Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Desperately Seeking 1985 New York City
There's a free screening tonight of 1985's Desperately Seeking Susan at McCarren Park Pool in Greenpoint. It's a silly movie (stolen ancient Egyptian earrings! amnesia! mistaken identities!) that I enjoy watching every summer. (In fact, I just watched it Sunday night.) As Brian J. Dillard writes in his review at allmovie.com, "A classic Hollywood screwball comedy transposed to modern-day Manhattan, Desperately Seeking Susan offered mid-'80s moviegoers a mall-friendly version of hip New York style, much like Madonna did throughout her early musical career." Hmm, that's about right. I like it for a lot of reasons, such as seeing youngish John Turturro, Steven Wright and Giancarlo Esposito, among others, in small roles. And director Susan Seidelman rounded out the film with several downtown musicians/performers -- Richard Edson, Rockets Redglare, Richard Hell, John Lurie, Arto Lindsay, Ann Magnuson. And, of course, you get to see some mid-1980s New York, including several scenes in the East Village. (Nice, too, that many of these places are still around some 23 years later, including Gem Spa, Trash & Vaudeville, B & H Dairy and Love Saves the Day.)
Wacky Neighbor had a post on Susan's production design in September 2004. As he notes, the players behind the look of the film were Woody Allen regulars at the time.
Meanwhile, here are a few screenshots from Desperately Seeking Susan.
On St. Mark's.
On Second Avenue.
In front of Love Saves the Day.
Ohhh! Don't mess with the guy with the bucket of the Colonel hanging around Second Avenue and 7th Street!
Scary clubgoers! Do all New Yorkers look like this?!
Outside the Magic Club. (In the film, the club is said to be on Broadway. According to Wikipedia, some of the interiors and exteriors were filmed in Harlem.) 
Now, some Desperately Seeking Susan trivia from Wikipedia, which means it may or may not be right:
* The filmakers had initially wanted Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn to play the roles of Roberta and Susan. But the director decided to cast newcomers Rosanna Arquette and Madonna instead.
* The filmakers had initially wanted Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn to play the roles of Roberta and Susan. But the director decided to cast newcomers Rosanna Arquette and Madonna instead.
* Bruce Willis was up for the role of Dez. Melanie Griffith was up for the part of Susan as well.
* Madonna barely beat out Ellen Barkin to the part of Susan. Barkin was the producers first choice for the part, but the director claimed Barkin had a lack of substance.
* The Statue of Liberty can be seen in the film when it is still covered in scaffolding during its two year renovation.
* The DVD commentary track for the film (recorded in 1996) noted that after Madonna's first screen test, the producers asked her to take four weeks of acting lessons and get screen-tested again. Although the second screen test wasn't much of an improvement, the director still wanted her for the role, as much for her presence and sense of style as for anything else.
* The 1964 sci-fi movie The Time Travelers is playing in scenes 6 and 23 (melts at the end of the movie).
* The movie was originally filmed in the summer of 1984, early in Madonna's rise to popularity, and was intended to be an R-rated feature. However, following the success of the singer's 1984-85 hits "Like a Virgin" and "Material Girl," the film was trimmed in content by Orion Pictures in order to receive a PG-13 rating in order for Madonna's teenage fanbase to be able to see it
* The interior / exterior shots of The Magic Club were filmed in Harlem.
* Some of the scenes were filmed in Danceteria, a club that Madonna frequented and which gave her a start in the music business.
Previously on EV Grieve:
In case why you were wondering why some SATC fans are now into Richard Hell
* Madonna barely beat out Ellen Barkin to the part of Susan. Barkin was the producers first choice for the part, but the director claimed Barkin had a lack of substance.
* The Statue of Liberty can be seen in the film when it is still covered in scaffolding during its two year renovation.
* The DVD commentary track for the film (recorded in 1996) noted that after Madonna's first screen test, the producers asked her to take four weeks of acting lessons and get screen-tested again. Although the second screen test wasn't much of an improvement, the director still wanted her for the role, as much for her presence and sense of style as for anything else.
* The 1964 sci-fi movie The Time Travelers is playing in scenes 6 and 23 (melts at the end of the movie).
* The movie was originally filmed in the summer of 1984, early in Madonna's rise to popularity, and was intended to be an R-rated feature. However, following the success of the singer's 1984-85 hits "Like a Virgin" and "Material Girl," the film was trimmed in content by Orion Pictures in order to receive a PG-13 rating in order for Madonna's teenage fanbase to be able to see it
* The interior / exterior shots of The Magic Club were filmed in Harlem.
* Some of the scenes were filmed in Danceteria, a club that Madonna frequented and which gave her a start in the music business.
Previously on EV Grieve:
In case why you were wondering why some SATC fans are now into Richard Hell
The dog days of summer
This past weekend, I walked by that new apartment building going up on 13th Street near Third Avenue. It was boarded up; no activity going on...
After seeing the attack-dog sign, I knocked on the plywood. Made some noise. Threw a rock. No barking. Nothing. Perhaps it was the dog's day off. Or, given the economy, maybe one attack dog has to work several different sites during the weekend. Or, given that it was about 500 degrees out, and there was no one around to give the dog fresh water...Or maybe there never has been a dog on site...Revisiting the sink hole in the middle of 7th Street and Avenue B
The cone is either sinking or melting...
Previously on EV Grieve:
About that sink hole in the middle of 7th Street and Avenue B
They just didn't get it
A quick note on the end of "Siskel & Ebert"/"Ebert & Roeper." As Roger Ebert noted yesterday on his Web site, "After 33 years on the air, 23 of them with Disney, the studio has decided to take the program named 'Siskel & Ebert' and then 'Ebert & Roeper' in a new direction. I will no longer be associated with it."
I still haven't forgiven them (from 1989!) for trashing one of the greatest bad films ever (partially) shot in NYC.
I still haven't forgiven them (from 1989!) for trashing one of the greatest bad films ever (partially) shot in NYC.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Looking at Socialite Olivia Palermo's "Sweet Spot"
Page Six Magazine yesterday took a close-up look at 22-year-old socialite Olivia Palermo's new one-bedroom Tribeca apartment in a piece titled "Living: Socialite Olivia Palermo's Sweet Spot."
The lead:
“I’m so excited to be living in my own home,” says socialite Olivia Palermo, surrounded by clothes racks, shoes and handbags in her colorful, 63-square-foot walk-in closet accented with a zebra-print rug. Olivia is photographing outfits she has selected for a short trip to Los Angeles so she’ll know exactly what she wants to wear while she’s there. “This is the space I love the most. You can see it the second you walk in,” she says. “It represents me.”
Inspired by pictures of Mariah Carey’s spacious NYC home . . ..
This is the point that I stopped reading the article. If you'd like to continue....
[Photo: Karin Kohlberg, Page Six Magazine New York Post]
“The hotel guests also used to be culturally hip people. Now we get Mom and Dad from Cedar Rapids. It’s like living at Motel 6.”
Page Six Magazine on the Hotel Chelsea:
“It’s chaos here,” says one resident....many tenants haven’t paid rent (because there’s no one around to pay it to), and there’s been no super on duty for repairs. Tenants also say they are worried that, at some point, their rents will double. While the building is rent stabilized, the apartments aren’t registered with the city, and a lot of the leases aren’t on the books.
For further reading:
[Photo: Katie Orlinsky, Page Six Magazine, New York Post]
Ninth Street Espresso coming to 10th Street
This summer, at the site of the former Tompkins Square Bakery next to Life. [Update: There seems to be some confusion... thanks to the commenter for the note. The bakery's address was 341 E. 10th St., now home to the real-estate office... The Ninth Street Espresso's Web site said they are moving into 341 E. 1oth St. I'll get this right eventually. And none of this will be on the midterm. Regardless, there will be a new Ninth Street Espresso location on 10th Street...]
A storefront and sign that I like
At the Stapleton Shoe Company, on Trinity Place at Rector, just south of the American Stock Exchange.
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