Here’s a piece from the wonderful New York magazine about Monday’s gala honouring John Kander, hosted by David. Sounds like it was a great show! Also – Chita Rivera is 77?!
To any die-hard theater geek, a show that begins with Joel Grey and ends with Liza Minnelli ranks as a good one — so well done, Monday night’s benefit for the Vineyard Theatre! The evening, honoring John Kander (of legendary Broadway songwriting duo Kander and Ebb) was hosted by a dependably droll David Hyde Pierce, who told bad theater jokes (“I’m hosting, so it’s a gay-la”; “We wanted to capture the perfect tenor for this evening — and we did, he’s waiting off stage”) and gave a wonderfully deadpan rendition of ‘Ten Percent’, a lost Chicago ode to theater agents.
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Some interesting new info on The Perfect Host in this new review from The Hollywood Reporter!
Black humor turns comically darker in twisty quasi-suspenser The Perfect Host. Although late revelations skew earlier thrills, co-writer/director Nick Tomnay’s feature debut should find suitable opportunities to entertain on both cable and DVD.
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Here’s another review in praise of David’s performance, from Daemon’s Movies.
The Perfect Host, written and directed by first time director Nick Tomnay, is a movie that follows John Taylor (Clayne Crawford, who appears in the new season of 24), a bank robber on the run after a botched bank job, who, using subterfuge, gains entry into the home of Warwick Wilson (David Hyde Pierce – Frasier). Warwick, who is preparing to host a dinner party, starts out the evening being a gracious host but as events start to unwind and identities get revealed, things go from bad to worse.
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The Guardian Film Blog has an interesting piece about horror/thriller movies at Sundance, which includes a little snippet on The Perfect Host …
David Hyde Pierce has never struck me as a sinister presence – he’s Dr Niles Crane for crying out loud! – but if you look closely there’s something of the night in those piercing eyes and I’ve always found high foreheads to be not entirely trustworthy. Pierce uses his visage and considerable acting chops to good effect in The Perfect Host, an effective psychological thriller in the vein of Sleuth that’s a lot of fun.
Here’s a new, positive review of The Perfect Host from the formidable Variety.
A familiar horror/suspense trope – criminals choose the wrong hideout, discover twisted residents more dangerous than cops – gets entertainingly respun in The Perfect Host. Expanding his 2002 short, Aussie writer-director Nick Tomnay’s US first feature finds David Hyde Pierce and Clayne Crawford playing violent cat-and-mouse captivity games. Unmemorable but diverting, the pic’s slickness, modest scale and TV names are perfect for cable sale.
John (Crawford) has barely left a $300,000 bank robbery when the radio broadcasts that he and his car have already been identified. Needing shelter fast, he bluffs his way into the sleek Hollywood Hills abode of older bachelor Warwick (Pierce), who’s preparing for a dinner party. At first John’s fibs maintain cordiality, but when the truth comes out, he easily overpowers the terrified host. However, Warwick isn’t quite so helpless as he seems. Tables are soon turned, John drugged, bound and at the mercy of an apparent madman. Just when the pic seems to be settling into torture-porn, it begins pulling a series of clever twists – although they lose some punch when you realize the script depends on one whopping coincidence. Perfs are expert, packaging pro if undistinguished.
Here’s a very positive review of The Perfect Host by Jeanette D. Moses of cool Utah-based indie mag SLUG.
John Taylor has just robbed a bank. His foot is bleeding through his shoe and his face is all over the news. He’s been convicted of theft and assault before. He’s completely fucked. The only thing he has going for him is that he’s clever and fairly quick on his feet. When it seems like all hope is lost, Taylor manipulates his way into Warwick Wilson’s house, using a postcard found in his mailbox to pose as a friend of a friend. He even gets invited to stay for the dinner party that Wilson is preparing to host. But then the tables turn. And then they turn again. And a few more times after that before the film is over. The Perfect Host is a seamlessly crafted story that keeps you guessing with every scene. Every time you think you have it figured out you’re thrown off. This film is anything but predictable. The police thriller meets twisted comedy meets love story features excellently developed characters, dry humor and off the wall plot twists that keep you continuously guessing. The Perfect Host is one of the most exceptional and unpredictable films that I have seen in the past year.
Thanks to KallS for the link!
The great A.V. Club, audiovisual offshoot to The Onion, has just posted two new reviews of The Perfect Host by bloggers Nathan Rabin and Noel Murray. While they feel, like a lot of early reviews, that the movie has perhaps a twist too far, they agree that David is pretty fun to watch.
Noel Murray: One summer I got hooked on the movie Deathtrap and watched it about a dozen times on HBO, enjoying all the twists and turns of its plot about two men with secrets, each trying to kill the other. Writer-director Nick Tomnay’s debut feature The Perfect Host isn’t as good as Deathtrap, but I enjoyed it for much the same reasons: it makes good use of a limited set and characters, and it keeps introducing new surprises. Clayne Crawford plays a bank robber who’s looking for a place to lay low, and cons his way into the home of dapper aesthete David Hyde Pierce. But Pierce, as it turns out, is more than a little nuts, and before long it’s impossible to say who’s really in control of the situation. Tomnay introduces flashbacks to fill in the blanks of Crawford’s story, and he introduces a left-field twist about Pierce in the last 15 minutes that brings the various threads of the movie together in a fairly ridiculous way. But it’s a fun kind of ridiculous, and Pierce plays his wacked-out dinner party host with such gusto that it almost doesn’t matter if all the characters are cartoons. Grade: C+
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Slash Film have an early review of The Perfect Host by David Chen up at their site – along with a video interview with DHP, Nick Tomnay and Clayne Crawford. The review is a mixed one, the general consensus being that the film is quite deranged – David, though, is deranged in a good way.
I loved the premise of The Perfect Host: a bank robber (Clayne Crawford) talks his way into the house of a well-to-do man named Warwick (David Hyde Pierce) by pretending to be the friend of a friend, only to find that Warwick is far more dangerous than he seems. So how was the film’s execution?
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The always interesting Huffington Post has a new review of the Holiday Show. Cheesy but feelgood is the verdict!
By the time David Hyde Pierce and Michael Feinstein sang Cole Porter’s ‘You’re the Top’ last night at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency, I’d been smiling for so long that my cheeks ached. Their retro holiday nightclub act, which plays until December 30, invoked male performers of another era whose duets (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in White Christmas, or Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire in The Ziegfeld Follies) were always gay in the lively and bright sense. Although, gay in the other sense admirably captures the spirit of the evening, as well.
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‘Nother great Holiday Show review from the website GaySocialites.com!
Yet another duo cabaret act from Michael Feinstein, after two terrific match-ups with Cheyenne Jackson and Christine Ebersole (the show with Jackson was so successful that it was subsequently made into a terrific studio album). The previous shows were studies in contrasts, with Feinstein playing more or less the straight man to his more flamboyant partners.
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