On Broadway, the revival of Master Class stars Tyne Daly as Maria Callas, and she is simply brilliant. Although it is only the second show of the season, I predict she will receive a Tony nomination. Opening night attracted Marin Mazzie, Jason Danieley, Jennifer Morrison and Doris Roberts, among others.
Off Broadway, Manipulation is an interesting play about a married woman in Latin America, whose life is falling apart. Her husband is unfaithful, her mother urges her to take lovers and she does with tragic consequences. The opening night party at Sardi's was marvelous, and Norman Lear and Al Pacino went to see the play and loved it. MoLoRa is an unusual South African performance piece, based on the Oresteia Trilogy, with a chorus of the six women and one man of the Ngqoko Cultural Group, using indigenous instruments. The Judy Show: My life as a sitcom, starring Judy Gold ,is really a standup comedy act for 80 minutes, and is quite funny. Joy Behar was in the audience and B.D. Wong, Joy Franz and Judy's partner Elysa Halpern came to the opening night party at Big Daddy's.
The opening night party for Tryst took place at Jake's Saloon, and Charlotte Moore, Ciaran O'Reilly and David Staller were there to applaud the two member cast, Andrea Mauella, Mark Shanahan and director Joe Brancato.
For me, the new cast party with Alison Fraser, Anita Gillette, Aisha de Haas, Marla Maples and Zuzana Szadkowski, for Love, Loss, and What I Wore at B. Smith's restaurant, brought back many memories. I met Marla Maples eighteen months before the scandal broke out between Donald Trump and his wife Ivana in 1989. She was at a party at Hard Rock Cafe, and I photographed her with her date.
The photo remained on file at the New York Post. When the National Enquirer called me for the photo and sent me a plane ticket to bring it to them, I did not remember having taken it. I rushed to the Post, saw the black and white photo, found the negative at home and sent my late wife to Florida with the color negative. As no one had a photo of Marla at that time, it was sold to many papers and magazines around the world.
I made over $20,00 for a photo I didn't know I had taken.
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Those were the good old days. After that Marla and I became good friends, and it was a joy to see her daughter Tiffany and her mother Ann again. They all look wonderful.
The third party that same night was at the Empire Roof to celebrate The Addams Family's new cast member, Brooke Shields. Her co-star Roger Rees and all the rest of cast came to toast the beautiful star. It was a delightful party, and I managed to arrive home at midnight.
NEDs, by Peter Mullan, is another of six indie UK films in From Britain with Love June 11-July 9, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. It is a powerful story of a intelligent young boy in a Scottish town in 1972, trying to overcome his miserable life at home and the gang scene around him in primary and then high school. His entrance into one of the gangs results in disaster. It is a very impressive film.
The
New
York
Asian
Film
Festival
2011
continues
until
July
14.
Foxy
Festival,
by
Lee
Hae-Young,
South
Korea,
is a
funny,
sexy
film
about
a
neighborhood,
where
many
people
begin
to
behave
improperly,
engaging
in
their
fetishes,
which
the
police
try
unsuccessfully
to
control.
A
second
film,
BTS:
Better
Than
Sex,
by
Su
Chao-pin,
Taiwan,
is
about
a
teenager,
addicted
to
porn
magazines,
who
finally
grows
up
and
finds
true
love
with
a
classmate.
It
is
also
a
funny,
sexy
film.
As a
bonus,
the
director
was
present
for
a Q
& A
afterwards.
The
third
and
fourth
films
I
saw
were
from
Japan.
Both
were
serious
and
lacked
humor.
In The
Last
Days
of
the
World,
by
Eiji
Uchida,
an
aimless
teenager
hears
voices
that
tell
him
the
world
will
end.
He
leaves
his
unhappy
home
and
kidnaps
a
fellow
student,
and
takes
a
trip,
with
many
adventures,
ending
in
tragedy
for
the
young
couple.
Love
and
Loathing
and
Lulu
and
Ayano,
by
Hisayasu
Sato,
is
about
two
young
porn
stars
and
the
miserable
lives
they
lead.
The
two
actresses,
Norie
Yasui
and
Mayu
Sakuma
are
impressive
in
very
difficult
roles.
Judging
from
these
four
films,
it
pictures
modern
life
in
the
three
Asian
countries
as
gross
and
vulgar,
with
violence,
sex
addiction
without
love,
unhappy
family
life
and
children
without
goals.
It
is
rather
sad.
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