Forget the mistletoe, hot chocolate and gingerbread houses – Monday night at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, The Cinema Society and Entertainment Weekly kicked the season off with a screening of "The Wrestler," an at-times brutal film that has Mickey Rourke as an aging former star wrestler, relegated to gruesome live performances in New Jersey gymnasiums.

"It's not 'Miracle on 34th Street,'" said one guest at the after-party in the Soho Grand Penthouse that drew Brooke Shields, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Stipe, Jeremy Piven, Heather Graham and Zac Posen. Rourke chilled with the Schnabel clan on outdoor banquettes surrounded by candelabras, while director Darren Aronofsky admitted his star could use a break.

"I put him through hell," he said of Rourke's painstaking portrayal. "And he wanted to do it."

Nearby, Aronofsky's leading lady Marisa Tomei, who plays Rourke's onscreen stripper friend, was surrounded by male admirers like Matt Dillon and Fisher Stevens. And despite the growing Oscar buzz surrounding her performance, the actress was keeping a modest profile.

"I'm just happy to be working," she said simply, before settling on a sofa with rumored beau Logan Marshall-Green.