Everybody’s doing something:
Bob Balaban: “My next movie’s out Christmastime. ‘Monuments Men.’ It’s George Clooney’s. He directed, wrote, produced and stars in it.
“Great cast. Cate Blanchett, who’s right now in Woody Allen’s new movie, Jean Dujardin, who won the Oscar for that black-and-white silent film ‘The Artist,’ ‘Downton Abbey’s’ Hugh Bonneville, nominated this year for an Emmy, and John Goodman, Bill Murray and Matt Damon.
“The World War II drama’s based on a book about Allies saving valuable art before Hitler destroyed it. We shot in Potsdam and mostly around Berlin. Scenes with the military took a cast of thousands.”
Fotog in space
Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is into a book on UFOs.
“I’m documenting those who’ve seen visitors from Out There. Do I believe in outer space aliens? I never saw any. Maybe I experienced some little minor something . . . only . . . not sure. But the math proves something must exist besides us.
“There’s a community who share similar sights and happenings willing to say what they saw. One woman in a Brooklyn apartment, in her last trimester, saw three ‘little men with elephant skin.’ They told her, ‘Don’t be scared. We’re only interested in the baby you’re carrying.’
“Years ago science-fiction writer Whitley Strieber, who wrote the book ‘Communion’ about nonhuman entities, confided to me: ‘I must tell you what happened.’ Upstate New York, in his dark room, with a phone to his ear, he says he was abducted. And their technology appeared advanced. And there was a commonality in looks. And it was three of them.”
So far untitled, the book is due next summer.
Actress undead
More supernatural. Mary-Louise Parker — burbling she’s retiring — burbles to me about her new film: “Comes out later this year. It’s ‘R.I.P.D.’ The Rest in Peace Department. A supernatural thriller about undead cops of divine law chasing ghouls and spirits. In it, I’m dead but I owe someone something so I wear white and stay focused on what the character wore when she died.”
Yeah. Sure.
Jazzy musical coming
Director Warren Carlyle, up for an Emmy for Lincoln Center’s “Carousel,” award winner for shows like Hugh Jackman’s “Back on Broadway,” is back on Broadway. His “After Midnight” opens Nov. 3 at the Brooks Atkinson.
“It’s a retro ‘Cotton Club’ musical. Sexy, smoky glamour. Greatest jazz of that era. A band’s onstage. All black entertainers. Ninety minutes, no intermission. Wynton Marsalis is supervising, coaching the singers, sitting in on rehearsals. It’s all got his seal of approval.”
Carlyle, Brit-born, what’s he know from old-time jazz-time black-time New York of the ’30s?
“Nothing. I love research. I’ve gone through everything online, studied books, checked Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, the names from that era. We’ll use rotating stars beginning with Fantasia. It’ll be heart-pounding.”
Bye-bye Huma
Now, the Anthony Weiners. She took what she thought was a mayor. He picked what he knew was a Rolodex. A marriage made in sleaze. She’s “forgiven” him? Nice. We haven’t. Cocky repugnant Python Weiner isn’t getting a second chance. It’s his third chance.
As to the missus’ manic ambition. He’s in the fourth stage of narcissism — but do we want her either? Hillary need be slow cutting this adopted family member loose. Mrs. Weiner knows every secret. Anyone want anyone out there who’s that terminally ambitious and who could write a book? Watch . . . Slooooowwwwllly they’ll slooooowwwwllly cut her loose.
Reader Whit Whitlock: “If, for environmental reasons, our mayor had all New York’s yellow cabs painted green — could we still call them yellow cabs?”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.