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Drew Grant

By Drew Grant 4:38pm

America's Next Top Model

Kelly Cutrone, Bryanboy, Tyra Banks, Rob Evans, Johnny Wujek pose for the premiere of 'America's Next Top Model: College Edition' (Patrick McMullan)

It’s Tyra Time: America’s Next Top Model: College Edition Enters New Era

The Observer was in a green room at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, sitting on a small couch with Tyra Banks to talk about America’s Next Top Model: College Edition. We were sweating bullets; up close, the 38-year-old diva is larger than life and, ironically, much more attractive than she appears on her show. Maybe because she was smiling at us. She looked relaxed and happy, but we stayed tense, ready to bolt if she started her signature tough-love approach: yelling at us for not being fierce enough, or shaking her head in disgusted disappointment that we haven’t lived up to her expectations.

After a moment of silence, we finally cleared our throats and apologized for being terrified.

Ms. Banks laughed.

“Oh, but that’s just a thing,” the retired supermodel told us. “That’s a character.” Read More

By Drew Grant 8/14/12 1:15pm

party talk

Shia LaBeouf (Patrick McMullan)

Shia LaBeouf Loved That His Lawless Co-Star Tom Hardy Was ‘Too Big to Be Sexy’ as Bane

“You’re amazing,” Shia LaBeouf was heard wooing a young woman last night at the top of McKittrick Hotel, at the after-party for the The Cinema Society and Manifesto Yves Saint Laurent screening of Lawless. “You’re incredible. You’re an astronaut!”

“Did Shia just call that lady an astronaut?” a friend of The Observer asked, confused. If everyone was a tad difficult to understand, we understood, as Lawless had also starred a marble-mouthed Tom Hardy doing an American accent. The actor was regrettably absent from the screening–he was shooting Mad Max in Australia, we were told–which ruined our chances of doing our spot-on Bane impression for him. His loss.

Instead, we called over the hyper-maniac, hyper-masculine Mr. LaBeouf, whom  Harvey Weinstein had praised earlier in the evening as being the love child of himself, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Read More

By Drew Grant 8/13/12 3:14pm

World Humanitarian Day

Beyoncé's World Humanitarian Day performance (Cliff Watts)

Beyoncé Celebrates World Humanitarian Day at the United Nations

“Who doesn’t love World Humanitarian Day?” actress Julia Stiles asked rhetorically as we rubbed shoulders with VIPs in a roped-off, sequestered area of the United Nations. (Though it’s not as if there is some area of the UN that is not sequestered or roped-off.) We were mingling in the small atrium before being filed in to the General Assembly, where we were to watch none other than Beyoncé perform and shoot a video for her song, “I Was Here,” the official song for WHDay, August 19th.

Ms. Stiles told us that she and her friend had plans to celebrate the important day in their own way. Read More

By Drew Grant 8/06/12 9:30am

Swag Bag

Jitney Swag bag

Swag Bag: Jitney Offers Goodies Just for Leaving the Hamptons

“This is for you,” our young blonde seatmate told us, nodding to a black tote bag reading “I <3 RTR (RentTheRunway.com)” sitting on our seat. It was Sunday afternoon, and we had just finished cramming our luggage into the overhead bin of the crowded South Hampton Jitney headed back to New York City.

“That’s not ours,” we said defensively, lest we be forced to put some items underneath the bus. (The Jitney rivals only JetBlue for their inflexibility toward carry-ons.)

“No,” our companion for the next two hours told us. “It’s a freebie. Everyone gets one.”

The Jitney is giving out swag? We must be on the wrong bus. But no, this was not the Ambassador. It was just the regular Jitney. (You could tell because the WiFi wasn’t working and no one offered us free wine.)

We greedily pawed opened our bag, sponsored by  to see what kind of goodies awaited us: Read More

By Drew Grant 8/03/12 9:40am

Party Report

Jessica Biel at 'Total Recall' screening (Patrick McMullan)

Total Recall of the Heart: Vivica A. Fox Shakes Her Stuff While Jessica Biel Bails

“To call the remake of Total Recall a movie is like saying that watching your brother play Call of Duty qualifies as a cinematic experience,” The Observer preached to a small cluster of friends as we made our way from the Chelsea Cinema screening to No. 8 for the after party.

In fact, the movie had been one of the worst things we’d ever seen…to call it a film is really giving it too much justice; the entire 118 minutes was made up of Colin Farrell trading machine fire with a bunch of droids from I, Robots on the Death Star while occasionally mumbling “But I don’t even know who I am.”

We hated to say it, but Arnold did it better. Read More

By Drew Grant 7/24/12 10:30am

polo

The men of Bridgehampton: Nick Manifold, Marco Mattiacci, Nacho Figureas, Peter Brant, and Jason Binn (Patrick McMullan)

Bridgehampton Polo Kicks Off Season, Sans Game

As we drove up to the white tents of the Bridgehampton Polo Club this Saturday, we wondered if we had accidentally arrived early. Where were the billions of cars that were supposed to be tailgating during the kickoff to the Hamptons equivalent of a pro football game? We had heard that Peter Brant‘s annual event was as close to a mosh party as the jet-set tolerated. Read More

By Drew Grant 7/16/12 12:00pm

Art fairs

Cheech Marin in front of a Margaret Garcia painting at ArtHamptons (Patrick McMullan)

Cheech Marin, Chicano Curator, Celebrates Birthday at ArtHamptons Premiere

Friday at dusk, Cheech Marin–better known as the Mexican half of the 70s stoner comedy duo Cheech and Chong–cut into his 66th birthday cake. It was of the chocolate variety, with six joints on top as candles. There was some speculation amongst the crowd as to whether those are actual joints, or whether this was a “special” chocolate cake. (Answers: no, the candles were actually twisted Marlboro cigarettes; and also no, it was just delicious.)

Yes, it was a crazy party up at ArtHamptons, an art fair in its fifth year, where Mr. Marin, in addition to celebrating his birthday–sponsored by Hamptons.com–was also being honored as Patron of the Year for his collection of Chicano art (one of the largest in the world), which was on partial display at the Bridgehampton fair. One would assume that Mr. Marin and the beau monde associated with the Hamptons set (and New York art fairs in general) would mix about as well as tobacco and chocolate cake, but the comedian/actor/collector was quite at home in the festival’s white tents, where he was selling several pieces of from his collection.

One of the first things Mr. Marin told The Observer: “To separate collectors from the art process is facetious.” We made a note to not underestimate the intelligence of Mr. Marin, who, after all, once beat Anderson Cooper on Jeopardy. Read More

By Drew Grant 7/12/12 5:41pm

art openings

Julio Gaggia begins his week-long performance at BoConcepts in Chelsea (Patrick McMullan)

He Lives His Life In Public: Artist Will Spend One Week Inhabiting BoConcept Chelsea Storefront

“I am very inspired by Marina Abramovic,” 26-year-old Venenezualan artist Julio Gaggia told The Observer yesterday as he prepared for his life in the fishbowl of Chelsea’s BoConcept store. The young man would be slightly tweaking the “live-in” performances of Ms. Abramovic, including “The Artist is Present” (where she spent 730 hours in a chair at the MoMa, letting people sit facing her and stare into her face), or the much more grueling “Balkan Baroque” for the 1997 Venice Biennale, wherein she spent four days in a broiling basement, cleaning cow bones and weeping.

“Oh shit, someone is drinking my rosé!” He suddenly exclaimed, as friends and gawkers mingled around his new “living” room. He quickly ran to get a glass before it ran out. Read More

By Drew Grant 7/11/12 12:15pm

Celebrity Relationships

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig at "Shut Up And Play The Hits" (Patrick McMullan)

Update: Relationship Milestone: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach Pose for Paparazzi

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Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach are indie Hollywood’s worst kept secret. The duo have been “quietly dating” since September–only one year after his divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh–but their names rarely appear together in gossip columns.

On several occasions–most noticeably at the Cinema Society screening of Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress–we’ve actually witnessed Mr. Baumbach sliding out of pictures when photographers try to shoot the Greenberg director with his star.

But no longer! They’ve finally been photographed together–at a Peggy Siegal event, no less!– with Mr. Baumbach’s hand on Ms. Gerwig’s neck. Read More