Is Precious, With Mo'Nique, The Movie of the Year?

Plus sizing up other leading ladies, nightlife crime, and Tony hopefuls.

A A A Comments (1) By Michael Musto Tuesday, Oct 6 2009

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Another stud with an accent, Jude Law, centers his accessible Hamlet, which has modern dress, clear language, monologues addressed to the audience, and even a red carpet. Jude is very good at pained-and-petulant, helping make up for the ugly set and less forceful second half. And let's hope I'm the only one who kept looking at Gertrude (Geraldine James), expecting her to rip open her blouse and nurse people like she did on Little Britain.

The Royal Family—that old screwball comedy based on all the Barrymores except Drew—has been likeably revived, especially when it comes to a pair of Act Two monologues: Jan Maxwell's about why she can't abide the theater and Rosemary Harris's about why she can't live without it. I'm with Rosie on this one.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center/Lionsgate

Size matters: Gabourey Sidibe

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Another showbiz dynasty gets picked apart in Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking, which is one big wise-crack slathered with lots of smartass—and if you don't like it, says our glam-rock-looking star, "Blow my big, bovine, tiny dancer cock." (PS: As someone wrote on a Broadway board, "Having the show performed at Studio 54 fulfills its natural destiny." Even D'Alessio might agree.)

Women with fabulously large ovaries are starring in Nora and Delia Ephron's Love, Loss, and What I Wore—like Natasha Lyonne, whom I cornered at the opening-night party to ask about the dream I read she'd recently had involving me, of all people: "It was kind of scary," she said. "We were at a weird San Francisco bookstore. I was wearing lederhosen, but I'd hipstered up the whole look and wore wacky glasses." This was sounding like another Love, Loss, and What I Wore monologue, but it got even darker as the dream built to Lyonne falling and ending up paralyzed as I blithely scanned the shelves. The meaning? "If the symbolism were any more on the nose," she said, laughing, "it would be a journal entry, not a dream."

Meanwhile, have I been dreaming or have you not been reading my blog (dailymusto.com)? If that's true, then you've missed out on the chance to learn about Anderson Cooper's latest anchor. He's handsome Frenchman Ben Maisani, an ex-Barracuda bartender who co-owns the gay East Village bar Eastern Bloc, where I've spent many a minxy night. (My mommy's gonna kill me.) As I scooped last week, Ben and Anderson just hung with Madonna and Jesus at the Bourgeois Pig on East 7th Street. And what was on the menu? Cheese fondue! Sounds more like Kraft services.

musto@villagevoice.com

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