It was quite a sight yesterday as the new Willis Avenue Bridge floated up the East River. I found some great video of the last leg of its voyage on the NY POST website.
The bridge was built upstate, floated down the Hudson over the last couple weeks and finally arrived in Harlem yesterday where it will replace a span that is more than 100 years old. The original span cost about 2M and then new one....614M. It's the most expensive bridge the Department of Transportation has ever built.
It's been a long time coming as the current bridge has been falling apart for years. Installation begins in August and traffic should be flowing in November.
This weekend, I escaped the city heat without even leaving the city. At the end of Flatbush Avenue, on the southern tip of the Rockaways, lies a decommissioned Army base which has a stunning strip of beach. Fort Tilden used to house troops, canons, rockets and even nuclear weapons to defend New York City from 1917 until 1974. Now, as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, it is a great place for a day at the beach.
I first discovered Ft. Tilden when I was in film school and worked on a couple shorts that were shot on it's empty beaches. The beaches aren't so empty anymore, especially after recent articles in the TIMES and TimeOut have turned the place into Hipster Beach. But it is still not nearly as packed as Jones Beach or neighboring Riis Beach on a 96 degree July afternoon.
We stayed at the beach until sunset which is when I took these magic-hour photos. You would never guess these were taken in Queens, right? Or within 45 minutes of downtown Manhattan. All it takes to get there is a Metrocard: the 2 train to the end of the line then a transfer to the Q35 bus.
This is a new feature on Hi-Fi Bri where I take a look at something weird and wonderful from the late 20th Century. Today, I'm remembering Stryper, the Christian rock band with the big ass hair that took MTV by fire and brimstone in the mid-80's.
I always figured that MTV put Stryper's quasi-religious videos on as some sorta counter-PR to the popular argument that the network was turning Gen-X brains into oatmeal. But watching their video for "Calling On You" (which I saw a hundred times back in the day) these guys really could rawwwkkk! The song is a catchy confection of glam/metal pop, kinda like Poison without the naughtiness. The guys were actually a bit hotter than Poison, I have to admit. Lead singer Michael Sweet was quite cute in a skinny John Travolta sorta way. And his brother Robert Sweet the drummer was seriously hot. Check out those guns!
These days, Stryper (whose name is a reference to the lashes on Christ's back) is still alive and kicking at their official website. After a short lived breakup and lapse of faith in the 90's, the band started making music and touring again in the Aughts. To date, they have sold more than 10 million records in total and it's estimated that 2/3'rds of those sales were to non-Christians.
So there's been a lot of Internet hay made out of Mel Gibson's career-ending answering machine messages. But this is the best use of them that I've seen so far....even better than those wacky kitten posters with Mel quotes.
RandyRainbow posted a hilarious YouTube video in which he is dating Mel. Or at least having a long-distance relationship via phone. Given the actor's homophobic history, it's doubly brilliant....and very funny. Go Randy!
As everyone knows, Facebook has taken over the world with its 500 million friends. But can it rule Hollywood too? We'll find out this fall as director David Fincher ("Fight Club") brings the story of the founding of FB to the big screen. Set way back in 2003, it's all about Mark Zuckenberg who famously decided to put Harvard's Freshman "facebook" online. (As a side note, if Mark had gone to Boston College, we'd all be logging on to "meatbook" which is what it was called when I was an undergrad.)
Anyway, this supercool trailer was released last week after a less than cool teaser came out earlier this summer. When someone asked me to describe the trailer I said it had a lot of cute/crazy college kids yelling at each other...like a geeky "Less Than Zero". Oh--and Justin Timberlake playing a nerd. Hot.
"The Social Network" will be the opening night film at the NY Film Festival on September 24th and then open in limited release that weekend. It will go wider depending on how much you "like" it.
Last Friday, I headed out to Coney Island for some Burlesque By The Beach. After checking out the new Luna Park and some serious fireworks on the boardwalk, we strolled back through the summer throngs to the Sideshow By The Seashore for an entertaining evening of old school showgirls. Pictured here is one of World Famous Pontani Sisters in an amazing act they put together called Goldigger.
The whole thing was hosted by Murray Hill who had the rowdy, wildly mixed crowd eating out of the palm of his/her hand. All in all it was a highly entertaining 90 minutes with some amazing outfits and impressive dancing, not to mention some bumping and grinding. ;) This summer, Burlesque By The Beach has a different act every Thursday and Friday with tickets a reasonable $10 and $15 respectively. And coming up on September 10th is Tigger's Man-A-Tease, an all-male review which I caught last year that is not to be missed.
A couple of talented young singer/songwriters are getting some attention here in New York, as well as a residency at Ars Nova. The Gay Agenda is a duo composed of two 30 year olds who are wild about showtunes: Micah Bucey and Nicholas Williams.
They were recently brought to my attention through a write-up in NEXT magazine this week which lead me to this YouTube video of their theme song, "The Gay Agenda". Their music is sorta like if Cole Porter were actually out of the closet and had been cloned. Their lyrics are witty and smart and basically anyone who can rhyme "recalcitrant" is OK by me.
I recently posted about the flurry of construction activity happening at the site of the former and future World Trade Center. On Tuesday, workers digging 30 feet below street level hit some pieces of wood that were perfectly lined up with each other. Archeologists rushed to the site and started excavating the remnants of what is an apparently an old ship dating from the 18th century. The picture was taken by Fred Conrad of the New York Times and you can see a bunch more on the Times' City Blog, which reported the discovery today.
It was found in an area between Cedar & Liberty Streets, which was not excavated in the '60's for the original Trade Center. What is most fascinating about this is that archeologists are truly in a hurry because the wood of the ship is so old it will start to deteriorate immediately when exposed to sunlight. Also, construction at the site has not stopped around them. The new WTC is famously behind schedule so there will be no slow down, even for this historical find.
Back in April, Lt. Dan Choi and Capt. Jim Pietrangelo chained themselves to the fence of the White House in protest of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (which by the way has still not been repealed). Last month, as they prepared for their trial on charges of unlawful conduct, they subpoeaned a powerhouse witness...President Obama himself. These two soliders stated they were merely following their Commander-In-Chief's orders from last fall to pressure him on the repeal of DADT, a statement Obama made in speaking about his intention to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.
This legal manuever was a clever, headline grabbing ploy but, this morning, it appears the President is off the hook. The trial, which was supposed to start today, has been cancelled. AmericaBlog reports that everyone was in court this morning, Choi, Pietrangelo and all the officers and Secret Service involved in their arrest. But for reasons that are currently unclear, the prosecutor dismissed the charges. Clearly, they were wary of the trial becoming a showcase for Choi and Pietrangelo's crusade to keep the issue of DADT in the public consciousness.
At the end of the court appearance, Choi asked the judge if the "stay away" order from the White House was no longer valid. The prosecutor's answer was yes. So you can bet Choi and others will be back at the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue soon, demanding their right to serve openly and proudly in the armed forces.
There has been a lot of strum and drang out in Hollywood about what a lackluster summer this has been at the movies. Total box office is down, actual admissions are down and the spirits of moviegoers are low. Despite the success of "Toy Story 3" and "Despicable Me", there have been a lot of supposedly sure-fire hits that have been underperforming not to mention some eviscerating reviews of movies like "Sex & The City 2" and "Knight and Day".
But hope exists and you can find it in a couple of small, daring independent films that are the best commercial features out this year. They are two movies about modern family that could not be more different in style and tone but share one thing in common which is a rarity in mainstream movies lately; the ability to tell a coherent story without anything exploding. These diamonds in the summer of rough are "I am Love" and "The Kids Are All Right".
"Love" is the work of an Italian director Luca Guadagnino, who has such a sure visual style and old Hollywood touch that the movie feels like something from the 1950's. However, it's sexual explicitness along with a riveting and nuanced performance by Tilda Swinton cue its modernity. I don't want to say much to give away the film's surprising storyline other than it's a sweeping portrait of a wealthy Italian family and its unlikely matriarch. Simply put, if you like your cinema with a capital C this is not to be missed.
"Kids" is the fourth feature of indie auteur Lisa Cholodenko. Her previous films ("Laurel Canyon", "High Art") were all extremely well-crafted and had their comic touches as well. But this film is a revelation. In scenes that are equally hilarious and heartbreaking, this movie explores the complexity of modern family life with a real tenderness and compassion. Annette Benning and Julianne Moore's portrayal a lesbian couple seems so real that Warren Beatty must be feeling a bit nervous. Benning is particularly wonderful and will surely be taking home some awards later this year.
