Archive for June 6th, 2007

Some Directors have left such a mark on American cinema that their style seems to have become its own genre of film. So let me set the record straight:

Martin Scorcese is a director. Not a genre.

Which is the problem with, I’m sorry to say, nearly every moment of the film Brooklyn Rules that stuffs every last Italian-American, Catholic, Brooklyn, blue collar, male-bonding, mafia-tinged, good-kid-trying-to-make-his-way-out-of-the-rough-and-tumble-neighborhood cliche into a mediocre attempt at emulating Scorcese’s early masterpiece Mean Streets.

Throw in a couple of scenes stolen directly from Saturday Night Fever, down to the interrupted sex in the backseat of the bar and romantic shots of the Verrazano bridge, and you’ve got a director who clearly wishes he had made one of the afformentioned films, not just cannibalized them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Brooklyn Rules is the story of three best friends from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. A trio of Catholic School trouble-makers who find a dead body on the beach and each walk away with a momento.

Bobby takes the dog sitting in a carrying case in the back, the almost comically vain Carmine takes a zippo lighter and our protagonist Mike takes a revolver from the glove compartment. Making sure that we remember that gun for every slow, drawn out second of the film.

The boys grow up into Jerry Ferrara (from HBO’s Entourage) as Bobby, a dumb cheapskate who wants nothing more than to marry his girl, work for the Post Office (apparently, he’s too dumb for anything else) and pray at every Virgin Mary statue he passes.

Scott Caan, one of the few competent actors in this film becomes Carmine, with bulging biceps and a pathological fixation on his hair. Carmine of course, wants to get mobbed up. (And only mob-boss Ceasar Manganaro, played by the often bored-looking Alec Baldwin) is his way in.

And sadly, Michael, (who irritatingly narrates us through every second of film) is the work-a-day Columbia University classroom hustler. Pitifully, what little the screenwriter offered the character is then mangled by the talentless Freddie Prinze Jr.

The scenes are repetitive to the point where by the seventh time the boys are sitting around in classic Brooklyn locales drinking Budweiser, you must presume that the Milwauke based company was one of the film’s primary investors. When the esoteric scene that begins the film comes full circle at the end, it leaves the audience thinking. . . what. . . So that’s it?

Brooklyn Rules was directed by Michael Corrente whose unimpressive resume indicates that he’s not in line for an Oscar nod anytime soon. However, it was written by Soprano’s verteran Terrence Winter. It seems like he’s trying for his Scorcese moment, and clearly fails in his first attempt.

Rounding out the lifeless performances of the film is Mena Suvari as Ellen, Michael’s classroom love interest (from Connecticut of course, and has her birthday party at a bar in TriBeCa! Ooohhh, fancy!) She goes through her lines with absolutely zero chemistry with her goofball screen partner, in the back of her eyes, you can almost hear her saying (I went from American Beauty to this?)

The highlights of the film come from the clever barbs and one liners the boys from Bay Ridge lay on each other, the classic 1980’s nostalgia, and the English-mangling father of our boy Bobby, for whom each line is a hillarious hodge-podge of misused words.

Cliches can be fun sometimes. But stuff a movie full of them, and it leaves you wondering what, if anything, from this film was worth taking from it on its own merits.

For the past five years or so there’s been a healthy artistic anarchy brewing beneath the Highline on far west 21st street.  Right under our collective nose nests a hive for,” artists, programmers, hackers, activists, technologists, kids, and adults,” to study, create, and collaborate on images that marry the sultry sexiness inherent in the world of computer programming with the sweetly misunderstood progressive neo- modern art movement. 

The result:  Eyebeam! A warehouse sized imaginarium that acts as a live studio replete with physical labs and computer work stations.   The functioning studio part of the space is a two story area separated from the rest of the building by a glass wall.  A hand painted sign on the wall, “WE FUCK HERE M- F 10-6” screams of opportunity for those brave enough and talented enough to seek it. Yet, that’s not all kids!  Under the same rood resides an open, free exhibition space.  From now until the end of August that space is home to some of the genius creations conceived by Eyebeam’s industrious, uninhibited residents.   

It’s called SOURCE CODE and it’s a 10 year retrospective of programming, Eyebeam style. I visited Eyebeam the other day, completely sober, to check out the scene.  I left the joint riding a natural high, imbibed with the exuberance that only a truly unique  New York experience can instill. 

Here’s a wee bit of what I saw: 

I Shot Andy Warhol  By:  Cory Arcangel 

The basis of this piece is the classic Nintendo game Hogan’s Alley.  A game originally released in 1985 and designed to be used with the Nintendo lightgun.  The object of the game was to shoot gangsters while not shooting innocent bystanders. 

Well, this dude reprogrammed the game and titled it “Shoot Andy Warhol”.  The title screen shouts out the name at the viewer.  Then the next screen, just like the original game gives you simple instructions: 

“Shoot Andy’s Only”.  Then it shows what Andy looks like.  Don’t shoot:  the Pope, Flava Flav, or the Colonel, all followed by their images.  Trust me, it’s hysterical. 

High Seas  By:  Jennifer & Kevin McCoy 

This is an incredibly detailed model of the Titanic that’s about five feet long.  Circling the model is a track that slopes up and down like the humps of a roller coaster.  Riding this track is a camera and a spot light that flashes every few seconds. 

Behind the model is a ginormous screen projecting exactly what the camera circling the lil’ Titanic sees.  Because of the hilly shape of the track and the intermittent flashes of light it looks like we’re watching a movie of the Titanic bouncing around on the high seas in the middle of a lightning storm.  Pretty clever, no? 

There are a bunch more pieces on display, but words fail me.  This is an experience you need to see to believe and enjoy. 

Important Shit! 

 ·  The show runs until August 11!·       It’s right across from Chelsea Piers!·       For address and hours click HERE!