vip in the city

Poor Little It Girl

Dinner and a movie in TriBeCa 10013, which this past spring, Forbes magazine named as the most expensive zip code in Manhattan — the twelfth most expensive in the nation — far eclipsing the Upper East Side’s 10021, which for generations was home to old money New York. As recently as 1990, before the dot-com and telecom booms, George and Weezy’s nabe was the wealthiest zip code in the country; by 2006, the national rank had dropped to number 255.

Bubby’s opened in TriBeCa in 1990 as a pie company. The menu has since expanded to cover casual homestyle breakfasts, lunches and dinners; on weekends, Bubby’s serves brunch to crowds of trendy families (and the occasional celebrity.) Even at this after-work dinner hour, M and I felt out of place without a stroller in tow.

We forewent the famous pie to make our way to the Tribeca Grand for tonight’s preview screening of Factory Girl.

The film chronicles the rise and fall of heiress, fashion icon and Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller). The story of Sedgwick’s tragic life — she died in 1971 of a painkiller overdose at the age of 28, a year after leaving rehab — has taken on the proportions of a cult myth, as do most true tales of brief, intense lives. This most recent rendering of Sedgwick’s story does better as a slice of pop-culture history than as a biopic; probably the best that can be said about the film is that the costumes are fabulous and Miller is very pretty.

Screenwriter Captain Mauzner (a.k.a. Josh Klausner — I wonder how he got his friends to start addressing him as “Cap’n”?) was at the event to discuss making the movie. Mauzner’s first movie, a ten-minute short titled Atomic Tabasco, received an honorable mention at Sundance in 1999; in 2003, he was an associate producer and screenwriter for Wonderland, about porn star John Holmes’ involvement in the 1981 Laurel Canyon murders. Mauzner offered some insights into the journey from concept to finished film. Factory Girl was a three year process, which involved extensive revisions — over a dozen by Mauzner’s count. It was interesting to hear how casting considerations shaped the screenplay; the role of Warhol (an unnerving Guy Pearce) had to be expanded significantly so it would appeal to a higher profile actor, since Miller alone was not considered a big enough box office draw. Mauzner did not mention — nor did anyone dare ask — about the other rewrites prompted by rumored threats of litigation.

During the Q&A, one audience member used the word “biopic” to describe the film… except that she pronounced it “bi-AH-pik” (rhyming with myopic) instead of what I thought was the standard “BI-oh-pik.” I’ve actually now heard the former pronunciation from several different sources (including television), so when I got home that night, I did some research to find out whether that was an alternate, but correct, pronunciation of the word. It isn’t.