And Their Director Too

Director Alfonso Cuaron wiped his brow. “I feel so blessed,” he said, beaming. “I’m so happy.” It was very hot where Cuaron was standing: in the thick of an adoring crowd at the Argyle on Sunset Boulevard on Tuesday night.

Cuaron had good reason to smile.

At the West Coast premiere of his new movie, “Y Tu Mama Tambien” (And Your Mama Too), at the Regent Showcase Theatre on La Brea Avenue earlier Tuesday night, there were not enough seats to accommodate the many guests who showed up (though if you were Gwyneth Paltrow or Madonna’s brother, Christopher Ciccone, seating was not a problem). The after-party was equally crowded.

“The reception of the movie has been amazing,” Cuaron said. “I’m so pleased by the support, everyone from the exhibitors to the distributors. The community: Hollywood and also the Hispanic community.”

Marquee Hollywood sent Paltrow, Sydney Pollack and Christina Ricci, who were hosts of the celebrations. On the outside terrace, United Talent Agency suits milled around by the pool. Julie Delpy breezed by, dressed in white.

Inside, other kinds of talent were on display. On the crowded dance floor, several couples showed their salsa prowess. Margaritas and tequila shots were flowing. The party was getting very hot.

Gael Garcia Bernal, who stars as one of the teenagers in the coming-of-age movie, was getting a lot of attention from female guests. “It’s a universal story,” Bernal said of the movie, before two women snatched him away.

In a nearby corner his co-star, Diego Luna, was sitting on a couch, flanked by Edward Norton and Salma Hayek.

Luna glowed. “This is a great party,” he said, pushing locks away from his eyes. He had been waiting for this moment, he said. “This is a movie about life,” Luna said. “I’m very proud of what we did.”

Everything’s Coming

Out Rosie

“I don’t think America knows what a gay parent looks like. I am the gay parent,” Rosie O’Donnell tells Diane Sawyer in an interview airing tonight on ABC.

O’Donnell on coming out:

“Part of the reason why I’ve never, like, said that I was gay until now was because I didn’t want that adjective assigned to my name for all of eternity. You know, gay Rosie O’Donnell. Because it’s never in the top-10 list of how I identify myself ....You know, my childhood was much harder to get through than anything about my sexuality.”

On Tom Cruise:

“I want him to mow my lawn and get me a lemonade. He makes my palms sweat. He makes my heart beat, and I adore him, gay, straight, or somewhere in between, he is the perfect man that ever walked the face of the Earth.... Some gay rights people, or gay activists have said, ‘Oh, you’re trying to make people think that you’re straight by saying that Tom Cruise thing.’ As if gay people cannot appreciate the aesthetic beauty of somebody of the other gender. That is so untrue. He’s absolutely the most handsome, gorgeous, make-me-blotch man I’ve ever met in my life. That doesn’t mean that that’s my sexuality or that I’m going to end up marrying him or would want to.”

During the interview, O’Donnell also extends an invitation to President Bush for a weekend visit at her house when Sawyer asks her a question about Bush’s past statement about gay adoption:

Sawyer: “President Bush has said ... ‘I believe children ought to be adopted in families with a woman and a man who are married.’”

O’Donnell: “Well, he’s wrong ....And, you know, if he’d like, he and his wife are invited to come spend a weekend at my house with my children. And I’m sure his mind would change.”

She’s Sticking

by Her Gibes

Touring the country after Sept. 11, comedian Elayne Boosler noticed a “skittishness, a defensive attitude” when it came to political jokes. “There’s nothing you shouldn’t do [in comedy], especially now,” she said by phone from her home in Studio City.

Boosler lauded Aaron Sorkin, creator of “The West Wing,” for his recent comments that the country is “pretending” that President Bush is competent and brave. Sorkin told the New Yorker that though the country was correct in “laying off the bubblehead jokes” about its president during the war in Afghanistan, the news media had gone too far.

“That illusion may be what we need right now,” he said, “but the truth is we’re simply pretending to believe that Bush exhibited unspeakable courage at the World Series by throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium....”

Boosler concurs. “Someone needs to point out the emperor has no clothes,” she said, adding that comedy about politics, not politesse, is her metier.

So she’s persisted with her political jokes, braving occasional hostile responses. In Tulsa, Okla., recently, she was picketed for her material on gun control. “If you need 100 rounds to kill a deer, maybe hunting isn’t your sport,” is one of her lines on automatic weapons.

But even the picketers, whom she had invited in to see the show, laughed, she said. “I don’t change their minds, but they see the other side.” Comedy and humor, she said, “is a way in.”