The maligned Manhattan Bridge

The Manhattan Bridge is my lifeline to the "Big City," but it's celebrating its sort-of centennial without party hats and "Auld Lang Syne." The span has an image problem, exacerbated by its portrayal in the movies. On film, the Brooklyn Bridge is host to romances, high drama, and spectacular cataclysm (think the U.S. Godzilla reboot, or Cloverfield), while the Manhattan Bridge inspires...suicides. Think The Lonely Guy, where lonely guys like Steve Martin and Charles Grodin consider taking the plunge; or Luv, where Jack Lemmon does the same; or 1961's Something Wild, where Carroll Baker nearly ends it all, only to meet a stranger fate in the arms of rescuer Ralph Meeker.

I'd think about offing myself, too, if I walked across or biked the bridge on a rainy bad day, as I squeezed my frame along its narrow pathways while the N and D trains rumbled by noisily. On the other hand, the view from the trains is a treat, taking in the Statue of Liberty (and the scene-stealing Brooklyn Bridge) and a nice sliver of Chinatown as it descends into Manhattan. Someone should film that and uplift the bridge's profile.

As we ring in the New Year, may your prospects be Brooklyn Bridge, but remember that those Manhattan Bridge days build character. And the news isn't ever all gloomy: Sergio Leone gave the Manhattan Bridge a shot at immortality with an iconic Water Street view in 1984's Once Upon a Time in America.

The biggest losers

Clearly New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, who won tonight, but not by much. The term limits shenanigans cost him, and all the money he threw at the election couldn't buy him a mandate. Expect a typically bumpy third term that tarnishes whatever legacy he's built up, then, I trust, out.

Second biggest loser: Me, for buying the atrocious Lionsgate DVD of an old favorite, John Huston's last film, The Dead (1987). The thing's apparently missing 10 minutes of footage, no surprise, really, given the label's careless handling of catalog releases. But I got burned.

UPDATE:

From Dave Kehr's blog:

A brief interruption for a public service announcement. For those of you who may have purchased the new DVD of "The Dead" that apparently dropped a reel of the film, Lionsgate would like to make things right. Here's the release I just received:

It has come to our attention that due to a technical malfunction, the initial DVD shipment of John Huston's THE DEAD contained an incomplete version of the film. We deeply apologize to all our consumers for this unfortunate error and want to offer them an opportunity to replace their current copies with the complete version as soon as it is available to ship the week of November 23rd. We regret this inconvenience, as Lionsgate is committed to providing our consumers the highest quality home entertainment experience.

All consumers who purchased a copy and wish to receive the new complete version should do one of the following:

• EMAIL lionsgatecs@orderassistance.com with their address and a scan/attachment of their receipt
• FAX (310) 222-5562 with their address and copy of their receipt
• MAIL their receipt along with a note including their address to: 20102 S Vermont Ave Torrance, CA 90502

Or please call (800) 650-7099 directly if you have any further questions.

But Lionsgate will not be recalling Bloomberg.

UPDATE: My corrected copy of THE DEAD arrived Dec. 17.

First rule of Fight Club

It's only a movie, kid.

Story of my life

Jonathan Lethem's story "Ava's Apartment", in the May 25 New Yorker, concludes at the Gracie Mews diner on First Avenue, a place I know well, having eaten there countless times when I lived in the less expensive section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It helped sustain me as a single, and was a pleasant post-theater hangout for me and my wife-to-be, particularly after a renovation a few years back. (The story's protagonist is a New York type I know well, and might have become had Cupid's arrow not struck.) Nothing more to say on the matter, just happy to see a little slice of my life immortalized by the writer--as it happens I live in his now-gentrified old neighborhood, and walk past the Brooklyn House of Detention, his "Fortress of Solitude," everyday, though have never visited, as either a tourist or inmate.

Big lights in little China

Jon Turtletaub is directing his National Treasure star, Nicolas Cage, in an upcoming Disney picture based on The Sorceror's Apprentice segment of Fantasia. That combination of talent means it won't be high on my viewing list when it opens; Turtletaub is one of the most insipid directors working, and Cage...perplexing, to say the least. But after a shoot in Park Slope I am enjoying the spectacle they're conjuring across the East River in Chinatown, in the vicinity of Grand Street--a gorgeous tableau of Chinese lanterns that have been shining brightly each night for a week now. There are Flickr pictures up of the day look, but it's not the same thing. You can enjoy the night shoot from a lovely overhead vantage point by taking any of the Manhattan Bridge trains and keeping your eyes peeled as they approach or depart from Grand Street--fares are going up, but this is still a $9.50 cost savings over actually seeing the movie, which will likely edit it down to a few measly shots anyway.

New Yorker Films shuts down

A combination of a small market and tough times have done in New Yorker Films, an indie mainstay for 43 years. The great and challenging titles it handled included Claude Lanzmann's legendary nine-hour Holocaust documentary Shoah (1985), the Dardennes brothers' La Promesse (1996), and Werner Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972, pictured). Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, operated by distributor founder Dan Talbot, is unaffected by the closing, small consolation for a historical loss.

Airport '09

What looks to be a merger of The Birds and Airport '77 doesn't happen everyday, and thank God for it. (But flocking birds are a literal flight risk, and have been blamed for prior accidents.) Fortunately the story seems to have had a happy ending, as it did for Olivia De Havilland and Jack Lemmon in the waterlogged super-jet adventure, and the services of George Kennedy were not required.

Ciao Kim's Video

Today is the final day of rentals at Kim's Video. But fear not: The saga of the store has taken a weird but welcome Italian turn, with its inventory being moved lock, stock, and barrel to a Sicilian town and showcased in an "eternal tribute" of some sort. (Presumably, its adults-only holdings will be screened past bedtime.) Talk about Cinema Paradiso. Only in Salemi, folks, only in Salemi.

Two Boots ankling indie scene

Sorry to hear that Two Boots Pioneer Theater is on the verge of shutting down. While not as venerable as Mondo KIm's video store, it had a similar mission on the New York independent scene, and will be missed.

Accept no substitutes

"The Beekman Theatre is back!" enthused a press announcement I received last night. Well, not so fast: The name is back, affixed to the freshly renovated New York Twin on Manhattan's Upper East Side, which reopens Friday after a hiatus. The real Beekman, the one-and-only Beekman, with its exquisite marquee, closed in 2005 and is now a Memorial Sloan-Kettering breast cancer research center.

Here's the skinny:

"After a long absence, the Beekman Theatre, located at 1271 Second Avenue between East 66th and East 67th Street, is reopening on Friday, October 24. The cinema has two screens, each with 435 seats. Programming will be a mix of art and commercial films.

Starting October 24, the theatre will be playing What Just Happened?, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert De Niro, Robin Wright Penn, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis and Stanley Tucci. Also playing will be Tell No One, featuring Kristin Scott Thomas, and Elegy, with Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz.

Kevin Smith's R-rated comedy, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, opens on October 31. It stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks and was a recent hit at the Toronto Film Festival.

A Christmas Tale, which was an official selection at the Cannes, Toronto and New York film festivals, opens on November 21. It stars Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric.

The theatre took its name from the famed East Side cinema that closed a few years ago, one block to the south of the present location. It is being programmed and managed by Jeffrey Jacobs, president of Jacobs Entertainment Inc., the same company that manages and programs the Paris Theatre at 4 West 58th Street."

Talk about burying the lead: The real news is that Jacobs, who surely has better taste than the former, indifferent corporate owners, is running the show. After all, the Twin had already been renamed for the Beekman in its prior incarnation, which shuttered last July. Botton line: If it doesn't have that marquee, and it isn't a roomy standalone venue, it ain't really the Beekman.

Video stores, dying and reborn

Before Netflix, and before Amazon, I used to frequent video stores. I still visit good ones, mostly to buy former rental DVDs at low, low prices (they are almost always in near-mint condition playback-wise, unlke tapes). But most, even the mom-and-pops, have indifferent selections indistinguishable from Blockbuster's. Face it: They're relics of the 80's just as Netflix (and my entire collection) will be relics of the 90's when it's all available via computer, or wireless implants to the brain, or something.

But the news (in the Arthouse section) that 23-year-old Mondo Kim's is closing is still bittersweet. The store was grungy, and its employees, focused on becoming the next big auteur, reportedly pesky (I spoke their language, so wouldn't know, but I did detect some eye-rolling when a customer reached for the latest Sandra Bullock rather than the arranged-by-director choices elsewhere on the shelves). Still, back in the pre-web day, I hung out there a lot, and have fond memories, of the St. Mark's store and its Bleecker Street location, which closed some time ago, around when Tower Video (sniff) was biting the dust. The First Avenue location seems more like a forestalling of the inevitable than a continuation.

But I'm happy to see that the Lai Ying video store in Chinatown, the next best thing to the long-shuttered movie theaters there, is getting a new lease on life. Even if you don't much care for Asian cinema, the neighborhood shops are fun to walk around in, and I do buy from them. (Do I watch what I buy? Well, maybe someday.) They serve a useful niche for homesick immigrants and incorrigible cinephiles, and serve it well.

History up in Harlem

I thought films like Wall Street (1987) and the book (later, alas, film) of The Bonfire of the Vanities were part of our living history, but overtaken by current events they're museum pieces now, as New York faces the prospect of a retro-future right out of the opening scenes of the Depression-era King Kong or Man's Castle. So they're suitable for booking as part of Rent Control: NYC Documented and Imagined, a series of documentary and feature films that begins Sept. 27 and runs through next April 25 at the Maysles Cinema, the Harlem-based theater that is part of the institute dedicated to the legendary documentarians Albert and David Maysles. The neighborhood-set gangster picture Across 110th Street screens Oct. 27, but you can get in a New York state of mind and enjoy Bobby Womack's great title theme right now.

World gone wild

Mobius Home Video Forum correspondent Wade Sowers reminds me that 1959's The World, The Flesh and The Devil, with Harry Belafonte, did the whole abandoned New York sci-fi premise sans effects almost 50 years ago. Here's a
picture. I'm surprised TCM isn't showing it (or the two other Legend versions) to tie in; it has a tense ending, with Belafonte and bigoted Mel Ferrer stalking each other through the empty streets with rifles. (2001's non-apocalyptic Vanilla Sky also managed the same trick in Times Square, without apparent enhancement but with plenty of people wrangling in the small hours of the morning. Filmmakers looking for that deserted sidewalks feeling in the city know they can get it without too much effort by shooting on barren Wall Street on weekends.)

New York has long been a filmmaker favorite for disaster scenarios, as far back as 1930's earthquake-and-flood epic Deluge. As the city cleaned up in the 90s the movies were hellbent on destroying us; 1998 alone brought the asteroid two-fer Deep Impact and Armageddon, plus the Godzilla remake. There was a post-9/11 moratorium but the trend came back with a vengeance with 2004's The Day After Tomorrow. At that time I proposed an article for Slate that I called "It's OK to Kill New Yorkers Again" but they didn't bite; I did, however, just see a similar piece somewhere hooked to I Am Legend. And this new book (pictured), by Alan Weisman, looks interesting; I asked Santa for it, and I trust it will arrive unless our newly installed tree is vaporized in some catastrophe.

Theater: A Midsummer in Central Park

As intended for Live Design magazine, herein diverted...The Public Theater's "summer of love" outdoors at the Delacorte, which brought audiences the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet in June, continues through Sunday with the Shakespeare that is in some ways its opposite, the lighthearted A Midsummer Night's Dream. The differences extend to the design of the shows. Romeo was dominated by Mark Wendland's bridge-and-water design, a brooding, introspective landscape darkly illuminated by Don Holder. Here set designer Eugene Lee has put in place a single, enormous tree with several large branches, a sturdy structure on which much of the cast comes to frolic when the show moves into the woods. The tree, dead but buzzing with activity, is enticingly lit by Michael Chybowski, who emphasizes sunshine and warmth when those qualities are called for. Romeo deemphasized the natural beauty of the Delacorte's setting; the LD turns the lights up high on the trees that surround the theater for the climax of Midsummer, a more-than-satisfying closing guaranteed for uplift.

The enchantments, fortunately, start well before then. A Midsummer Night's Dream without a little stage magic goes nowhere, and director Daniel Sullivan has a bag of tricks ready. Much of the magic is supplied by the performers. Martha Plimpton, who continues to grow as a stage actress, is delightful as Helena, whose lovesickness for Demetrius (Elliot Villar) spurs the convoluted plotline, which absorbs the dimwitted acting troupe the "Rude Mechanicals" and an assortment of fairy spirits whose own romantic agendas dovetail with those of the humans. There are no weak links in the cast, but a few of my favorites are the always commanding Keith David as the fairy king Oberon; an alluring Laila Robins as his queen, Titania; Tim Blake Nelson as Rude Mechanicals leader Peter Quince and Jesse Tyler Ferguson as troupe member Francis Flute, who is reluctantly drafted to don drag as Thisbe in the play-within-a-play that ends the piece. Best of all is Jay O. Sanders, who is delightful as the egocentric Nick Bottom, Flute's lovelorn Pyramus. His rollicking performance triggers laughs well before the machinations of Puck (Jon Michael Hill) transform him into a braying ass who steals the bewitched Titania's heart.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is the kind of a show that a costume designer can capitalize on, and Ann Hould-Ward runs with the assignment. Here Athens is more like Victorian England, at least where the Athenians are concerned, with more proper costuming approximating that era. The Rude Mechanicals are suitably rundown in appearance. The fairy spirits (including several children) have been given a magic show look, emphasizing silky, spangled blacks and on the men silvery facepaint. (Robins, slipped into a form-hugging black camisole and a flowing wig of red hair by designer David Lawrence to complement her own, makes a particularly drop-dead impression.) Lighting effects, some handheld by the performers, accentuate the transition into fairyland.

A two-fold impression is made by the sound. Dan Moses Schreier has concentrated his efforts on an enveloping score, rapturously delivered by Acme Sound Partners, who were carried over from Romeo. Moreover there are beautifully reproduced sound effects, I would say the best I have ever heard in all my years attending Delacorte performances. (The audio was provided by Masque Sound, the lighting by Altman Rentals and PRG Lighting, and show control by PRG.) On an iffy night weather-wise the seeming approach of a fierce storm had audience members reaching for the umbrellas. Twas only an illusion, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream well-met by moonlight.

Cast photo by Michal Daniel