Liv Tyler's Wedding Makes Her Lady of the Rings

Lady of the Rings | Amazing Kreskin | Soap Star's Car

We still haven't heard much about actress Liv Tyler's second wedding to rocker Royston Langdon last Friday.

So let me tell you: Liv did the near-impossible with this elegant seven-hour affair at New York's funky Pastis, the West Village French bistro. She reunited all the members of her unusual extended family and came up a winner.

The pair, as you may know, first married in March in Barbados on the fly, with just a couple of guests and no parents. To make up for it, they decided to splurge on the real thing.

Luckily, even though Liv makes a bundle in the movies (thanks to good early guidance from her mom Bebe Buell), dad Steven Tyler of Aerosmith proved to be a generous host as well.

The Pastis affair was notable for putting in one place, maybe for the first time ever, all of Liv's parents: mom Bebe, biological dad Tyler, and rocker Todd Rundgren, the man Liv thought was her father for the first 10 years of her life.

All of the parents brought their current spouses, and Rundgren even had an ex-wife there. How's that for modern living? Old wounds were healed, and new friendships were formed.

If this keeps happening, Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, Ricki Lake and Jenny Jones will all go out of business!

Of course there was no lack of well-known faces. Kate Hudson, with whom Tyler smooched in Robert Altman's Dr. T and the Women, came with her own rocker husband, Chris Robinson. Designer Stella McCartney — daughter of Beatle Paul McCartney — showed up solo. David Bowie came with wife Iman, and Marlon Richards — son of Rolling Stone Keith Richards — was there with his wife Lucie de la Falaise.

Other guests included Kirsten Dunst and Jake Gyllenhaal; famed photographer Bob Gruen and his wife Elizabeth; and rocker Evan Dando, whom Tyler (Liv, that is) once dated.

In addition to the groom's parents, there was also Tyler's grandmother Dorothea Johnson (a protocol expert for the government), and Interview magazine editor Ingrid Sischy.

What a happy family! Langdon, by the way, formerly with the group Spacehog, is now testing his solo act by opening for Rundgren in concert.

Rundgren and Buell, who hadn't seen each other in years, took a lot of pictures together, as did the various Tyler siblings and half-siblings and step-siblings, including Liv's half-sister Mia.

Next step for Tyler is part three of Lord of the Rings, which will be a cinch for several Oscar nominations this fall.

Amazing Kreskin Goes to Toronto on SARS Alert

The city of Toronto is using its strongest weapon to battle fears of the SARS virus: the Amazing Kreskin.

That's right. The famed mentalist told me today that because he considers Canada a second home, he's gone to Toronto to allay worries and help tourism.

"Not to minimize the people who've died, but it's about 20 now. Compare that with the number of people who die from the flu. It's nothing," he said.

Kreskin, who is actually from New Jersey, said he's "disappointed" that some celebrities have added to the fears.

"I think it's terrible that Billy Joel and Elton [John] cancelled shows, and Lisa Presley. Celebrities used to be the most courageous people. But Colin Farrell and Robin Williams not wanting to leave their hotel rooms. Come on!"

To underscore his message that "mass hysteria" has turned the SARS situation in Toronto into much more than it should be, Kreskin is planning two public stunts. One, set for tonight on a national Canadian talk show, will use hypnosis to cause paralysis in a large group of total strangers. He'll do it again tomorrow at a public press conference.

But Kreskin, I ask, more importantly: where are my lost sunglasses?

"They're in your car," he said. "Call me if you find them there."

Soap Star Gets Serious With Blue Car

Soap fans may remember Karen Moncrieff from the NBC melodramas Days of Our Lives and Santa Barbara. On the former she was only 22 years old; the girl who played her daughter was 18. That's soaps. What can you do?

Now flash forward. Moncrieff ties back her mane of expensively blown-out brunette hair, puts on square dark-rimmed glasses and decides she won't be one of dozens of actresses who make a splash and then fade.

On Friday, Moncrieff's first feature, Blue Car, goes into limited release from Miramax. The movie — which she wrote and directed — was the subject of a bidding war at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. But it is finally here, and I can tell you that Blue Car is a wonderfully realized character study, a little gem of a movie that is unforgettable in all the best ways.

Agnes Bruckner, now seventeen, plays the main character, Meg, whose negligent single mom saddles her with too much responsibility at an early age. Margaret Colin, currently on Broadway in Joe Egg, is the mom. David Straithairn, the most dependable, consistent, talented and underrated actor, is the English teacher who takes advantage of Meg's predicament.

I guess you'd call Blue Car a coming-of-age story; in the future, I think MTV should play it without commercials in its entirety once a month. But Bruckner's performance is so exceptional for a teenager — unornamented and truthful — that adult audiences in search of relief from the X-Men 2 phenomenon would do well to check this out.

Straithairn, by the way, has just launched into a short Broadway run with Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei in Salome. But this is not an ordinary show: it's a staged reading, with all the actors sitting on stools in front of music stands bearing scripts. So how's it going?

"We don't actually need the scripts because we've been doing it so long," Straithairn laughed. "So every now and then you flip the pages and look like you're reading."

Now that's good acting.

P.S.: There's one little mistake in Blue Car visible only to the most adroit. See if you can find it. I'm curious to know who's paying attention out there.