Joe's View

“Heights” was one of the dozens of American indies tossed into art houses in 2005, where the picture sank without a trace. Even devoted movie buffs give a blank stare when the film is mentioned.

Director Chris Terrio’s 2005 debut is a sharp and well-acted portrait of Manhattan arts lifestyles.

The picture was made under the auspices of Merchant Ivory productions — famed for their genteel period pieces — and the young filmmaker clearly had enough funding to give the movie first-rate camera work and production design. But, Terrio also had a fine script (a collaboration with playwright Amy Fox) with which he was able to attract a strong ensemble of stars (Glenn Close), rising actors (Jesse Bradford, Elizabeth Banks – above and below), old-timers (George Segal) and real Manhattan artists (Rufus Wainright).

The movie is an episodic affair, centered on a New York stage and film star (Close) who is rehearsing a Broadway production of “Macbeth” while trying to convince her photographer daughter (Banks) to postpone — or even cancel — her forthcoming marriage to a handsome lawyer (James Marsden).

Other people enter the mix — a Brit journalist (John Light) in town to do a Vanity Fair story on a famous gay photographer who has slept with most of his models; an ex-lover of the Banks character (played by Matt Davis) who tries to lure her away from her fiance with a prestigious photo assignment in Eastern Europe; a young actor (Bradford) who is up for a role in a play that the famous actress plans to direct and who happens to live in the same apartment building as her daughter.

The drama and the fun in the movie derives from the unexpected collisions between these people and the surprising turns their lives take in one 24-hour period. “In this city there are only two degrees of separation,” the Close character says of the sometimes strangely small-town quality of life in Manhattan.

Most of the movie rings true and Close’s performance is one of her very best. “Heights” starts off with a real flourish, with the actress holding court at a master class at Juilliard, dressing down two ambitious students who decide to do a modern, “Sopranos”-style take on their Shakespeare scene.

The picture holds up well on television and should be added to your Netflix list if — like nearly everyone else — you missed it five years ago.

One-time Paul Taylor dancer David Parsons is among the handful of modern dance choreographers who has been able to launch a successful company of his own.

Parsons Dance — which is now 25 years old — is in residence at The Joyce Theater in Manhattan through Feb. 21 and the company is performing a reworking of Parsons’ most ambitious piece, “Remember Me.”

The evening-length piece about a tortured romantic triangle combines dance and live music in a collaboration with the Grammy-nominated East Village Opera Company.

The storyline was created by Parsons, EVOC lead vocalists Tyley Ross and AnnMarie Milazzo.

“Remember Me” has toured the country since an earlier version was presented at the Joyce last year.

Parsons has made modern dance more accessible through the use of commissioned scores by such major musicians as Dave Matthews and Milton Nascimento.

The current residency at the Joyce includes two other programs of shorter pieces. Both programs feature the amazing solo piece, “Caught,” that Parsons created for himself when he was still with the Taylor company. Through the use of a strobe light, the short abstract dance presents us with an array of live “still” images — many of which show the dancer seemingly “caught” in mid-air — that never fail to produce a rousing audience reaction.

Program C includes “Kind of Blue,” a wonderful piece Parsons choreographed to a cut from the great Miles Davis album of that title.

Tickets for Parsons Dance start at $10 and are available at www.joyce.org

Andrew Gross learned the thriller trade working with James Patterson on five bestsellers, but he went off on his own for “The Blue Zone” in 2007.

Since then, Gross has written two more terrific page-turners, “The Dark Tide” and “Don’t Look Twice,” moving himself into a position near the top of the thriller pack, with Lee Child and Harlan Coben.

I am very happy to report that his next book, “Reckless,” takes Gross to an even higher level.

William Morrow sent me an Advance Reader’s Edition of the novel that I devoured very quickly recently. “Reckless” won’t be in stores until April 27, but I wanted to share the good news because Gross has so many fans in Fairfield County.

Ty Hauck — the Greenwich cop of “The Dark Tide” and “Don’t Look Twice” — is still living in Connecticut, but is working for a worldwide security company as “Reckless” opens. Hauck is quickly involved in a case with global repercussions — the ex-cop teams up with a great new character, U.S. Treasury agent Naomi Blum, when it becomes clear that the murder of a financial services executive and his family in Greenwich is not a random act.

Indeed, “Reckless” rapidly becomes an international thriller in which the financial meltdown of 2008-2009 plays a major role. Gross explores the notion of Internet and financial terrorism in a way that is deeply unsettling. In this age of electronic globalization, you don’t need bombs to hit the United States hard.

Gross will be doing a major tour for “Reckless” with several Connecticut stops. My plan is to do a “Book Beat” feature for the Sunday “Pulse” section closer to the publication date. This should be the writer’s biggest book to date and it would make for a terrific movie.

So far, the 28-year-old Brooklyn actress Jess Weixler has been building a very strong film resume without breaking through in a major Hollywood studio film.

For the past couple of years, she’s been an indie queen in the tradition of Parker Posey, who seemed to dominate the Sundance Film Festival for much of the 1990s.

Weixler’s 2009 Sundance film, “Peter and Vandy,” didn’t get much of a theatrical release, but it is debuting on DVD today and is very much worth renting.

Written and directed by Jay DiPietro, the film gives us a fractured portait of a New York couple’s turbulent love affair — the scenes are shuffled in a manner reminiscent of last year’s indie hit, “(500) Days of Summer.”

DiPietro’s movie isn’t as slick as “Summer,” but it is a very interesting portait of a relationship, viewed from angles we never see in a Hollywood romantic comedy.

“By first seeing their future, we can fully understand what is happening in the past…and vice versa,” DiPietro said in a director’s statement in the press notes.

Weixler is wonderful as Vandy and she is well-matched by Jason Ritter as Peter. She works in a downtown gallery and he is trying to make it as an architect.

“Peter and Vandy” includes many of the hallmarks of a traditional romantic comedy — a “meet cute” scene, a stormy break-up, an unexpected post-break-up meeting — but by shuffling the deck the emotions in each scene are heightened in a way that makes the couple’s joys and sorrows more interesting. We have to work a little harder watching this movie, but the rewards of that closer attention are greater than anything you’d get from “Leap Year” or “When in Rome.”

Weixler has the good looks and charm that are standard equipment for a romantic comedy lead, but the actress’s theater background and her life in New York City have allowed her to connect with the character of Vandy in a deeper way.

With “Peter and Vandy” and another 2009 New York low-budget film, “Alexander the Great,” Weixler has demonstrated that she has the chops to carry a movie. Now, the question is: Will Hollywood make use of this extraordinary young actress?

Last week, YSL sent a racy new video promo/ad film by fashion photographer Bruce Weber into cyberspace (New York magazine labeled it NSFW because of the nudity).

Now comes word that fashion’s long-time envelope-pusher Calvin Klein is launching a profanity-laced, Internet-linked campaign for his new X brand of underwear.

The global and digital campaign features two American actors — Kellan Lutz of “Twilight” (right) and Michael Brooks of “True Blood” — along with Spanish tennis star Fernando Verdasco and Japanese soccer star Hidetoshi Nakata.

The international reach of social networking sites is being embraced by the company through the launch of its first multi-national, racially diverse photo campaign through the Internet.

According to the WWD Website, “a record 19 percent of the ad buy is going toward digital platforms, including Facebook, in 15 markets, and dominant portals and search engines in China (largely Tudou and Baidu) and South Korea (Naver), together having the potential for 66 million impressions. Digital ads will link to Xmarkyourspot.com, a destination for all materials and videos featuring the four models, allowing consumers to see behind the scenes and hear them speak.”

“Teasers for the digital campaign begin later this month, leading to a full reveal on March 1 to coincide with print and outdoor ads, which also have some digitally advanced elements. Ads in GQ will have an augmented reality component allowing consumers with Webcams to view 3-D effects. All in-store visuals will have QR codes that, when scanned with mobile phones, link to videos,” WWD added.

Director John Frankenheimer suffered a major career setback in 1966 when “Seconds” opened to wildly mixed reviews and then bombed at the box-office.

The dark and experimental movie was just a tad ahead of its time — the following year would bring “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The Graduate” and a whole new wave of challenging Hollywood films.

“Seconds” is a horror fantasy about the ruthless American pursuit of eternal youth and endless “lifestyle” options.

A burned-out middle-aged Scarsdale businessman (John Randolph) is offered a chance for a second life through a mysterious New York company that guarantees a new face (and body) through plastic surgery and then a relocation into a new home and career.

The catch is that there is no going back — a cadaver is used to provide the cover of an accidental death and estate money is secretly transferred to the new “you.”

So, the overweight and balding businessman Randolph goes into surgery and comes out the much younger and trimmer Rock Hudson, who is relocated to an artist’s colony in Malibu (where he falls for Salome Jens, above).

Hudson gives a very powerful and poignant performance, but his casting probably worked against the picture in 1966. The audience for his light 1960s comedies was appalled by the horror of “Seconds” and the “serious” film audience had no interest in a “Rock Hudson movie.”

Frankenheimer wanted to have Laurence Olivier play both halves of the role, but Paramount said the Brit wasn’t a big enough star (!) After both Glenn Ford and Kirk Douglas turned the movie down, Frankenheimer heard Hudson was interested, but only if his participation was limited to the “after” scenes.

“Seconds” has slowly gathered a cult following and critics have come to regard it as one of Frankenheimer’s career high points, just under the peerless “The Manchurian Candidate.”

Rinne Groff takes us to the intersection of history and show business in her very powerful new play, “Compulsion,” which is getting its world premiere production at Yale Repertory Theatre.

The show opened to the press Thursday night and will be running through Feb. 28.

Groff tells the little-known story of the wrangling over the dramatization of the diary of Anne Frank after the book became a huge best-seller.

Author Meyer Levin — whose popular books included “Compulsion,” about the 1920s era thrill-killers Leopold and Loeb —played a key role in launching the diary in this country.

Frank’s journal was published in Europe in the late 1940s but there was little interest in the book here until Levin — with the support of Anne’s father Otto — pushed Doubleday.

Levin wanted to write the introduction, but the publisher lined up Eleanor Roosevelt instead in the hopes of broadening the audience beyond a Jewish readership.

Doubleday arranged for Levin to review the book on the cover of The New York Times Book Review — despite the fact that he had a personal interest in the material — and that rave helped the diary become a major U.S. best-seller.

That’s when the trouble started for Levin as his plans to write the play were undercut by Doubleday and Otto Frank — who wanted a bigger name involved and also wanted to lessen the “ethnic” aspects of the story.

In the play Levin is called Sid Silver and he is being given vivid life in New Haven by Mandy Patinkin (left), who captures both the rage and the despair of an artist who is denied the project he believes would be the summation of his career and his life as a proud Jew.

When he was young, Levin ran a marionette theater in Chicago and Groff uses that fact for the daring device of having Anne Frank portrayed as a puppet. Marionettes are also used for re-enactments of scenes from the eventual hit Broadway version of the book.

Director Oskar Eustis does a great job of mixing the hyper-realism of the scenes set in the  New York City literary and Broadway worlds of the 1950s with the surreal elements dealing with history and myth supplied by the marionettes. 

Hannah Cabell (below) contributes excellent work in two roles — as Levin’s French wife and as Miss Mermin, the writer’s ally-turned-nemesis at Doubleday.

Stephen Barker Turner plays all of the other male roles in the show and is especially good in Act Two (above) as an Israeli director who wants to stage Levin’s script a decade after the Broadway production and the subsequent George Stevens film version.

“Compulsion” is a rich mix of history, entertainment world gossip, and a man’s obsession over a work of art that doesn’t really belong to him. It’s a terrific show that that is already set to move to the Berkeley Rep in California and then the Public Theater in Manhattan.

For ticket information, visit www.yalerep.org 

Adriana Trigiani’s just-published novel, “Brava, Valentine” (Harper) is the second book in a trilogy about a hard-working New Yorker named Valentine Roncalli, but I can testify that it works just fine as a stand-alone experience.

Trigiani is one of those best-selling writers I’ve been hearing good things about from friends for a long time, but have just never gotten around to reading.

Fortunately, I had to read “Brava” to prepare for an interview with the writer last week — she’ll be at R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison next Thursday — and now I’m dying to get to “Very Valentine” and the rest of Trigiani’s backlist.

One of the blurbs on the new novel calls the writer’s approach “Sex and the City” meets “Moonstruck” — that’s a fairly good description but Trigiani adds many elements of her own devising to tell a story of work and romance and family in contemporary Manhattan (with great side trips to Italy and Argentina).

Valentine is just in the process of taking over the family business when “Brava, Valentine” begins. Her beloved widowed grandmother has found love in her native Italy and has decided to marry and relocate there, leaving the small Greenwich Village shoe factory to her granddaughter.

Valentine wants to expand the business from a high-end custom-made shoe operation into a larger concern that can supply department stores as well as specialty shops.

Our heroine believes she has found love in Italy — at the wonderfully warm and funny wedding that opens the novel — but when she gets back to New York she is not sure what role a sexy older man named Gianluca can play in her life (although he does write fantastic love letters to her).

“I know about women who drop the lives they lead in one place to go and be with a man in another,” Valentine confides to us in an early chapter.

“I’m fascinated by their impulse to choose the possibility of love over the certainty of work. I would never leave my work behind for a man, no matter how scrumptious he might be. I am, however, interested in romance on my own terms, and in my own time. I’m no master craftsman when it comes to love, strictly an apprentice in training.”

Although this is the second volume of a trilogy, I never had the feeling of being lost in the middle of a story. The writer’s supporting characters — especially an ex-Paul Taylor dancer named June Lawton who works in the shop and is a quintessential hip New York City senior citizen — are so vivid that we are drawn to them right away.

Trigiani sucks a new reader right in with strong characters and situations that are immediately involving — it’s a bit like the feeling I had when I started watching “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” in their second seasons. The shows hooked me on the spot and then I went back to see what I had missed.