Who Sits Where at The Grill on the Alley: The Ultimate Test of Power

A version of this story first appeared in the Feb. 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

At The Grill, a power lunch isn't a power lunch without a proper perch. "You don't want to be in anything but a booth," says ICM Partners' John Burnham. And a large part of the restaurant's success is its horseshoe layout, with 14 booths surrounding a central Siberia of 25 tables, meaning a third of the house is prime seating.

Maitre d' Pamela Gonyea bestows the prized square footage by one key metric: loyalty. (There are no standing reservations.) "I find myself counting to 14, and then I count back," she says. "You can feel awful, but I'm not afraid of somebody yelling at me. It's like, 'OK, bring it on.' It is what it is. Sometimes I can't get you a booth. It's physics."

PHOTOS: The Grill on the Alley Turns 30

Some prefer the four conspicuous round tables in the rear, with the best sight lines. "It's out in the open," explains producer Fred Silverman, approvingly. Adds producer Arnold Kopelson: "I've had the same table for 30 years now. It's right in the center. I have a commanding view of the place."

The late Bernie Brillstein used to sit at a booth next to Kopelson; now Brillstein's daughter, Resolution agent Leigh Brillstein, often takes the table and keeps an extra place setting out in his honor. Brillstein nicknamed the largest corner rear booth (No. 133) "Devil's Island" since no regulars claim it. Gonyea assigns the table, which can seat seven, to random larger groups.

The smaller booths along the side walls are just as prime, often preferred for their comparative privacy. "Some people just want to be seen," explains Gonyea. "Others, they go: 'We don't care if we see anybody. In fact, we'd rather not see anybody!' " While Silverman finds the side booths, which front on a narrow aisle, "a little claustrophobic," others like AFI chair Bob Daly "just like the privacy."

STORY: Hollywood’s Most Exclusive Cafeteria, The Grill on the Alley Turns 30

As for the east side versus the west side? "I like the booths on the right," says Brian Grazer. "Barry Diller and David Geffen like the left side. The way it's designed, it kind of pleases everybody." It's "force of habit," observes Resolution agent Adam Kanter, who sits on the right. "It's like you're lining up on the football field, and you're the wide receiver on that side of the field as opposed to the other," he says. "It's just where you go."

For most booth dwellers, the geography doesn't much matter -- as long as you're in one, you're shielded away to get business done. "Even though it's a big room, there's a kind of intimacy," says director Walter Hill. Daly agrees. "The thing that's great about The Grill, in addition to the food, is that you can have a private conversation in the booths," he says. "You're not on top of someone. The person at the next table, you can't hear them. That's the privacy level."

Which is why Gonyea has learned a clever way in recent years to upsell the relatively more discreet set of regular tables partitioned off from the center of the room by a high divider and immediately adjoin the booths along the east and west walls. She's now marketing them as booth-adjacent. "Steve Shapiro" -- co-founder of top realty firm Westside Estate Agency -- "heard me tell somebody that one day, and he just about died laughing."

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Key

101: Rick Rosen, WME TV head

102: Burt Sugarman, Producer; Al Ruddy, Producer

103: Ari Emanuel, WME Co-CEO; Patrick Whitesell, WME Co-CEO

104: Brad Grey, Paramount Chairman and CEO; Brian Grazer, Imagine Entertainment Co-founder

105: Jerry Bruckheimer, Producer; Bob Daly, American Film Institute Chairman

106: Anthony Hopkins, Actor; John Carrabino, Manager

126: Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation CEO

127: George Shapiro, Producer; Howard West, Producer

128: David Geffen, Mogul; Craig Jacobson, Attorney, Hansen Jacobson

129: Clint Eastwood, Actor

130: Howard Klein, Manager

131: Arnold Kopelson, Producer; Fred Silverman Producer

132: Bernie Yurman, Manager; Freddy DeMann, Producer

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Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirren Add Star Power as Karlovy Vary Film Festival Opens Friday

The 47th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival opens on Friday with the international premiere of Lisa Barros D’Sa's and Glen Leyburn's film Good Vibrations, a biopic about Terri Hooley, a record-store owner instrumental in developing Belfast's punk-rock scene.

And like last year, a Woody Allen film will close the festival – To Rome With Love after Midnight in Paris served as the closer last year.

Overall, the festival will screen 217 films (including 34 shorts) with 22 world premieres and 744 film professionals scheduled to attend.

In addition to previously announced high-profile guests, such as Susan Sarandon and Helen Mirren, both of whom will be awarded Crystal Globe lifetime achievement awards, the festival will host up-and-coming star Kara Hayward, who plays the lead in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, Thomas Bo Larsen, one of director Thomas Vinterberg's regular actors who will present Vinterberg's The Hunt, and Italian horror maestro Dario Argento, who will introduce Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D, which will be screened as part of the festival's Midnight Screenings section.

Last year, the festival decided to inject some new blood into its programming and appointed longtime staffer Karel Och as artistic director. He took over from film historian Eva Zaoralova, who, along with Jiri Bartoska, a celebrated Czech actor and current festival president, is credited with building the festival's modern reputation. The festival has turned into something of a Cannes for Eastern Europe, which nonetheless balances offerings for both film industry professionals and moviegoers.

“We strike this balance by making the film professional and viewer oriented elements of the festival 'meet' one another,” said Och. “Our aim is to 'infect' film professionals with the cinephilia virus – they often have it already, but lack time to follow it – and to expose our regular audience to interesting issues from the world of the film industry in events open to the public. The balance is of crucial importance.”

Och is particularly proud of the programming staff's accomplishments in the festival's East of the West competition this year. “This year’s East of the West has a new look – it focuses on brand new titles by first- and second-time directors, and we all are very proud of the selection,” said Och. “We believe it is a highly representative program showcasing the work of the most talented young filmmakers from [all over] Central and Eastern Europe.”

The festival was founded in 1946. The Karlovy Vary Film Festival Foundation was founded in 1993 by the Czech Ministry of Culture, the City of Karlovy Vary, and the local Grand Hotel Pupp. Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary, a joint company, has organized the festival since 1998.

The total budget for this year is 135 million CZK ($6.5 million), 70 percent of which is from corporate sponsors, such as the RWE and CEZ energy groups, Audi Unicredit Bank and others. The other 30 percent come from state and municipal funds – the Czech Ministry of Culture, the Czech state budget, the city and theregion of Karlovy Vary.

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Huge amount of star power can't save 'The Big Year' - Buffalo News

A knotty credit problem, to be sure.

The big star names are in a pyramid. Steve Martin’s is on top. Jack Black’s and Owen Wilson’s are directly underneath on an equal level. All, though, are given to you in the same frame.

And then come the utterly mind-boggling names in the rest of this cast list: Brian Dennehy, Dianne Weist, Anthony Anderson, JoBeth Williams, Kevin Pollak, Rashida Jones, Rosamund Pike, John Cleese, Joel McHale, Anjelica Huston, Jim Parsons, Tim Blake Nelson and on and on and on.

My God, you might say to yourself looking at this film’s credits. That’s certainly a lot of firepower for any comedy, let alone one on the subject of competitive birdwatching.

Which the movie is at great pains to tell us is called “birding” by its practitioners.

Who, it would seem, are absolutely the only ones who ought to be encouraged to see this movie.

I made it through an hour and 20 minutes of it before walking out in absolute bafflement why it was made at all, much less why it employed that truly phenomenal cast and the director, David Frankel no less, of “The Devil Wears Prada.”

Is Fox uber-boss Rupert Murdoch a “birder?” Is someone in his immediately family?

That would go a long way toward explaining why someone greenlighted Howard Franklin’s script from Mark Obmascik’s book about competitive and obsessive birding.

So, too, would it explain things if Martin were a birder and someone at Fox 2000 owed him a favor.

A very, very big favor.

Everything else about the preposterous making of this film is likely to remain more than a little mysterious. One learns from the IMDB website that, at some point, Dustin Hoffman and Steve Carell were attached to the project. One’s respect for them can’t help but rise sharply when you watch the film they wisely decided not to make.

It’s about three “birders” having what their kind call a “big year,” i. e., a year when they try to put eyes on as many different bird species as they can. The record is 732. It’s from a fellow named Bostick, played by Wilson.

Can the characters played by Martin and Black beat that record?

When a young girl wants to know why birdwatching has become a competition, her mother replies, “They’re men. If they stop competing, they die.”

And that’s a line that is neither a) true, nor b) funny. But then, even the most indulgent members of the audience will find it difficult to laugh all through this movie. (Sample wisecrack: Black’s character explaining why he’s obsessed with “birding:” “The birdseed endorsements are huge.” And that’s one of the better lines.)

Will a female outsider take the competitive prize — the fresh-faced lovely played by Jones, perhaps?

A better question: Can anyone who wandered in innocently, as I did — a fan of Martin, Black and Wilson — happily make it through to the very end of this movie?

Well, I couldn’t. As for you “birders” out there, by all means, see if your luck is better.

 -----

“The Big Year”

1 star out of 4

Starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson. 100 minutes. Rated PG for language and some sensuality. Opened Friday in area theaters.

jsimon@buffnews.comnull

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New "X-Men" set to power back mutant film franchise

Cast members Zoe Kravitz, Kevin Bacon, January Jones, James McAvoy, and Michael Fassbender (L-R) pose at the premiere of ''X-Men: First Class'' in New York City May 25, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK | Thu Jun 2, 2011 6:18am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The "X-Men" franchise is back in theaters worldwide this week after a two year break and set to adapt its superhero themes into box office muscle with a strong story, fresh crop of actors, zippy visuals and broad appeal.

The fifth film, "X-Men: First Class," will likely re-energize the series, guaranteeing more "X-Men" movies and making it the early contender to beat among a group of big summer comic book films such as "Green Lantern" and "Captain America", film experts say.

"This one will likely be among the top three performers of the summer because, just like a good old James Bond movie, it should appeal to a broad base of moviegoers -- even if they haven't seen the four previous films," said Deadline Hollywood columnist Pete Hammond.

"X-Men:First Class," is another spin-off prequel to the original movie adapted from the fictional Marvel comic series of the same name.

It focuses on the formative years of mutants Charles Xavier (played by James McAvoy) and Magneto, also known as Erik Lehnsherr, played by Michael Fassbender, in the days before they became mortal enemies.

The 20th Century Fox film opens in the German concentration camp Auschwitz in occupied Poland in 1944 with a young Lehnsherr, who is separated from his parents when he first encounters the villain Sebastian Shaw and discovers his powers for the first time.

Directed by Matthew Vaughn, another Briton, and with a reported production budget of $120 million, early reviews for the tale of misunderstood freaks have been glowing. According to aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a rare 98 percent "fresh" rating.

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That bodes well after some unfavorable critical reaction to "X-Men: The Last Stand" in 2006 and "X-men Origins: Wolverine" (2009) -- although they still managed to gross more than $459 million and $373 million respectively at the worldwide box office.

"Much as 'Casino Royale' rebooted the James Bond franchise in a fresh and dynamic way, 'X-Men: First Class' injects new blood into a franchise that, for all its profitability, had become anemic," said The Hollywood Reporter.

Critics describe the new "X-Men" as visually stylish and a welcome return to the roots of the series. The cast also includes Kevin Bacon as Shaw, Jennifer Lawrence as shape-shifting waitress Mystique, and Rose Byrne as CIA agent Moira MacTaggart.

"X Men has been successful because it keeps reinventing itself and incorporating the most likable and intriguing group of ensemble characters of any comic book franchise," Hammond said.

Fassbender, whose performance has earned buzz for his prospects as a future James Bond, told reporters he believed the success of the franchise lay with universal themes that highlight self-respect and tolerance.

"The whole concept of 'X-Men' is a very mature idea -- in terms of most superhero comics in general -- that there is this alter ego that makes up for the geek inside.

But that idea of alienation is a universal thing, whether it be for religious beliefs or ethnicity or sexual orientation," Fassbender said. "It touches on a nerve that people can relate to."

Fassbender said that unlike some other blockbuster movies, the audience was forced to ask questions.

"Nowadays, especially with big commercial films, it is much too easy for the audience and they get spoon-fed," he said.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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