Schnabel: He’ll Always Be a Schwinner to UsAs you probably know, Julian Schnabel did not win an Oscar for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly last night. In fact, he lost, to the bespectacled directors of a movie with “few sympathetic characters, brutal, unredeemable violence, and an ending in which the closest thing the story has to a protagonist is killed offstage.” The disappointment on Schnabel’s face when the verdict was issued was difficult for us to bear, even as it quickly turned to annoyance. Clearly, this was a political, polemical conspiracy, you could see him thinking. Javier Bardem! That hair! Gimmicky. But what did it mean? Does it mean that the world at large will never recognize Schnabel’s true magnificence? This we cannot believe. Though we are bowed by this defeat, we are not broken. The Schnabe comes from a long line of stout, hairy, strong souls, and he will emerge again, like, yes, a butterfly from a pupa. Until then, Schnabel, we Schalute thee.
Related: Julian Schnabel is My Cousin [Consent of the Governed]
party lines
Madonna Explains Why She Schnubbed the ChupiBecause Daily Intel’s pursuit of all things Schnabel is not bound by geography or actually, gravity, we asked Berlin-based reporter Lawrence Ferber to corner Madonna at the Berlin Film Festival this week, where she was promoting the film she directed, Filth and Wisdom, and ask her why she had rejected the Chupi of our dreams. Here is his report:
“What a strange question!” Madonna laughed when we asked her about the Palazzo Chupi. So we laughed too, like “Ha-ha-ha-ha, we’re not psycho.” “How did you know that?” she asked. Er, we have our ways. Madge confirmed she had looked at the Chupi and decided not to move in. But not, it turned out, for fear of seeing a Schnaked Schnabel slipping into the swimming pool. “I love the house,” she explained. “But it’s not child-friendly, which is why I didn’t end up moving there.” Also, she was able to iron out the issues she was having with her co-op board at Harperly Hall. I bought the apartment upstairs, so now everything’s A-OK,” she said. She and Schnabel will continue to be friends. “I love [Julian],” she gushed. “He’s awesome.” We think so too! Maybe we can all be friends! Madge? —Lawrence Ferber
real estate porn
Palazzo Chupi Goes on the Market; Intel Editors SchwoonThis may be hard for you to believe since we at Intel are clearly deeply fulfilled by our work, but there are days when we say to ourselves, Selves? Why did we not go into investment banking? Because a life of pounding the pavement and speaking truth to power may be noble, but it’s not gonna get us to the Palazzo Chupi. Yes, today the remaining two units of Julian Schnabel’s pink West Village Palace, having been rejected by Bono, then by Madonna, went on the market. The views (river and harbor, from various terraces), amenities (pool, parking, access to the Schnabe), and schnabulous details (cast-bronze door handles, stone fireplaces, cast-stone railings, beamed ceilings, terra-cotta tile floors) put the price at $27 million (for the duplex) and $32 million (for the triplex). Our rudimentary math skills (another reason we’re not bankers) indicate that it will take us somewhere between 400 and 700 years to save up for our chunk of Chupi. Until then, we can only dream, and moon over the pictures after the jump.
in other news
Julian Schnabel to Bring Peace to the Middle EastAdd selfless and noble to the list of things we love about Julian Schnabel. The Schnab is going to Israel in June, partly to scout locations for a movie based on a book by Israeli-Palestinian author Rula Jebreal, but also to be an envoy of peace. “We need to fix things over there,” Schnabel told an Israeli reporter in London the other day. “I’m going to work on it. That will be my next thing. Yes, I’m going to devote myself to try and make things better over there.” So what if he gets sidetracked a little? “Are there any surfers in Israel?” he asks the interviewer. If there’s anyone who can bring peace to that war-torn part of the world, it’s a ruddy, pajama-clad painter from New York City by way of Brownsville, Texas. Or, at least, you know, it won’t be as bad as when Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown went.
Next Direction: Paint It Peaceful [NYP via The Reeler]
The Diving Bell Director Coming to Israel [YNet]
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Julian Schnabel Gives Us a SchnugSince his Diving Bell and the Butterfly was released to wide critical acclaim and he received a Best Director Oscar nomination nod, Julian Schnabel has been basking in adulation like a seal in the afternoon sun. Much of the attention has come from us at Intel, who find everything about Schnabel, from his irascible braggadocio to his pajamas to his frontal and dorsal man-fur, extremely compelling. But other people love El Schnabuloso, too, like Lou Reed, who mentioned his longtime friend and neighbor’s “big old heart,” when he introduced him as an honoree at the amFar awards last night. But how big was that heart, and was there room in there for us? We sidled up to the Schnabel to try and find out.