The Film Society of Lincoln Center just announced that their closing film will be the world premiere of “Flight” starring Denzel Washington. Bob Zemeckis directed an all star cast in this Paramount Pictures film that twists the Sully Sullenberger story into fiction. Denzel plays a pilot who safely lands a plane full of passengers during a crash. But then it turns out there are secrets and lies about the whole thing. John Goodman, Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo, Bruce Greenwood and Kelly Reilly co-star. “Flight,” written by John Gatins, will play the NYFF on October 14th. The film opens officially on November 2nd.

Jay Penske, owener of Mail.com and the websites Deadline.com and HollywoodLife.com, was arrested in Nantucket over night. Apparently he and his brother broke into a house at the Nantucket Yacht Club. Penske also allegedly urinated on some poor woman’s shoes. Deadline.com has pissed off a lot of people, and some might say, on some people, in the past. This is called taking it to the next level. Here’s the report from the local newspaper. Click their link, too, at http://www.ack.net/PenskeBreakIn080912.html. Thanks to Gawker.com for the heads up. The Penskes are innocent til proven otherwise.

From the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror:

By Jason Graziadei

I&M Senior Writer

(Aug. 9, 2012) Two sons of auto racing mogul Roger Penske were arrested early Thursday morning by island police for an alleged break-in at the Nantucket Yacht Club after two women claimed they had been assaulted in the club’s parking lot.

Jay Penske, 33, the CEO of the digital media company PMC who owns the IndyCar racing team Dragon Racing and the web site Deadline.com, along with his brother Mark Penske, 35, were arrested just before 2 a.m. Thursday on South Beach Street.
According to a police report, the incident was initially reported as an assault and battery when two women approached police on Broad Street, claiming they had been assaulted by two men, later identified as the Penske brothers, at the yacht club’s parking lot.

One of the women claimed the Penske brothers were urinating in the parking lot, and that when she confronted Jay Penske, he “turned and continued to urinate on her boots. He then proceeded to grab her arm and push her. (The woman) also states that Mark before he ran away pushed her and they both then ran to the house on Yacht Club property” the report states.

Police claimed they apprehended Jay Penske attempting to run away from the club, and that they found Mark Penske at the employee apartment after he had fallen down the staircase, suffering several cuts on this right arm.

“There were three people living in the apartment and only two saw the suspects enter the house and they got startled when they were confronted,” according to the report. The Penskes are not members at the Nantucket Yacht Club, according to staff at the club.

The women later told police they did not wish to press assault and battery charges, according to the report, which was written by officer John Muhr, a 20-year veteran of the Nantucket Police Department.

The brothers spent the night in the Nantucket Police Department’s lockup facility, and were arraigned Thursday morning on charges of breaking and entering in the nighttime with intent to commit a misdemeanor. Both were released on personal recognizance with pretrial hearings set for Aug. 20.

Their parents, Roger and Kathy Penske, own a waterfront home on Nantucket in Pocomo.

The Penske brothers were not available for comment, according to a person who answered the phone at their parents’ home.

“Dallas” 2.0 ended its first season on TNT last night with a bunch of revelations. My favorite one is that Cliff Barnes, played so well by Ken Kercheval since 1931, is now a super villain with a private plane. It turns out he sent his daughter in to marry his sister’s adopted son, Christopher, get pregnant and destroy the Ewing family. Hah!(I guess they’re first cousins, technically. A “Dallas” tradition of incest, since Lucy used to sleep with Uncle Ray Krebs.)

The old Cliff Barnes would never have been so smart. He was a wise guy jerk with a slight brain malfunction from a suicide attempt. But his sister Pam loved him. JR made inexcusable fun of Cliff, which made the show a hoot. The new “Dallas” is not a hoot. It’s told like a speeding train through a Dallas suped up to look like “Blade Runner.”

In this edition, former drunk Sue Ellen Ewing is now running for governor of Texas. I suppose it’s plausible since that’s not a job with high qualifications. Anyway, Larry Hagman–suffering from cancer–looked unwell in this final episode, very gaunt and much older than 80. I hope he’s all right. Patrick Duffy soldiers on. The younger cast members have improved slightly from the first episode.

But really, it’s all about Cliff. Now his daughter (presumably with old flame Afton, played by the incredibly bad actress Audrey Landers– can’t wait to see her next season) is pregnant with Christopher Ewing’s twins. Cliff, who used to live in a tacky condo and treated his girlfriends like garbage, is now some kind of evil genius. He’s like Lex Luthor. I almost fell off the couch. And no one in the Ewings ever guessed that Rebecca was Cliff’s daughter. Rebecca was his mother’s name. She’s named for her grandmother. And, essentially, Christopher’s.

Anyway, they all come back in January for more mishegos. It’s not the real “Dallas” and Cynthia Cidre would do well to develop a sense of humor. Where’s the new cartel? We need Marilee Stone. (There was a mention of the McKay brothers last night- who are they? Maybe next season. McKay senior- George Kennedy– was JR’s enemy.) But it is what it is.

The Monkees will tour this fall– with Mike Nesmith coming back to the band. I guess with the sad, sad passing of Davy Jones, Mike realized he had to join Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork one last time. The Monkees have a huge fan base, and deservedly so. Initially a made up band a kind of joke from the mid 60s, it turns out they have a great catalog of hits which has endured. If they sing “People Gotta Be Free,” which used to close the show’s credit, I will be very happy. Here’s the release and the tour dates. This could be bigger than The Who tour. In addition, Mickey is doing like 15 projects lately. I love Mickey Dolenz. Who doesn’t?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUzs5dlLrm0

The release:

The Monkees are set to return to the stage this November for a 12-date U.S. tour, marking the first time Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork have played together since 1997. The tour kicks off at Escondido’s California Center for the Arts on November 8th and finishes at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on December 2nd.

The trek is also Nesmith’s first with the Monkees since a brief U.K. run in 1997; and of course, it’s the group’s first outing since singer Davy Jones passed away in February. “This seems like a good time to do this – the right time,” says Nesmith. “Who knows when we will get another chance?”

The Monkees will perform a selection of their biggest hits and deeper cuts from their first five albums, as well as music from their film Head and their TV series. Accompanying the tunes will be a multimedia show filled with rare films and photographs.

Jones will be saluted “in the show’s multimedia content,” according to a statement.

Dolenz’ PR-rep David Salidor also revealed that a new album from him, called REMEMBER, will be released on 9/25.

Full tour dates below:

11/8 Escondido, CA – California Center for the Arts
11/9 Santa Barbara, CA – The Arlington Theatre
11/10 Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre
11/11 Cupertino, CA – Flint Center for the Performing Arts
11/15 Minneapolis, MN – State Theatre
11/16 Chicago, IL – The Chicago Theatre
11/17 Cleveland, OH – Lakewood Civic Auditorium
11/18 Buffalo, NY – The Center For The Arts
11/29 Philadelphia, PA – Keswick Theatre
11/30 New Brunswick, NJ – State Theatre Regional Arts Center
12/1 Huntington, NY – The Paramount
12/2 New York, NY – The Beacon Theatre

Woody Harrelson has conquered plenty of fields in entertainment, from TV to movies. So last night’s premiere of the play he wrote with pal Frankie Hyman was another high water mark– and I do mean high. With Woody, it’s not Chanel No. 5 you sniff when he gives you a hug. (Harrelson is one of the nicest, most mellow fellows in showbiz.) Woody directed “Bullet for Adolf” and it opened last night at New World Stages, a cool theater complex just west of the theater district on 50th St. and Eighth Avenue. A lot of his friends showed up including Tony Danza, singer Peter Cincotti, producer Bonnie Timmermann, music producer Russ Titelman, famed magician and performer David Blaine. and director Oren Moverman.

“Bullet” is well directed; the diverse cast of newcomers mostly are very talented, and with Woody they’ve achieved a great rapport on stage. There’s a nice ease to the production. The play is part sitcom, and part Sam Shepherd with a little “House of Blues Leaves” thrown in. Hyman, who is black, was born in Harlem, moved to Texas, where he met Harrelson, and now lives in Los Angeles. They’ve been friends for most of their lives, he told me. The result of their collaboration is a play with black and white actors–nice to see for a change–where everyone is equally goofy. Conventional critics won’t like “Bullet,” but summer audiences will.

A special shout out to Nick Wyman, president of Actors Equity and a Broadway veteran with 15 shows on his resume including “Phantom” and “Les Miz.” He’s one of those guys who you see and say, “I know him, what’s his name?” In “Bullet” he plays a funny German with a strange backstory. His gun was going to kill Hitler; it has one bullet left in its chamber that was supposed to assassinate the world’s most hated dictator. They needed Nick Wyman to put that story over.

Off topic: David Blaine entertained everyone at the after party at Hurley’s with electrifying card tricks. He told me loves to travel through the country performing at small clubs, but won’t do Las Vegas. Too big and impersonal.

Lena Dunham’s “Girls” is a hit on HBO, a wonderfully written droll show about slacker kids living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But since it started, “Girls” has been criticized for furthering the same issue that plagued “Sex and the City”–no black characters. How could these kids live in New York and have a lily white existence? Sources now tell me that issue will be addressed in the season 2 opener, which was just completed. My direct question was, Will there be a black character? And the answer I got was Yes.

This is so smart of “Girls” to do this quickly, and without fuss. Last spring they’d announced a character named Tako was who supposed to be African American. But when she turned up  in the person of winning actress Roberta Colindrez, it didn’t seem like the show had followed through on its promise.

The following may be further confirmation. A casting call went out in July for this character. The name and description of the character suggests that Elladonna could be the young lady in question. Here’s the description. Note the very important part–“submit all ethnicities”:

[ELADONNA] Female, PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES. ELADONNA is a 17-18 year old (PLEASE
INDICATE AGE ON SUBMISSION) Staten-Islander raised by her on again, off again parents. Her mother is
currently living with another man in Levittown, Pennsylvania so she lives with only her father (who thinks his
wife is staying with her mother. Eladonna knows and will tell him the next time she fights with her dad. It will
lead to his stabbing the man and ending up in jail). She most often sleeps at her boyfriend’s condo – a 38
year old commercial realtor who’s also a small time coke dealer. She has 2 tattoos: a Yankees sign on her
inner thigh that she got when she was sober and the Chinese symbol for “wisdom” on her hip that she got
when she was drunk. She found some guns at her boyfriend’s place and likes to carry one around in her
purse. (Guest Star)
Likes: Lady Gaga, bubble gum, Hypnotiq, good calzones, her brother Matteo who’s in a rock band in
Denver.
Dislikes: Her mother, her father, phonies.