Drew Barrymore turns 50 and “The Great Gatsby” turns 100.
Just part of what’s up for 2025!
Gen X continuing to melt into middle age — courtesy of one touchy-feely poster child who has been famous since a baby — as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s uniquely American masterpiece continues to set off Jazz Age smoke a century since it was written.
So, OK, it is also going to be a year when we get a third “Avatar,” a fourth “Bridget Jones,” an eighth “Mission: Impossible” and a fresh new “Superman.” On the small screen, at least for the first quarter, I am looking forward to the second season of Apple TV’s mind-bending “Severance” (nearly three years after its first season), taking another stab at “The Traitors” (I live for the American version!) and checking once more into “The White Lotus” (Thai-style, this time).
George Clooney is making his Broadway debut as Edward R. Murrow in an adaptation of his 2005 film, did you know? Lana Del Rey has a country album coming out. Mark it down! Books-wise, I am keen to see what Taylor Jenkins Reid — of “Daisy Jones and the Six” fame — comes up with when she uses the 1980s U.S. space program as grist for her new novel, “Atmosphere: A Love Story.”
So much culture to track … and so much time to do it. Here, then, four baubles I’ve got my eye on in particular for the new year. Enjoy!
Warhol and his Women
Having already summoned the swoony, acid world of Truman Capote in his book “Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era” — a work recently adapted into a prestige TV series with Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockhart, etc. — biographer Laurence Leamer turns his gaze toward another Manhattan demigod: Andy Warhol. His followup, “Warhol’s Muses: The Artists, Misfits, and Superstars Destroyed by the Factory Fame Machine,” is out in May and it’s another friendship autopsy, indeed — one involving Warhol’s relationships with 10 of his so-called “superstars.” Read it before it becomes another inevitable series — and stock up on some cocktail party convo!
As the person who created the modern idea of “celebrity,” one could argue, the Q-tipped multi-artist drew an ever evolving entourage of stunning women, babes like Nico, Edie Sedgwick and Candy Darling. And as the preview for the book teases, “each left their protected enclaves and ventured to a new world, Warhol’s famed Factory … sex was casual, drugs were ubiquitous, parties were wild, and to Warhol, everyone was transient, temporary, and replaceable.” The narrative begins with the rise of Andy, it seems, and is bookended by the consequences of that fateful June day in 1968 in Manhattan when someone enters the Factory and shoots the pop icon.
Starchitecture Alert
Not bad for a 95-year-old: superstar Canadian Frank Gehry will see the long-awaited opening of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a mirage rising from the desert. Nearly 20 years after it was first announced, and 15 since construction began — delayed for various reasons — things are on track for the museum, set on Saadiyat Island, a cultural district off the coast of the UAE capital, and measuring 42,000 square metres, the largest of the four Guggenheim outposts, even overtaking Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, which Gehry also famously conceived.
“One thing the Abu Dhabi museum won’t be is Bilbao-lite,” is what the architect says. Instead, it’s his take on “a traditional, spread out, organic Arab village or town,” expected to house a cross-cultural collab of modern and contemporary artworks from West Asia, North Africa and South Asia.
Pass the Steam Buns
“Weddings are intensely important markers in the growth of your relationships, even fake ones,” says filmmaker Andrew Ahn, talking about his new take on an old classic, “The Wedding Banquet.” Shot in Vancouver, and featuring Bowen Yang of “Saturday Night Live,” Oscar-nominated Lily Gladstone and South Korean upstart Han Gi-chan, among others, it’s one 2025 movie I remain most intrigued by, largely because of its rich provenance. The OG version was directed, after all, by a young Ang Lee — before he was movie royalty — and the movie still holds up as a ’90s gem. A “queer rom-com classic,” as it’s been put.
That movie, as art-house nerds remember, followed a Taiwanese immigrant who lives with his boyfriend and finds himself “faking it” to please his conservative parents, marrying a woman from mainland China in need of a green card. This version, taking a broader approach, follows two women trying to have a baby through IVF when, due to parental constraints, another wedding plot is hatched. Cue the sweet-and-sour hijinks. Word is pretty good on this reimagining. Out in April.
Careful, It’s Haute
The greatest show on earth? It possibly comes next fall, when Chanel officially debuts its new designer, Matthieu Blazy. After a long search, and one of fashion’s greatest guessing games, his appointment was announced earlier this month. A French-Belgian whiz who previously made a splash at Bottega Veneta, he is only the fourth official creative director in the history of the brand known for its tweed suits, quilted handbags and No. 5 scent — in the shadow of such legends as Coco Chanel herself and Karl Lagerfeld, who was with the house for an extraordinary 36 years.
After Lagerfeld’s death, the position was given to Virginie Viard, who exited stage left after an uneven five years. And with the new appointment — which has the fashion world in titters — it means the storied French brand is definitively turning the page on the Lagerfeld era. Blazy’s first collection will likely rock Paris next October. Oh là là!