Entertainment news for January 25, 1991
Movies
It was GoodFellas' night but not everyone was one at the
56th annual New York Film Critics Circle Awards on Jan. 13. Until
host Rex Reed raised her hackles, Madonna, in a black ankle-length
tunic dress, was almost all business — studying notes for her speech
honoring German director Michael Verhoeven for his film The Nasty
Girl and occasionally pinching her dark, liquid-eyed escort. But
introducing Kathy Bates, Reed called Bates' character in Misery ''the
meanest bitch this side of the Rockies.'' Minutes later, when Madonna
mounted the stage to bestow the Best Foreign Film award, she chided,
''Thanks, Rex, but I thought I was the meanest bitch this side of the
Rockies.'' Then things got nasty. Reed went on to insult just about
every presenter and winner of the evening. Introducing Paul Newman,
on hand to give his wife a Best Actress award for her work in Mr. and
Mrs. Bridge, Reed said, ''He made 200 or so movies with Joanne
Woodward and then took her home to bed. The biggest f---ing movie
star in the whole world, Mr. Joanne Woodward.'' Before Martin Scorsese
was presented with the Best Director award for GoodFellas by Jessica
Lange and Nick Nolte (both of whom had flown up for the event
from the Florida set of Cape Fear, Scorsese's current film), Reed
offered the dubious accolade that, until this night, ''Marty's always
been a bridesmaid, never a bride.'' Scorsese's longtime star Robert De
Niro took Best Actor honors for GoodFellas and Awakenings.
TV
Next fall, Neil Simon's Tony-nominated Broadway Bound will
become the first of his 20-odd plays to bypass the big screen in
favor of TV: ABC is producing an all-star version of the 1986
comedy-drama, which concludes the Eugene Jerome trilogy begun in
Brighton Beach Memoirs and continued in Biloxi Blues. The network has
signed Anne Bancroft to play Eugene's mother, Jonathan Silverman (who
played Eugene in the first film), Hume Cronyn, and Jerry Orbach.
