau

Starring Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Paul Dano and Olivia Wilde

2/4

Wait. What happened Monday at the party for the premiere of The Hangover Part II?

Things began innocently enough, at a dive bar across the street where the girls wear U.S.A. bikinis, heckle customers with a megaphone and blast country music from beaten-in speakers that seem stolen from a football tailgate.

"It's gonna be a wild night, mate," said a writer for the New York Post, who was The Observer's wingman for the occasion.

They lifted beers, fully aware of the parallels with the film being feted that evening, and clinked glasses. The pregame spot was Hogs & Heifers, the last vestige of dirt and crass in the meatpacking district. Yes, the two had decided, a heaping of taxidermy and J. Geils Band is exactly the fix before zooming up sixteen stories to the Boom Boom Room.

The two places complement each other. The Standard's marquee lounge feigns not an ounce of modesty, with its big splashy gilded buttresses exploding from the bar. The Boom Boom Room has the cathedral church organ of bars, and the elevator features an installation by the Italian artist Marco Brambilla.

Hogs & Heifers says fuck your art installation. Hogs & Heifers says, "We have a terrifying bundle of old dirty bras amassed above shelves of gut-rotting liquor, that's our cathedral church organ."

With Mars Bar and Max Fish set to spill their last drinks, it's a wonder that a place as corrosive and vile and deliriously fun has managed to hold its ground--in the meatpacking, no less! It's gloriously filthy. If you're wearing a tie they make you take it off at the door. There's a jukebox that must be broken; don't go unless you're looking for the kind of night that involves listening to "Mustang Sally" many, many times.

One of the bartenders, clad in a red,  white and blue bra, started screaming into an enormous megaphone at three girls standing near a stuffed deer, taking pictures.

"If you've got them flashes going off, from three girls dressed like y'all on a Monday night, you'd better be dancing on the bar when they're going off," she yelled through the speaker.

The three girls let out a Woooo! thinking the mic-toting bartendress was kidding. She wasn't. So with beers knocked back, The Observer walked across the street to the Standard, where Zach Braff and Mr. Helms rode up the elevator, but didn't bother to glance at the blobs and squiggles of Mr. Brambilla's installation.

The Observer kept the champagne steady, plucked pint-size croque monsieur sandwiches, and chatted with guests about a topic we would find amusing in the morning.

"Have you ever drank so much you blacked out?" The Observer asked James Van Der Beek.

"I've had fuzzy memories," he admitted. "But I always end up being a pretty responsible drunk."

Small-screen chef Bobby Flay sat beside one of the panoramic windows.

"Have I ever blacked out? I don't remember! It's definitely possible. I'm sure it's happened..."

"I was told I commandeered a luggage cart from a hotel lobby in Washington, D.C., and rode it down a city street," the buttoned-up Ed Helms told The Observer. "I have no recollection of it."

And you, Ms. Palermo, have you ever drank so much you blacked out?

"Oh, um, no, I'm sorry."

Todd Phillips, the film's director, was in an accelerated program at the school of not remembering.

"I was 11 years old and I drank a case of wine coolers with my friend, like 12 of them," he said. "I think it was Bartles & Jaymes. We might have slept together, I don't even remember."

Mr. Galifinakis, who arrived late and stayed ensconced in that roped lounge, seemed dazed by the bright and noisy Boom Boom Room. It was no Hogs & Heifers.

"I haven't been there in a long, long time," he said to The Observer. "Right down here, right?"

There was talk about maybe heading there afterward. He said perhaps. And, to make up for whatever did or didn't happen at the Standard, The Observer just imagined they ended up back at Hogs & Heifers, where he had started hours before, heckled by bartenders in swimsuits.

nfreeman@observer.com

Hollywood's finest rabble-rousers gathered with Brooklyn's haute-hipster crowd at Soho House to watch the premiere of Sun City Picture House, the inspiring documentary of the building of the first movie theater in Haiti since the devastating earthquake of 2010. The film debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival as part of the Shorts: One for All series with a favorable response, and what better way to celebrate such success than with a few drinks?

Cut to the Bulgari and Vanity Fair after-party at the Soho House library, where the party was already in full swing by the time The Observer arrived. DJ Bouji spun tunes such as the Bangles, Violent Femmes, Mad Con and the Police in the dimly lit room. Guests ate mini cheese flat breads with duck pate and drank copious amounts of Champagne in the ever-crowded bar. The library was accessorized with photos from Haiti during the building of the theater, and the Bryn Mooser and David Darg film played on a continuous loop that partygoers watched over and over as they spoke about the film. Co-hosts Olivia Wilde and Paul Haggis worked the room, chatting with guests such as Samantha Mathis, Justin Long and Kelly Bensimon. Ms. Wilde, newly separated from her husband, filmmaker Prince Tao Ruspoli, sported a new fringe and wore a black floor-length A.L.C. dress as she stood on a glass table toasting the picture. "I'm so proud to be a producer of Sun City Picture House," Ms. Wilde said. "From its conception, I wanted to be a part of it." Ms. Wilde, daughter of veteran producers Leslie and Andrew Cockburn, has admitted in the past that her family background has given her a "strong journalistic streak."

She shortly turned the mike over to Mr. Mooser, who quipped, "I'll take the chair just because I'm scared of that table."

The film, which follows a young Haitian man's quest to complete the theater in only four days, is a testament to the Haitian will to survive, as well as the power of film.

"The big, important thing was to say, 'We want to build you a community center that also works as a school and is also a movie theater, and we're gonna do it and do it really fast, like totally gonzo style,'" said Mr. Mooser, a musician and artist who was once engaged to actress Maria Bello.

"Bryn and I were both involved in the construction of the theater and the production of the movie," said Mr. Darg, Mr. Mooser's partner in filming. "The whole film was made in the evenings after long days of doing relief work."

Turning the tables on the filmmakers, we asked, what are their favorite films?

"I really love The Thin Red Line, a Terrence Malick movie," Mr. Mooser said.

"It's like the most beautiful movie that's ever been made in the history of mankind," Mr. Mooser continued. He then became thoughtful and said, "But really, it's really quiet and beautiful and extraordinary, so that movie inspires me."

"Trains, Planes and Automobiles is my favorite film of all time," Mr. Darg said. "Not one of the cinematic greats, but still."

Looking to modify his answer, Mr. Darg turned to his wife, Naomi, for assistance.

"What's my favorite movie?" he asked.

"Oh, Trains, Planes and Automobiles. It depicts his life."

"David is always showing movies, he carries a projector with him," said Operation Blessing International's president, Bill Horan. "I've seen him project cartoons on tent walls in Darfur, and the kids always go crazy."

Other partygoers volunteered, free of shame, old favorites as their favorite movie.

"My automatic response is a movie I loved as a child," said Mr. Mooser's girlfriend, actress Dawn Olivieri. "I always say I've never rented a movie this many times in a row so I have to say it's my favorite movie-it's this animated movie called The Last Unicorn. I was in love with this movie."

Mr. Haggis, despite being an Oscar-winning filmmaker for Crash and Million Dollar Baby, declined to play the game. "Oh, I don't do that because I'm always wrong."

Mr. Horan volunteered his favorite film, though, by his own admission, it dated him.

"Dr. Zhivago, but I'm an old man," Mr. Horan said with a laugh. Ben Stiller cut in to tell us how impressed he was with the work Mr. Horan and Operation Blessing has done.

At the end of the night, Mr. Mooser returned to The Observer to give us his card and make one more point: "In many ways, Tribeca is the perfect fit for Sun City Picture House, because this festival was built out of a disaster. It rose out of the ashes, and our movie theater grows out of those same ashes, you know?"

"It's an independent homage to Tron," Playboy chief content officer Jimmy Jellinek told the Observer. "We're tapping into a cultural phenomenon in our style." He confirmed that they haven't heard from Disney on the topic.

Phenomenon, indeed. Jellinek said it's one of their highest traffic web features ever. It probably doesn't hurt that the web-only pictorial (below) is outside their paywall. There is an interview with Tron Legacy star Olivia Wilde in the December issue as well, but she's not involved in the photoshoot.

It's not the first time in recent memory that Playboy has played into cultural touchstones from readers' pre-Playboy-buying life stages. Marge Simpson graced the cover in October 2009, although in that case the magazine collaborated with The Simpsons creators to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary. There was an episode pegged to the issue's release.

Jellinek hasn't even seen Disney's update Tron Legacy yet.

"I'm old, I like the original," he said.

Check out Ten Better-Than-The-Original Remakes.>>

kstoeffel [at] observer.com | @kstoeffel

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