The movie “Submarine,” out June 3, is labeled a “today” film. It’s about a 15-year-old losing virginity, saving his parents’ marriage, worrying Mom’s cheating with a New Age coach, monitoring their sex life, forging Dad’s suggestive love letters plus, to add color, a pyromaniac suffering from eczema.
Says its executive producer Ben Stiller: “I’ve had a production company 13 years. I’m the producer of Jesse Eisenberg‘s summer action comedy, ’30 Minutes or Less.’ And I produced Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black‘s fall movie ‘The Big Year,’ about who spots the most birds. And please don’t say, ‘Ohhh, another movie about bird-watching.’ ”
He’s in it? “No.” He’s in “Submarine”? Really no. “A tiny role. I don’t even have lines.”
He is in Broadway’s “The House of Blue Leaves.” “I was obsessed about playing piano onstage because I’ve never played piano. We rarely go out afterwards, except Saturdays because there’s no performance next day. Other than that, life is normal. My wife helps with the kids, and I sometimes take them to school.
“Moving permanently from California is wonderful. We love it here. Everyone’s great. It’s reality. People in the street. I’m a New Yorker. I want my kids to have this real environment. LA is isolating.”
Ben then talked to “The Squid and the Whale” writer/director Noah Baumbach, recently split from wife Jennifer Jason Leigh, who said: “Ben and I made ‘Greenberg’ together.”
And Baumbach’s next film?
” ‘While We’re Young.’ About a 20-something and a 40-something couple. Ben’s the 40ish guy. We’ll shoot in Brooklyn where I lived — Cobble Hill, Bushwick, Greenpoint. My inspiration is to revisit those neighborhoods. It’s not my journey. It’s contemporary. Inspired by realization that I’m no longer the youngest in a room. I won’t say ‘midlife crisis,’ but there’s a gradual sinking feeling that I’m 41.
“Took over a year to write and then, of course, I need my wine so I can’t do a film more often than every two years.”
Reared in Brooklyn, films in Brooklyn, is nostalgic about Brooklyn. Where’s he live?
“Manhattan.”
As the screening began, Ben Stiller and Noah Baumbach split for dinner.
MICHELLE Paterson to sightsee Thailand with two girlfriends. . . . Brooke Shields‘ mom, Teri, in assisted living . . . Emma Watson, a star since age 9, admits to too much freedom as a child . . . Leighton Meester says Gwyneth Paltrow told her dirty jokes . . . Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 horror movie “The Birds” getting rehatched with Naomi Watts . . . Egypt’s Omar Sharif asking pals: “So now who’s going to run the country?” . . . On losing all that weight Kelly Osbourne, so skinny doctors don’t X-ray her, they just hold her up to a lightbulb: “Some days I didn’t eat anything at all.”
BILLY Stritch, opening tomorrow through July 3 in “The Best Is Yet To Come: The Music of Cy Coleman” at 59E59: “Sexy, New York sophisticated. Similar to ‘Catch Me If You Can.’ Swing elements, ’60s jazz. Sinatra and Mel Tormé sounds. The set’s a ’60s nightclub scene.
“Great cast includes Rachel York. I’m pianist and musical director, and our full band’s crammed onto the small stage. It’s a new revue. Song to song. No dialogue. No book. Just his hits like ‘Hey, Look Me Over,’ ‘Big Spender,’ ‘Witchcraft,’ ‘If My Friends Could See Me Now.’ His shows included ‘Sweet Charity,’ ‘The Will Rogers Follies,’ ‘Barnum,’ ‘City of Angels.’ ”
Billy knew Cy, who left us in 2004, 20 years. Widow Shelby, who’ll be there opening night was once asked “So what do you do?” Shelby answered: “I take care of Cy.”
LIZA Minnelli to do a European concert tour . . . Kristen Wiig‘s hit “Bridesmaids” is first screenplay she’s ever written . . . Calling himself simple, Gingrich ran up Tiffany’s $500,000 tab, made himself a jerk on TV last week, dumped his cancer-stricken wife for a blonde he diddled then married. Anyone realize “Newt” means “nothing”? . . . James Dean’s “Rebel Without a Cause” auctioned tweed jacket brought $63,250.
FOURTH incarnation of the Copa, to be in the West 40s Theater District, opens June 21 with Alex Garcia, Calle Ocho’s famous Cuban chef, running their restaurant . . . With once hotshot NBC/Universal names going poop one by one — Ben Silverman, Jeff Zucker, Dick Ebersol — mouths are opening to wonder is CEO Ron Meyer next . . . Pay attention: You know you’re snoring too loud when American Airlines won’t fly over your house because you’re disturbing their passengers.
DR. Joyce Brothers told me New York’s worst lovers are doctors because they know it all. Also CEOs because they’re busy telling you what to do. Now a hotel doorman says the worst tippers are — ready? Doctors. Also celebrities because “they feel they’re doing you a favor when they ask you to hail a cab.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.