On this day 16 years ago: The only good thing to come out of the tragic and illegal war in Iraq was that the Gray Lady hired me to help edit the influx of copy coming from the Middle East
Elijah's relationship with superfamous TV anchorman Dill is the most interesting thing about "Girls" these days. Read what Corey Stoll has to say about his compromising position HERE.
That's what IndieWire reports, anyway. (I also didn't realize Corey Stoll was gay, despite the mustache, but I did always suspect Jula Roberts was a man.)
Some fun David Sedaris news for you: Popnography reports that one of the writer's stories will be adapted for the big screen for the first time ever. Sedaris has long refused to have anything to do with the big screen because he wanted to protect his (often-written-about) family. But when director Kyle Patrick Alvarez approached him about turning the story of his experiences as an apple picker in Oregon -- chronicled in the essay "C.O.G." in the bestselling "Naked" -- into a film, the funnyman was on board. (Sedaris' family isn't mentioned.) "C.O.G." is slated to premiere at the 2013 Sundance Dramatic Competition and will star two openly gay actors, Denis O'Hare and Jonathan Groff, as well as sexy Corey Stoll, whose mustache dazzled audiences as Ernest Hemingway in "Midnight in Paris."
Only ended up seeing two movies during this past week's NewFest -- "Renee" and "The Green" -- but both were high on my list for the LGBT film festival, so I'm not complaining.
Eric Drath's "Renee," the long-overdue first documentary to ever tackle the complex life story of Renee Richards -- who, if you don't know, was a Yale-educated, skirt-chasing eye surgeon before undergoing sex reassignment surgery in 1975 and then becoming a professional player on the women's tennis circuit (in her 40s!) -- is a mesmerizing treasure trove for fans of tennis' late-'70s-early '80s heyday. (Are you ready to see Renee playing at the La Jolla tournament where she was "outed," including an interview with the woman she crushed in the final? Are you up for some serious Caroline Stoll footage?! And are you prepared for doubles with Betty Ann Stuart -- aka Taylor Dent's mom?!) But even if you're just now learning about Richards -- whose 1977 New York Supreme Court case that granted her the right to compete as a woman at the U.S. Open was a landmark ruling in trans rights -- you'll be equally captivated by a story that 35 years later doesn't even seem like it could have really happened. (It almost has that "All in the Family" factor to it, like it could happen then but wouldn't fly now.) I grew up watching the 1977 U.S. Open live from Forest Hills -- my first Grand Slam, and what a Slam it was with Tracy Austin, Wendy Turnbull and Renee!-- but when I saw her 6-foot-2 frame playing new Wimbledon champ Virginia Wade up on the big screen, it was still jaw-dropping. I went with two non-fanatics and they both loved every second of it.
One of the chief criticisms I've read about "Renee" is that Drath, who interviews Richards off-camera in a number of lengthy scenes, doesn't ever press her hard enough to really get inside the head or heart of his subject. But I would argue that that is unfair given who his subject was. After years of feeling like a circus sideshow -- something she naively thought would never happen to her as she believed she could become a "woman," not a "transwoman" -- Richards indeed has lots of walls up around her, and can you blame her? In 2007, she was famously misquoted as saying she "regrets" having had the surgery -- something that quickly became a cautionary tale for all transgenders -- when in fact she said that she regretted that there had been no other alternative to surgery -- "better to be an intact man functioning with 100 percent capacity for everything than to be a transsexual woman who is an imperfect woman” -- "but there wasn’t,” and she'd likely committed suicide because the draw to become female was so great. But for all of her intelligence, accomplishments and solipsism, she's always been surprisingly anemic in self-awareness -- as evidenced by many of her actions, like entering an amateur tennis tournament thinking she could pass as a "California housewife"(!) -- so it's from finally hearing from those closest to her and really seeing how it all played out with our own eyes -- something does Drath brilliantly with interviews with friends, family and colleagues from the world of medicine and tennis (John McEnroe, Virginia Wade, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King) plus loads of extremely rare footage of her days in the limelight -- that we are finally able to begin to know the real Renee, whose appearances on the "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" and countless television interviews belie her claims of being such a "private" person. (First there was Dick and Renee, now there is Private Renee and Exhibitionist Renee.)
While she comes across as thoughtful and sympathetic at times -- you really feel for her when you see the enormous guilt she carries about her druggy, deadbeat son, who seems to blame his dad for his problems one minute, then seems to have all the compassion in the world for what Dad must have gone through the next -- it's a bit jarring when you realize everything Renee fought for -- driven by the arrogant, alpha-male personality (which is brought up again and again by friends and colleagues) that still resided somewhere deep inside her -- was for Renee, a former white male, who was not used to being told she couldn't do something, rather than for a greater good. Perhaps that's not as uncommon of trailblazers as I think, and she's since been quoted as saying that it was all about her, but that if others wanted to come along for the ride, then fine. So it's not surprising that Renee has never really been a part of the subsequent transgender movement, not only because she never set out to be an activist, but because her views have changed 180 degrees since her days on the circuit, and she now disagrees with the International Olympic Committee that transgender athletes should be allowed to compete. This hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed, although her precedent-setting case was always confounded by the fact that she was, as Ilie Nastase so perfectly put it, old enough to be the other players' mother, so she was never a true "threat" to dominate the sport. She recognizes now that if she'd had her surgery at age 20, she may very well have taken over, and she doesn't think THAT would be fair, hence her view about today's (non-middle-age) athletes. (For her part, Renee told People magazine that the thing she "regrets" is fighting for the right to play instead of just going back to medicine and having some semblance of a private life. She also says she would never accept an invitation to speak to transgender youth because "it would be presumptuous of me to try to advise people.")
Canadian doubles: Director Eric Drath, Dr. Renee Richards and Virginia Wade
I doubt "Renee" will get a widespread release, but if you can't wait until ESPN gets around to showing it (they were backers), it's available on Tribeca On-Demand HERE. Anyone with an interest in LGBT history owes it to him/herself to learn about Renee Richards, the unwitting Harvey Milk of transgender rights.
On Sunday we caught a packed screening of "The Green" -- or, as it was known around the lobby, "the Cheyenne Jackson movie." Jackson actually rides shotgun to fellow Broadway star Jason Butler Harner, who plays a school teacher accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a male student. Jackson plays his caterer partner whose loyalties are tested when details of his man's past come to light.
Both men -- as well as a charming supporting cast of Julia Ormond (as the lawyer) and Illeana Douglas (as Harner's hilarious coworker/friend) -- give great performances in this uncomfortable story that drips of homophobia. (Oh, Mark Blum -- aka Gary Glass from "Desperately Seeking Susan" -- is in it, too! I hadn't seen him since an episode of "Roseanne.") The ending was a bit melodramatic for me -- too many bows tied around everything when life is almost always a present where the wrapping doesn't line up around the edges -- and the film had a cheap tint to it that I found a bit distracting. But all in all, it's worth checking out -- and despite what I heard in the lobby, it wouldn't just be for the Cheyenne Jackson factor (but it doesn't hurt!). For more information, click HERE.
In addition to seeing the utterly delightful "Hey, Boo: Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird" over the weekend, Michael and I also saw Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," and newcomer Kareem Mortimer's "Children of God." Woody's latest is getting rave reviews, but I don't supposed I'd have liked it any better even without the hype. Don't take that the wrong way -- it's fine, and certainly better than a lot of the crap he doled out in the 2000s. But as is often the case lately, it's a "fantasy," which kind of defeats the purpose of seeing a Woody Allen movie, as he used to produce the best films about real New Yorkers around. (Couldn't he have quit while he was ahead with "The Purple Rose of Cairo"?) The good news is, Owen Wilson is charmingly restrained in his role as a neurotic writer. Whether it was the director's doing or his proxy's -- more likely the latter, as Allen is famous for not giving directions when he "directs" -- at least we don't have to sit through two hours of someone else "doing" Woody Allen. And Kathy Bates and Cory Stoll are fun as Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway -- he even got to bring his mustache back -- so there are some charming moments where Wilson's character meets his idols and learns that even the Golden Age wasn't as golden as he thought. But ultimately, the film is all meringue and no lemon, and I barely remembered a thing about it by the time I got home. (I actually just added that part about the Golden Age as I just remembered it an hour after posting this!)
"Children of God," which we attended the premiere for at the Quad on Friday night, was far more memorable. Described by the New York Times as a "lush Bahamian romance" about "a skinny white boy from Nassau who falls for a buff black islander" that's "stalked by homophobia and religious hatred," "Children of God" has a important story -- violence against LGBT-ers in the Caribbean is rampant and deadly -- and huge performances by its cast. Johnny Ferro (Jonny), whom I'd describe more as "lean," Stephen T. Williams (Romeo), whose natural charm radiates off the screen, Margaret Laurena Kemp (Lena), who deftly handles the complex role of being the villain (as an anti-gay pastor's wife) as well as the victim (of course her pastor is a closet case, who brings STDs home instead of flowers), and Van Brown as Rev. Ritchie, as an open-minded pastor to whom Lena turns for comfort (you would too if you saw this guy!) take a fairly narrow story, and bring it to life, in a film about a topic that may be well-known for some news junkies, but a real eye-opener for many others. More information HERE.
Ferro & Mortimer -- not a law firm, but the leading man and his director!
Here are my new boyfriend Corey Stoll, Rachel McAdams, Woody Allen, Kathy Bates and Michael Sheen at the Cinema Society screening of "Midnight in Paris" at Tribeca Grand screening room last night in New York City. In Woody's latest, Stoll plays Ernest Hemingway and Bates plays Gertrude Stein, who come to life to offer Owen Wilson's troubled writer character some advice. I've heard the film's not great -- we all know Woody hasn't been Woody for nearly two decades -- but Stoll supposedly shines as the manly literary giant. If nothing else, he's great to look at.
No sooner had I gotten attached to "Law and Order: LA" star Corey Stoll did I read that the show had actually gone through a major upheaval earlier this month, with two characters from the DA's office resigning (Regina Hall and Megan Boone) and Corey's partner, played by Skeet Ulrich, getting murdered! Alfred Molina's character was also moved from the courtroom to being Stoll's partner, but the most shocking change to the show was the dismissal of Stoll's mustache. (I could only dream of achieving such manliness -- no wonder he named it "Poseidon"!) Have to admit, he's just as hot without it, but I'm not so sure a cop show can survive 'stacheless, reboot or no reboot.
After
With or without the mustache, Corey Stoll's still got the sexiest voice on television
Admittedly, I'm on a bit of a facial hair bender. But couldn't help notice this photo of "Law & Order: LA" star Corey Stoll. I'd never heard of him -- it looks like he's going to be in the new Woody Allen movie, "Midnight in Paris" -- but it seems the 35-year-old actor comes from a New York theater background (he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for "Intimate Apparel," opposite Viola Davis) and besides being rather handsome, has the sexiest voice on TV. Have a listen and let me know what you think:
I just read Renee Richards' new book, "No Way Renee: The Second Half of My Notorious Life." As you may recall, I fell in love with tennis during the summer of '77 -- aka the summer of Renee Richards. Although I shared none of her gender confusion, there was something inherently fascinating about her to me even as a child. Looking back I think I was attracted to her because I was so confused about my sexuality, yet she was able to put who she was on display for the whole world.
A couple of years later I got to see her on a practice court at the Avon Championships of Detroit. Later while watching a match I noticed her sitting in the players' box so I went down to get her autograph. It was in the middle of a point, so Renee politely but firmly pushed me down in the chair next to her as to not be distracting. I stayed for the duration of the game and I remember just staring into her eyes hoping that somehow she would know exactly what I was going through. In reality she just signed my trusty autograph book and sent me on my way. (Trannies love their accent marks, see below.)
Nonetheless, my fascination never waned and over the years I read her autobiography, "Second Serve," and then eagerly watched the made-for-television movie of it. I remember thinking that Vanessa Redgrave was very convincing as Richard Raskind but couldn't pull off the "after" part at all! I even ended up switching to a racket she used at one time -- the Yamaha YFG20 -- although it had more to do with thinking it looked cool than her using it. More recently, however, I have read a number of conflicting reports that Richards regretted having had sex-reassignment surgery and have even seen her quoted as being highly critical of pro-tranny rulings in sports. I'm hoping this new book sets the record straight on all counts. Based on the preface, that appears to be her motivation for writing it.
P.S. Who knew getting Caroline Stoll's autograph would be so much more fun?
