The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Metropolitan Opera

Lincoln Center, NYC

September 21-October 11, 2025

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Mega Donors Go MAGA at Met Opera Gala”

What opera begins with an impromptu audience sing-along to the expert orchestra’s instrumental of The Star-Spangled Banner? Apparently, the season opener for the Metropolitan Opera: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, adapted from Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel (2000). The sold-out evening had the fashion glitterati in full effect, plus some appearing to come straight out of comic-con.

 

After the effusion of pre-curtain patriotism, much to my surprise, General Manager Peter Gelb’s opening remarks were met with uncharacteristic heckling from the Family Circle.

 

He then introduces NY Senator Chuck Schumer, who is also met with a round of boos as he takes the stage for a last-minute season headlining address:

 

“The arts are under attack now. Even worse than during Covid. You saw what happened during Jimmy Kimmel.”

 

“You suck. Don’t make it political,” interject hecklers from the rafters. 

 

“To the land of the brave and the home of the free,” he calls out and exits.

 

Is it Prague 1939 or Anytown, USA 2025?

 

The set opens to an amazing blending of life and art with interactive comic book graphics projected onto multiple screen overlays. The orchestra has the jaunty pep of 1930s jazz and the early Batman (1960) live-action TV serial soundtrack.

 

The story tells of Joe Kavalier’s escape from Nazi-occupied Prague to NYC where our protagonist finds his relatives and his talent for comic book illustration. The libretto is less singing more spoken word as the inspired cousins brainstorm at the toy company, “They’re not reaching for a dime. They’re reaching for a dream.”

 

By the end of Act I, it’s a gay love story set amidst the Holocaust. Perhaps sometimes art can’t help but be political. Can’t wait to read the novel and hear what happened at the after party.

 

Gwyneth: The Biography

By Amy Odell

Published July 29, 2025

Simon & Schuster

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I believe if you ask any famous person, they will have known they were going to be famous. It’s like a predestined thing.”

-Gwyneth Paltrow, Vanity Fair, September 2000

 I enter McNally Jackson, SOHO in search of a signed copy Mark Ronson’s newly-released autobiography. Coming up empty-handed—this is the third bookshop I’ve visited in my quest—I find an alternate read and approach the elder behind the sales counter. 

A Gen Z cuts in front of me and interjects, “Do you carry War and Peace?”

“Honey, we’re not a bookstore if we don’t have War and Peace.” She nods to me, Brooklyn-accent in full force, “How about that?”

I sheepishly place my not-so-literary haul—Gwyneth: The Biography, on the countertop.

“Oh she’s so pretty. Are you a fan?”

Not ready to admit it’s a hate-read, I offer, “She’s in a lot of movies?” 

Flummoxed, the cashier smiles weakly, “Well, enjoy.” 

As I exit, book in hand, I begin to interrogate my relationship with the illustrious subject of Amy Odell’s latest biography. I did read Conscious Uncoupling, the controversial tome that Gwyneth catapulted to household fame and notoriety following her separation from Chris Martin. Going through a divorce myself at the time, I remember thinking the criticism of her was far from founded. Even removing her famous suitors Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck and over-rated movies including Oscar-winning performance in Shakespeare in Love from the equation, she decidedly deserves credit for her business acumen. More recently, I did encourage my friend to make a mock website in the “Goop” style and font called “Poop” selling similarly shitty fake wares. Vaginal stone eggs aside,  having purchased Amy’s first biography Anna, an exposing look at the Now-dethroned Vogue matriarch, I eagerly read Gwyneth to see what new tidbits can be gleaned from this unauthorized research project.

It should come as no surprise that the woman who claims to have founded “wellness” went to a seaside private school in Santa Monica where her morning kindergarten lesson consisted of a guided meditation followed by freestyle drawing to foster artistic expression. Perhaps a few surprises await as Amy gives us a fact-based fictional recreation of the early lives of Gwyneth’s parents, Gwyneth’s upbringing, and rise with actual quotes from countless public interviews and published articles. Whereas Anna offered Amy the testimonies of her assistants and coterie, Gwyneth ultimately refused to be interviewed and would not give express permission to those in her closer circles to be interviewed. 

Will we find out what happened with Harvey Weinstein and how she avoided Mira Sorvino’s fate? Should I spring for that latest GoopGenes Serum? Why are her Genes okay but not Sydney Sweeney’s? I guess you will have to read it and probably not weep.

Oscar Rundown

Anora (2024)

Released October 18 by Neon, now streaming

“Thank you for making my trip to America so fun.

🤩🤩🤩🤩

A Cinderella love story for Gen Alpha

Not since Pretty Woman have we seen something so sweet. But this movie should clearly be rated at least NC-17. One could argue that Pretty Woman would be canceled today, and yet here lands Anora. Its predecessor replayed in essence with referential scenes, including the infamous, “You can’t afford me” to “I would have paid double” exchange. This time the setting brings us twenty-something recent immigrants in Coney Island who “Google this” and “Insta that” along an Uncut Gems-type search party through the boardwalk instead of Rodeo Drive.

“I am always happy,” says the young heir who glided around his manse in Gucci sweats.

The soundtrack includes arousing anthems with such lyrics as, “Pussy drip da drip pop pa pop pa pop gonna sippy sip sip it.” Can’t imagine The Academy getting behind this love story. Fresh-faced and convincing newcomers Mikey Madison and Mark Edelstein (both Oscar contenders in their own right) alternate between sex and video games as fast as they alternate between Brighton Beach English and Russian. Supporting actor and Eminem look-alike Yori Borisov kills it as the oligarch’s naive henchman with a heart of gold (and a confiscated 4-carat ring) who falls for the girl as well. 

The fashions are on point , especially if you are Charlie XCX, The Dare or just wanna be Brat. Her in Tartan booty skirt with leather harness panties. Him in porn star yellow tinted U2 glasses and oversized tan blazer sans shirt and both mixed with a silver dish of cocaine. And yes, just take that Russian sable. It’s yours. 

Although the script may be referential all the way back to Lady and the Tramp (with a pasta dinner replaced by licorice rope in a Coney Island Candy store), it never fails to captivate as simultaneously a cat-and-mouse thriller and a rom-com. 

Leave it to TaTu to summarize the end: All The Things She Said. As he said: “I love you. Good bye America.”

The Brutalist (2024)

Released December 20

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I admit, when I read about Brady Corbet and realized he was the star of the tween thriller Thirteen (2003), I was skeptical and intrigued to see if The Brutalist was Silver Lion worthy—especially clocking in at over 3 hours with intermission. Yes, intermission. Not since Gone with the Wind. I know we’re making America great again, but intermission?? 

Starting with the 10-minute prologue followed by the opening credits, every classic film school trick abounds all in one movie in slick succession.

 Though the entering tour de force is truly captivating showcasing dueling perspectives of Brody’s protagonist navigating through the teeming bowels while his wife and niece meet their Soviet exile as they all attempt to escape WWII Budapest; he emerges to the theatrical release poster shot of none other than our Lady Liberty brutally turned on her head as is his life. So bauhaus even in the credit type-face.

I can bet you I know all of Brady Corbett’s favorite movies based on his cinematically compelling movie shot references:

• Citizen Kane
• Goodfellas
• 1917
• Raising Arizona
• Easy rider
• Lost highway
• Requiem For A Dream

And the script? You would think it’s a remake of an Rand’s The Fountainhead only with Adrien Brody as a striving immigrant until it veers off into Baby Reindeer territory.

 When Brody’s first would-be American client turns toward the audience, the millennials behind me laugh. The big reveal is none other than Joe Alwyn. Now pudgy and sans-British accent in his post Taylor days, never fear and gird your loins for his final muddy scene as pedantic heir.

After intermission, I order Nitehawk’s signature cocktail for the evening—“Out of the Cellar and into the sky”? More like outta the closet, with Guy Pierce’s villain as more than a capitalist vampire: I should have opted to see Nosferatu.

The soundtrack is mentionably distracting and scene-setting throughout, including a voiceover from the radio during that same period about the evils of heroin as Brody’s character stumbles along the cobblestones in the early morning light from the underground drug den—just hit us over the head with the message, will ‘ya. 

 Same for the denouement: ‘Lady of the Night’ plays in the background as the script gives another cinema trope: is everyone a secret gay?

Then Felicity Jones does a stellar acting job and brings us all home. She brings up a timely debate, (one could say like Tucker Carlson is just asking questions)as she states in the climax:”This country is evil.” But let’s not get cancelled or tried for treason. 

Epilogue

And so we decamp abroad. Wouldn’t we all?? Venice is a welcome respite (now in epic hour three), though with continued cheesy underground club music as VistaVision cinematic shots of St. Mark’s Square and rich gondolas glide us along the famed canals of the Bienale. “No matter what the others try to say to you, it is about the destination, not the journey.”

Brutal. And A Real Pain.