A New Roller Coaster For Coney On A Famous Film Site

Construction began this week on a brand new $10M roller coaster on the boardwalk in Coney Island. The Thunderbolt is the name of this all steel ride part of the new Luna Park which features inversions, loops and twists making it the first coaster to flip patrons at the seaside park since 1910. Built by the famed Italian firm Zamperla, the ride will rise 115 feet and then plunge cars at speeds of 80mph through the twists and turns of this new thriller.  

What's notable about the ride, though, is also its location. It's on the site of a kinder, gentler wooden coaster that was also called the Thunderbolt. That ride dated from Coney's early midcentury heyday and was shutdown in the 1970s but remained standing until Mayor Giuliani illegally knocked it down in the middle of the night. That Thunderbolt was famously featured in Woody Allen's classic ANNIE HALL as the childhood home of Alvy Singer, who family fictionally lived in the odd house that jammed under the corner of the ride. 

I was always fascinated by that house on my trips to Coney when I first arrived in NYC. The TIMES article says it was destroyed by fire but just the interior--from the outside it did look like a house someone could live in. Surely, once the ride shut down for the evening, you could get some shuteye but I imagine hanging out there during the day would have been close to the famous scene in Allen's film.  

Happy Birthday Hitchcock, King Of The Director's Cameo

Many directors have inserted themselves into their films.  Some quite obviously, like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, and others somewhat more discreetly, like Michael Bay. Perhaps the only discreet thing in his films! 

However, Alfred Hitchcock takes the consistency prize for placing himself in small non-speaking roles in all of his feature films. Often his appearances are comical and can somewhat take you out of the action (i.e. lumbering onboard the train with a large musical instrument in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN).  While other times they are subtle and more organic, such as my personal favorite which is his appearance in the gay guy's apartment in REAR WINDOW, standing behind him as he plays piano. Is he a sugar daddy? An gentleman caller? Or the backer of a potential Broadway show?  All interpretations work and add to the fun of the guessing games involved when spying on your neighbors, which is what the film is all about.

A clever and diligent editor has compiled all of Hitchcock's appearances into a clip on YouTube. I found this through my friend Paul Maggio, who often posts celebrity birthday's on his Facebook feed. Anyway, watching this is a great way to celebrate the master of the movies on what would have been his 113th. Happy Birthday Hitch! :)

Woody Allen's New Movie Started As A Stand-Up Sketch

On Sunday, I went to see Woody Allen's lastest film MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, which is awesome.  It reminded me of BULLETS OVER BROADWAY, though not as insane but more mellow and romantic.  It's about a writer wandering in Paris after midnight who stumbles into the Lost Generation of the 1920s and starts to pal around with them.  To say more than this would be to ruin the fun of this simple but delightful bit of movie magic.

I went with my friend Vanessa, who also loved it but thought the conceit sounded familiar. She referred me to a website that has printed out a transcript of Allen's comedy records from the 1960's in which Woody does a routine called "The Lost Generation" that places himself squarely amidst the writers/poets/ partiers of that era to highly comic effect.  If you click through above, you can scroll to the very bottom and read it. It's probably best to see the movie first but either way the routine is funny and clearly was the seed nearly 40 years ago for this funny new film of his.