Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"At 'Inglourious Basterds' and Nine producer Harvey Weinstein's after-party at the Beverly Hilton, sponsored by Martini & Rossi, Basterds director Quentin Tarantino was chatty and upbeat although he didn't win for best picture or best screenplay. He held court with the movie's stars, Diane Kruger, Eli Roth, Melanie Laurent and Christoph Waltz, plus Kruger's boyfriend, Josuhua Jackson. Tarantino 'was in a really good mood,' says a witness. 'He was one of the last people to leave the party.' The cast of 'Nine,' on the other hand, was more fractured. While Kate Hudson, Fergie, Daniel Day-Lewis and director Rob Marshall hung out together in the VIP area, Nicole Kidman and husband Keith Urban spent most of the evening on the opposite side of the room. 'She did not appear to be enjoying herself,' says our witness. Beleaguered NBC also hosted a party in the hotel, although it was mostly devoid of stars. The Office star Steve Carell was a no-show, while co-star Jenna Fisher and Tina Fey of 30 Rock didn't stay long. Peacock boss Jeff Zucker -- under fire over the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien mess he made -- decided at the very last minute not to fly out for the Globes." (NYPost)



"Next Friday, Rachel Uchitel, the alleged Tiger Woods mistress at the center of the golfer’s scandal, plans a return to the world in which she was previously a mainstay: nightlife. The party girl, who for the past few years worked at various velvet rope spots in Manhattan, will host her 35th-birthday bash at a Palm Beach, Florida, club called PB 251, complete with 'special guests' and 'celebrity DJs.' It’s a role she was born to play. While thousands of articles have been written about Uchitel, whose media reticence has just generated more interest in her, largely omitted is the fact that nightlife is in her genes. Her grandfather, Maurice Uchitel, who died in 2000, owned New York’s legendary El Morocco nightclub and Miami Beach’s iconic Eden Roc hotel. It gets yet more colorful. I did some digging on Maurice during the past two years, in conjunction with my recently published book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach. From that investigation, and additional reporting since the Woods scandal broke, it seems that Maurice Uchitel was both friends and partners with some of the 20th century's great mobsters, and likely managed to avoid a contract hit that had been placed on his head, as well as his brother, Hy’s." (TheDailyBeast)



"WHAT: Haitian earthquake relief benefit with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross for Haiti relief and development... WHO: Co-hosts Mickey Boardman, Hunter Hill, Peter Davis ... Julia Restoin-Roitfeld ... Narciso Rodriguez, Chiara Clemente, Victor and Athena Calderone" (Papermag)

"CHARLIE ROSE: Here is the storyline. You took over as NBC entertainment head in 2000 after being very successful is as the executive producer of 'NBC News.' Things have gone downhill for NBC, and it’s now in shambles. What is it you want to say about that experience? JEFF ZUCKER: Well, I think that’s a little unfair to the fantastic folks who work at NBC, and the fact is NBC Entertainment has had a rough run the last five years. There’s no question about it. We haven’t done well enough. But I think the idea that the feathers on the NBC peacock are falling off is really not fair to the folks at 'NBC News' who continue to be just the best in the business in every respect, the folks at NBC Sports who continue to be the best in the business are four weeks away from bringing us the Vancouver Olympics, unfair to the folks at NBC Entertain who want are working hard bringing us great shows like 'The Office' and '30 Rock' and 'Saturday Night Live.' Having said that, we need to be straight that NBC entertainment in primetime over the last five years has not done well enough." (Charlie Rose)



"It's nice to see gallery openings still going on in Soho and especially shows of representational artists, a genre too often marginalized by the trendy and the 'what's the next thing?' syndrome. Founded by Eleanor Ettinger in 1975, the gallery is now run by her two daughters, Barbara Stevens and Frann Bradford, as well as Ms. Bradford's husband, James Umphlett. The present show features 11 contemporary artists and many of them were on hand for the opening. It is galleries such as this one that give a neighborhood like Soho its identity. Residents and visitors can only be grateful. The artists, too, have found a warm and welcoming home." (NYSocialDiary)

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