Golden Globes | ‘Young Frankenstein’ Musical | Colin Firth | Bumming a Smoke
Jamie Foxx Wins ‘Desperate Housewife’
Yes, we were supposed to be covering the Golden Globes last night, but we were too preoccupied with last year’s winner, Jamie Foxx, winning the Golden Globes again this year, even though he wasn’t nominated for anything.
His statue came in the form of “Desperate Housewife” Eva Longoria, with whom he attended several parties and from whom his hands were not far at any given moment.
Even as the pair exited the swinging late-night party thrown at Chaya Brasserie by Creative Artists Agency’s Kevin Huvane, Foxx was making sure to hold on to what he got, as the late Joe Tex might have put it.
I’m pretty sure I’ve read about Eva having a boyfriend who’s a famous sports figure, so go figure. That’s entertainment!
Foxx and Longoria were not alone at the CAA after-party, where dozens of A-listers came and went the minute the dreadfully predictable Golden Globes show whimpered to an end.
How did it take millions of dollars spent by the 85-member Hollywood Foreign Press Association — a disgraceful and much-dissed group here in Los Angeles — to pick “Brokeback Mountain,” Ang Lee, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Felicity Huffman, “Walk the Line,” Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix?
I mean, hadn’t we done that ourselves, and for almost no money at all? I loved it when the miserably humorless Philip Berk — serving his fifth term as president — said from the stage that the group had looked and looked at all the nominees’ work.
It’s kind of hilarious, like dozens of monkeys all set up at typewriters clacking out the same sentence over and over.
Outside the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the equally miserable Lorenzo Soria, an Italian who was this year’s liaison with the HFPA’s militant security team, patrolled the red carpet like a snail inside his shell (last year’s shell was a free designer tux) looking for malfeasance. I’m told that had he looked right at his security team or his membership he might have found it right away.
Indeed, one HFPA member told me last night that the group has had no luck getting rid of a member who is famous for selling his tickets to movie premieres and not watching the nominated movies. Certainly no one is surprised by this news at this point.
And yet, despite the completely ridiculous nature of the Globes, you can appreciate them only because they result in so many interesting after-parties.
The CAA party, at which there were no other journalists, was twice as good as anything in the Hilton ballroom during the show.
Besides Jamie getting Foxxy with Eva, there were Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, Tim Robbins, Kelly Lynch and Mitch Glazer, Anthony Hopkins, Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey, George Clooney, Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe, Pierce Brosnan, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, Will Ferrell, the night’s one surprise winner Rachel Weisz with director (and father of her imminent baby) Darren Aronofsky, Geena Davis, “Walk the Line” director James Mangold with wife Cathy Conrad (the movie’s producer) and “Scrubs” star Zach Braff.
Kevin Huvane’s younger brother, Chris, an editor on the West Coast at GQ, supplied the tunes as usual, moonlighting as the house DJ. There was still quite a lot of dancing around 1 a.m., and I was happy to hear Suzanne Vega‘s “Tom’s Diner” among Chris’ choices.
‘Young Frankenstein’: The Musical Is Coming
Mel Brooks and writer Tom Meehan have decided that “The Producers” will not be their only musical legacy on Broadway.
The guys told me last night at the packed Universal party atop the Hilton that they are furiously writing a musical version of “Young Frankenstein” that will head to Broadway.
Presumably, Susan Stroman, who directed “The Producers” on stage and film, will be participating once she takes a much-needed break.
I will not tell you exactly where, but Mel and Tom are working in the back room of an Upper East Side restaurant in much the way they did when the strange Madame Romaine de Lyons omelet shop was their office a few years ago (Madame Romaine has since closed for legal reasons I can’t get into).
Anyway, from the Universal party, Mel et al. went down to Trader Vic’s, where the Weinstein Company — formerly Miramax — was celebrating a couple of things. First, Felicity Huffman winning Best Actress for “Transamerica,” and second, their CGI-animated “Hoodwinked” winning the weekend box office. The Weinstein Company, don’t forget, is only four months old.
During the Globes ceremony, WeinsteinCo put on a terrific seated dinner with Glamour magazine down at Trader Vic’s.
Jimmy Fallon popped in with girlfriend Nancy Juvonen, foregoing the Lakers game. They ran into Joy Bryant, Milla Jovovich, Jenny McCarthy, Mary-Kate Olsen, Nicky Hilton, Kerry Washington and David Moscow, among others.
Later, when Mel and co. found their way to the Weinstein after-party, there was none other than our pal Mariah Carey. Rosario Dawson and Jason Lewis, Kevin Spacey, Scarlett Johansson, Pierce Brosnan, Emma Thompson, Aaron Eckhart, Taye Diggs, “Grey’s Anatomy” winner Sandra Oh, her “Sideways” co-star Virginia Madsen, Mandy Moore and the aforementioned Zach Braff, Mary-Louise Parker (winner for Showtime’s “Weeds”) and “Lost” star Matthew Fox, “Munich” star Eric Bana, Adrien Brody, Mira Sorvino, director Robert Rodriguez and many, many more, too many to name, were clamoring to meet Felicity, the likely Oscar winner for Best Actress.
When Joan Rivers and daughter Melissa arrived on the late side, fresh from their long night of work, I did hear Joan say the magic words: “Where’s the bar?”
‘Mr. Darcy’: London Not the ‘Point’
Actor Colin Firth, who still makes the ladies swoon from his turns in “Pride and Prejudice” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” introduced a clip from Woody Allen’s “Match Point” at the Golden Globes show last night.
But Firth told me on Saturday night at HBO’s star studded pre-Globes party that “Match Point,” much as he liked it, was not an accurate depiction of his country.
“That’s not a London I recognize,” he said. “You look at the scenes and know that just outside the frame there’s something else going on in real life. I’ve never seen that London before at all. Of course, Richard Curtis‘ London” — the one Firth has populated in “Love Actually,” for example — “isn’t real either.”
Firth was just one of the many stars I ran into at HBO’s annual Chateau Marmont gala, a cheek-by-jowl bumper-people fest which attempts to stuff more A-listers into a small space than any other party of the weekend.
The amazing thing is that it’s only one of two HBO parties over the weekend. The other, held last night, takes place during and after the Globes.
The best Hollywood parties are all about juxtaposition, so seeing French legend Catherine Deneuve in the same 10-by-10 foot space as rocker Courtney Love easily secured HBO a place in history.
Before the night was over, I ran into Sir Ben Kingsley, Robert Forster and Dani Janssen, “X-Men 3” director Brett Ratner, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Troy Garity, Rose McGowan, Adrien Grenier, Natalie Portman, Val Kilmer, Taylor Hackford and Helen Mirren, Matt Dillon, Edie Falco, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Bill Maher, Chloe Sevigny, Joaquin Phoenix, Mira Sorvino, Camryn Manheim, Angie Harmon, Bill Paxton, Kimberly Stewart (daughter of Rod), New Line Cinema’s Michael and Nena Lynne and venerable publicist Warren Cowan.
Wait! Courtney Love, you ask? Well, she looks terrific and sounds clear as a bell. She’s working on new songs, she told me, and a life of sobriety. The only real headline here is that she’s alive and has somehow made it through a harrowing time. Good for her.
P.S.: HBO’s party last night after the Golden Globes was a cross-generational hit. Not only was the whole “Curb Your Enthusiasm” group there, but so were as Luke Wilson, Cynthia Nixon and plenty of HBO stars, and I also spotted the grand older set: Variety’s columnist extraordinaire Army Archerd, comedian Red Buttons and “overnight sensation” Shelley Berman.
Listen: Army told me he says in his column today that he thinks it’s bizarre that the Screen Actors Guild has chosen Jamie Lee Curtis to present Shirley Temple Black with a Lifetime Achievement Award. I agree. STB is not only Hollywood royalty, but an important American.
Nothing against Jamie Lee, but how about someone of equal stature? In fact, I think they should have asked Army!
Best Overheard Line of the Night
Up at Universal’s soirée, cocooned in a corner, a brigade of lads and lasses, including Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Cillian Murphy.
Rhys Meyers’ girlfriend yelled to him, “Do you have a fag?”
The actor replied: “I do, but I’m straight you know. This isn’t ‘Brokeback Mountain.'”
Ah, yes, but it was the party where director Ang Lee and Focus Features were celebrating their multiple wins.
The girlfriend, if you know your British and Irish slang, was asking for a cigarette.
More to come…
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