Leo & Sienna | Santana | Disney | Charles and Camilla | 1968
Leo & Sienna: It's the Rumor Du Jour
The “shocking” revelation yesterday that still hot youngish actor Leonardo DiCaprio and extremely hot supermodel Gisele Bundchen were over is still reverberating all over the tabloid world.
What could be the cause of such a rift, particularly since the formerly happy couple was only recently photographed riding their bikes together?
They also “bought an apartment together,” swore one rag, although an insider (as they are called) laughed when he saw that and said, “You mean Leo bought the apartment.”
I mean, Leo bought what’s considered the New York abode of the moment near the West Side highway in Richard Meier’s famous glass building. Sch-wing!
Now comes news from the front: “Gisele,” says a well-informed source, “was tired of Leo and all his screwing around.”
Now here is the best part. The straw that broke this camel’s back is said to be none other than Sienna Miller. Yes, our dear Sienna, who’s in a new movie ("Casanova") and who got a pasting when Jude Law stepped out on her earlier this year with his kids’ nanny, Daisy.
Leo and Sienna apparently got together recently in New York or Los Angeles, depending on which version of this story you want to believe. I want to believe all of them!
As for Leo, he is still known for hanging out with an entourage reminiscent of the TV show one. He’s also still involved with a rock group often known as Leroi, an offshoot of Jamiroquai.
Friends say Leo and Leroi’s leader, Stuart Zender, are still quite close (I mean, friends, nothing more, don’t be ridiculous). Stuart is pretty much wherever Leo is, though, and Leo got his manager Rick Yorn, of The Firm, to take them on. The result: a multi-million deal with Geffen Records.
But I have heard for some time that Gisele was tired of sharing Leo with all the people who are constantly in his Beverly Hills home.
Right now, Sienna — after somehow performing on stage in London every night while the whole Jude/Daisy scandal was raging — is waiting to see where her movie, "Factory Girl," will be shot. Much of it had been scheduled for New Orleans.
There’s an irony, since Jude’s affair with Daisy took place in New Orleans while he was shooting “All the King’s Men.”
Sienna will play Andy Warhol star Edie Sedgwick. Maybe Leo can play Warhol.
Yesterday, I wrote in this column that I was cynical about these tabloid romance stories. But truly, I liked Law and Miller together. It was fun running into them. When I saw them last, about two weeks before the scandal broke in mid-July, they were dancing, drinking and smoking up a storm at a private London nightclub. I would never have guessed that this is where they’d be five months later, but that’s show biz, ain’t it?
I can’t remember ever sitting in the Hammerstein Ballroom mezzanine and seeing so many jammed together standing on the floor. Light bounced playfully off of hundreds of bobbing bald heads as Carlos Santana christened his new album, "All That I Am," in front of a wildly enthusiastic crowd.
I’m here to tell you that "All That I Am" seems to have energized Santana. He and the group — a remarkable array of musicians — were in “the zone” last night.
There were special appearances by Anthony Hamilton, Robert Randolph and singer Walt Lafty of Silvertide, who substituted bravely and ably for Steven Tyler on “Just Feel Better." Tyler co-stars in the video, which was just finished and should be released shortly.
But it’s the band — featuring Andy Vargas on vocals and a hot horn section (Jeff Cressman on trombone and Bill Ortiz on trumpet) — that astounds.
Oh yes, Carlos is very good, too. The whole of the sounfnd is like a well-oiled machine; it’s almost like they flick a switch and they are “on,” 100 percent, churning out a delicious mixture of salsa, rock, reggae and last night, at least, pieces by John Coltrane against Latin rhythms that were simply mind-blowing. Kenny Garrett gets special mention for wielding his saxophone in a way that may have called Coltrane to the show.
Among the other highlights: Randolph helping out on a new instrumental number called “Trinity.” And Hamilton came in to perform “Twisted,” also from the new CD. His own new album comes from Jive in December — he is the real thing, my friends. A ‘Soul Man’ for the new millennium, he sounds like a cross between Johnnie Taylor and Lou Rawls.
Older Santana favorites like “Foo Foo,” “Put Your Lights On” and “I Am Somebody” featured blistering, supple melodic solos from Santana himself. And he sang — a rarity — on “Evil Ways.”
Onstage, Santana said, “People want to know why I called the album "All That I Am." Because that’s what it is.” He listed a number of influences, including John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Van Morrison and Jim Morrison. During one number, the group inserted a nifty instrumental quote from The Doors.
Backstage, Santana greeted all his guests and talked about the album a little. It was guided by Pete Ganbarg, the man who made “Supernatural,” and whom Clive Davis brought back especially for the project.
Dressed in a custom-made white linen suit with a long coat, he talked about peace. On his official Web site, Santana supports almost a dozen humanitarian organizations.
“It’s Halloween every day, thanks to Mother Nature and the government,” he’d said on stage.
The whole show can be seen and heard on Real Player’s Rhapsody site. It might be worth signing up just to see it, because I think this happened to be one of those important, memorable shows people talk about for a long time.
As for the album, I have to respectfully disagree with my friend, David Browne, of Entertainment Weekly, who didn’t care for it. “All That I Am” is full of fun and catchy hits and great musicianship.
Abraxas, circa 1971, is not coming back. Neither are Ram, Exile on Main Street, Sweet Baby James, Tumbleweed Connection, Talking Book or any of the other initial, influential releases by important artists who are still making music today.
But to extend the 1971 thought, “If you can’t be with the one you love/Love the one you’re with.”
It’s still pretty damn good.
Disney: The Sky May Be Falling
"Chicken Little" was described yesterday as having “half-hatched plotting” in the Hollywood Reporter. Michael Reschstaffen wrote, “Unfortunately, the storytelling's not as strong, especially once those aliens arrive…”
It worse in Variety, where Todd McCarthy wrote the newest Disney animated film has: “…little originality, little humor and little ingratiating characterization. Under-nourishing and highly derivative fast-food item probably will ring up less B.O. than most of the high-flying animated features of recent holiday seasons…”
This is not good news. "Chicken Little" was supposed to be Disney’s big jump into the CGI pool. In fact, it was supposed to be Disney’s answer to its problems with Pixar, the house of "Toy Story" and "The Incredibles."
Alas, "Chicken Little" — despite having a solid cast of comic voices — looks like it’s going to be pre-Thanksgiving turkey. And that means, here comes the fun.
By the way, do you see Michael Eisner around anywhere to take the blame for this mess?
Disney could buy Pixar, since Steve Jobs has, according to published reports, told them to make him an offer. At the same time, Disney, I suppose, could try and buy Dreamworks Animation, though it’s hard to imagine that scenario even with Eisner gone.
That company is having a daily soap opera on the New York Stock Exchange. Out of nowhere yesterday, someone or ones made a purchase of 60,000 shares or so right before the bell rang at 4 p.m. Otherwise, it’s been a quiet couple of days since the last big spike last week. Could it be Eisner buying all those shares? Now that would be funny.
Charles & Camilla: Not in Vogue?
Anna Wintour has spoken. Last night, she chose Oscar and Felix over Charles and Camilla.
Many stars and socialites were busy craning their necks last night at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for a glimpse of Prince Charles and Camilla, his second wife.
They included Sting and Trudie Styler, Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller and, of all people, our very own Yoko Ono.
But New York's principal fashionista, the one person who gives benediction to fellow Brits as they arrive in the U.S., was spotted elsewhere. Either Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue and queen in her own right of the fashion world, is either on the outs with the royal couple, or cares not a whit for them.
She was seen with her daughter and boyfriend dining at the always chic Cafe Edison — nicknamed The Polish Tea Room — in the enduring Edison Hotel in the theater district last night.
Dinner, it's worth mentioning, never goes much above $20 for a party of three at this establishment.
Next up: a performance of "The Odd Couple," co-starring Matthew Broderick. His wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, was on the guest list for Charles and Camilla. Maybe this was Anna putting her weight behind the one-time Ferris Bueller.
In any case, I'm told by my spy she only donned her sunglasses during the show. Bright lights, you know (I've seen La Wintour do this during movie screenings, too).
Perusing her Playbill at the show, Anna was heard to say to boyfriend Shelby Bryant and daughter Bee, "After reading all these bios of everyone involved, I feel so inconsequential compared to them with all their credits."
There were protesters under the arch yesterday afternoon in Washington Square Park. There were also placards that read "Stop The War, Bring Our Troops Home."
For a minute, I thought I’d stumbled on an Iraq war demonstration. But a closer look revealed that Julie Taymor was shooting a big scene for her upcoming film, "Across the Universe."
This is the Beatles-inspired '60s movie that features songs by the Fab Four (that should make Michael Jackson happy).
There’s a lot of nervousness about this film, simply because no one so far has gotten the Sixties right.
But Taymor is a genius, I think. If anyone can do it, she can. For the shoot, Taymor had the production company put in old street signs, dressed a large number of extras in what looked more 1930s attire and even stationed an old-looking police cruiser in the background. Groovy, man!
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