Woody Allen’s wife of almost 25 years, Soon Yi Previn Allen, made a rare public appearance last Friday at a lunch for Oscar winner Nicole Kidman.

Soon Yi, who is smart and funny, came with New York magazine writer Daphne Merkin, who wrote the terrific recent piece about the love of Woody’s life that showed her to independent and objective about their lives.

The lunch at the Lotos Club was to celebrate the opening of Kidman’s latest film, “Boy Erased,” directed by Joel Edgerton, which opens Friday. Nicole plays the mother of a real life boy from Arkansas whose parents place him a gay conversion camp. (Russell Crowe is the preacher father, Lucas Hedges is the son.) This Oscar bound movie could give Nicole one of two nominations these season–supporting for “Boy Erased,” and lead for her role as a burnt out police detective in Karyn Kusama’s “Destroyer.”

“First of all, she’s beautiful up close,” Soon Yi said after lunch. “Second, her range is amazing. She can do anything.” After a quarter decade of watching films with Woody Allen, you can only imagine that Soon Yi is a pretty good armchair critic. On another note, she did tell me both of her and Woody’s daughters– Manzie and Bechet– are happily in college. Time has flown for those who have decided to move on.

As for Nicole, she was as friendly and candid as usual. She has a habit of becoming great pals with women she’s playing– like the mother in “Lion” a couple of years ago, and now the mother in “Boy Erased.” If Nicole Kidman plays you, you get a friend for life.

“The wonderful thing about being an actress,” she said during the after lunch Q&A, “you view life through this prism, all these different ways of being in the world, and it’s fascinating– it’s why I still do it. At 51, I still love what I do.” (She doesn’t look 51, that’s for sure.)

Kidman has sometimes stepped up to produce her own films, but she’s not keen on it. “I don’t like the business side of it. I love the acting. I’m still so dedicated to the art form of acting.”

Kidman had just three weeks between finishing “Boy Erased” and starting pre-production on “Destroyer”– there could not be two more different roles. “The idea of getting pigeon holed is terrifying for me.” She considered pulling out of the second film, she said, “something I often do. I didn’t want to go to that [dark] place.”

She did, and in “Boy Erased” she went to a place of elucidation. Good news, too– the couple Nicole and Crowe play are still very much together despite their differing feels on their son’s lifestyle. It’s unusual these days– people with opposite ideologies working it out instead of splitting up. We could all learn a lesson here.

Photo: Marion Curtis/Starpix for Focus Features

Halloween is all about masquerading, and certainly the movie “Halloween” in 2018 is all about that.

As the 40th anniversary horror film sets a record today with a $77.5 million opening it’s interesting to see who’s behind the mask.

“Halloween” was made by people who don’t usually make horror films. The director is David Gordon Green, who made his name with a cult indie film called “George Washington” in 2000.

More recently, Green has worked a lot with wry comic actor Danny McBride. They collaborated on McBride’s original HBO series “Eastbound and Down.” Then they re-teamed for “Vice Principals.” Now McBride helped writer “Halloween” with his “VP” writer Jeff Fradley.

McBride and Fradley wouldn’t be the names that come to mind for a “Halloween” type movie. But the humor is what makes the 40th anniversary edition zip. It’s very Kevin Williamson, who made the “Scream” parody series off the backs of movies like “Halloween.” So the whole thing has come full circle.

And so the re-watching of movies begins.

We are all wrapped up right now in Lady Gaga, and Melissa McCarthy for terrific lead performances. Next month we’ll have Nicole Kidman in “Destroyer” and Viola Davis in “Widows.” There’s also Olivia Colman as crazy Queen Anne in “The Favourite.” This is a bumper season for actresses.

But Glenn Close was sort of first this year, with “The Wife.” It’s a ‘small’ movie– the only explosions are from Glenn, whose portrait of Joan Castleman, the devoted wife of bestselling literary writer Joseph Castleman, is sly and calculated. You have to watch her eyes as the movie ticks away, and Joan — who seems dutiful– refuses to reveal a secret she’s kept for thirty years. When Close finally blows, the power of the blast could knock out a neighborhood.

Jonathan Pryce plays Joe, and it’s to his credit that he keeps baiting Joan/Close, torturing her and then pulling it back. Joe is a sadist, and selfish, although to the outside world he seems like a pussycat. Don’t discount Pryce’s performance. To get Glenn to her eruption, Pryce just keeps laying it on. When she finally does lose it, you’re surprised she hasn’t just rolled over in bed and killed him years before.

“The Wife” is strangely unique these days. It’s fiction, based on a novel that was inspired by the imagination of its novelist, Meg Wolitzer. Jane Anderson adapted Wolitzer’s novel for the screen. In almost every other movie, actors are playing people either truly historic or “based on a true story.” In the movie a young Joan Castleman (played by Annie Starke, Close’s real daughter, and a terrific actress) gets an earful from an older female novelist played by Elizabeth McGovern. She warns naive Joan that no woman will ever be taken seriously by the publishing patriarchy. I’ll bet Meg, who’s written several terrific novels, and her mother, Hilma Wolitzer, also an acclaimed novelist, could tell us a lot about that. Their experiences, poured into Joan, come whistling out of Glenn Close like steaming water in a tea kettle.

Glenn Close has six Oscar nominations. I dare say she’s waited her turn. “The Wife” — no capes, no escapes– may just be her moment at last.

Jamie Lee Curtis played this very well.

After years away from the box office, the Hollywood kid — daughter of the late Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, a Brangelina of their days — is back on top.

“Halloween” made $33.3 million last night, a whopping amount heading to an $80 million or more weekend. Jamie Lee starred in the first “Halloween” what seems like one hundred fifty years ago — actually 1978. Back then, “Halloween” made a total of $47 million, which was HUGE for its time.

The other immediate news is that Annapurna Pictures for some reason added around a thousand theaters to the release of “The Sisters Brothers.” That was a mistake. You can’t blow lots of air into a flat tire unless it’s been repaired first. Annapurna is leaking. They made only $230,000 last night in over 1,000 theaters. The brothers could not find any more relatives. But now they have to pay theaters. This is worrying for their next two releases, “Destroyer,” and “Vice.”

More on this tomorrow…