20 Years Of Construction On The Gowanus Expressway

The folks over at NY1 have been doing an interesting series of reports, looking back on 20 years of NYC local news as they celebrate their 20th anniversary. There's a piece that went up today on their website about one story that hasn't changed in two decades; that of the constant road work on the Gowanus Expressway.

Anyone who has driven this awful stretch of elevated highway knows it is one of the worst traffic spots in the entire metro area and a stretch of highway that has not gotten noticeably better since 1992 (when NY1 went on the air). There have been plans floated to replace it with a tunnel but instead the city and state will continue to plow more than $700 million dollars into this overcrowded, antiquated road. Civic planning, or lack thereof, at its absolute worst. It took nearly 20 years for Boston's Big Dig--but at least that city has something to show for it!

The Lovesong Of J. Gordon Leavitt

So this is cute: an adorkable guy on Fire Island in a trendy tank plays a ukelele love song to Joseph Gordon Leavitt. In the song he refers to him as JGL which is fortunate because are all sorts of great words that rhyme with "L", as he demonstrates in this 3 minute song. At the end, his friends say that this will get him on THE ELLEN SHOW. Well, with the new and final DARK NIGHT opening this Friday, starring JGL of course, they just might be right.  5,000 hits today and counting....

Was The Summer of '82 The Best Summer Ever For Movies?

There was a piece online this week from CBS This Morning where film critic David Edelstein of New York magazine called the summer of '82 Hollywood's Best Summer Ever for movies.  If you look at the lineup, you just might agree; E.T., POLTERGEIST, STAR TREK II: WRATH OF KAHN, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, ROCKY III and even TRON.  He says it was the last summer of big movies with personal themes before the marketeers took over. He is not alone in his assessment.

In fact, down in Texas at one of my favorite local movie houses The Alamo (where I've had a few films play myself!), they are doing a summer retrospective of the summer of '82.  They have these movies playing on their original release dates even.  What a fun idea!  Anyway, you can watch the segment below and post your comments about whether you agree with Edelstein.

Help Us Spread The Word About The BEST SUMMER EVER

It's been almost 10 days since we started our Kickstarter campaign for my new feature film BEST SUMMER EVER. Much thanks to all our early supporters who have given so generously since--we've had more than a few major donors at the $100 level and above which has been amazing!  But now we need hundreds of donors below that level for this whole thing to work. So I'm asking those who have supported BSE to help us get the word out on social media...where we now have a great presence: we are live on TWITTER, FACEBOOK and even TUMBLR.


So you can join in all the Internet fun AND really help us out by following and "Liking" us too.  But even more helpful than that is making your friends/followers aware of our fundraising here on Kickstarter by tweeting or posting kickstarter URL to your twitter or FB status update:  

http://kck.st/LPKr4B

The key to crowd sourcing is growing our crowd...ie; you tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on. So if you can do this sometime in the next day or two, that would be major!  So please alert your peeps about this fun movie....it won't get made unless we get it out to more people who can donate, especially at the lower levels. 100 folks donating 10 bucks = a cool 1K! So please help us out as we spread the word about BSE... and I hope you have the Best Summer Ever! :)

SATURDAY SPECIAL: Ab Fab Workout From The 80s Is Kinda Dirty

OK--despite what this looks like, this is not porn.  Seriously. It is some crazy exercise video when everyone with a video camera and a studio was making exercise videos (post-Fonda).  But in this unique example of the genre, the music, men and moves are all kinda porny. If only MAGIC MIKE was this sexy, I feel like I might have got my money's worth! LoL  But seriously, this is the weirdest and sexiest thing I've seen on the Internets in a while. Enjoy and work those abs!

An Amazing Roller Coaster And A Flying Nun

This week, the TIMES did a lovely video piece on the roller coaster out at Holiday World amusement park called The Voyage. This newer "woodie" is consistently ranked high on the list of best old school coasters in the country.  As many know, I am a roller coaster fanatic and would love to check this one out.  Unfortunately, it's in the middle of Indiana and I don't have a car. :(

Anyway, there's also an odd interview at the end of the piece with a nun who is also a bit of a coaster addict.  Sister Michelle Sinkhorn is a Benedictine who is something of a modern day flying nun, given the number of times she had ridden The Voyage (8 in one day once!). You can read more about Sister Michelle on the monastery's profile page -- thoroughly modern Sr. Michele!

AUGUST Is Now Available On iTunes

Last summer, I had a few posts about a feature film that I co-wrote/produced called AUGUST. It was directed by my friend Eldar Rappaport and is a steamy love triangle set in Los Angeles during a heatwave. Well, now that it's summer again and almost August, it seems the appropriate time for the film to get its commercial release.

This week, AUGUST is available for rental or purchase via iTunes; to rent its $4 and to buy its $14. For those who like to have an actual DVD, that will be available later this month via Amazon and Wolfe Video, our US distributor. So check it out this week because, as the temps rise, it's a great time to stay in the comfort of your own home and watch a hot new movie. Thanks for your support!  And stay tuned for more news on my new feature BEST SUMMER EVER....

Anderson Cooper Makes It Clear: "The Fact Is, I'm Gay."

After months of rumors that CNN anchor and talk show host Anderson Cooper was going to officially come out on TV, he did it today but not in a way anyone quite expected.  In response to a question from friend Andrew Sullivan regarding an EW piece about how coming out by public figures has changed, Cooper sent an email in which he states that he is gay and it's not something he has been trying to hide.  In fact, if you are a gay man living in NYC, this is not news as he is seen out and about and his boyfriend has run two popular gay bars in the East Village.  Then there's the whole Cathy Griffin thing too, of course! ;)

But, in the email to Sullivan, Cooper gives a somewhat reasonable explanation for his longtime public silence on the matter; the fact that as a journalist, the less a subject knows about you the better. Especially when you are in a war zone. These days though, Cooper is not traveling the globe as much so maybe he figured it was time to be crystal clear about the matter. Also, given all the attention to gay teen suicide and bullying, he says he wanted to people to know that being gay something he is happy about and not ashamed of. 

One thing for sure, I can tell you personally that people are obsessed with Cooper in general, especially on the Internets. The most popular post on my blog is about him and his mother with more than 200x the number of hits an average story gets. I'm sure this one will go through the roof too. But I think that's a good thing. And I have to say, I think his decision to come out via a thoughtful, eloquently worded letter to a good friend is really better than it being a very special episode of his talk show.  Congrats to Cooper for keeping it classy while also being out, loud and proud.

Welcome To The BEST SUMMER EVER--A New Movie!

I have some big news on the blog today....I'm working on a new feature film, BEST SUMMER EVER. It's the adaptation of my novel TALE OF TWO SUMMERS (Simon and Schuster) which I've been working on since last fall. I wrote the script based on the book and will be directing the film as well.  


In the book, two best friends spend their first summer apart from each other and, to keep in touch, start a blog...thus the title. The film is going to be the same story just told differently.  In BEST SUMMER EVER, Chuck and Hal send videos back and forth to each other to keep in touch. Of course, this is no ordinary summer (are they ever?!) and they both end up falling in love for the first time.  Awwwww. Hal meets a hot french teen at the mall and Chuck falls for one of his castmates at a summer theatre program.

I'm very excited about this project and getting another film going too.  Of course, all this costs money so today I am kicking-off the project with a little Kickstarter campaign, the oh-so-modern way for indies to raise funds these days.  Below is the cute little video I put together where we took the question "What's Your Best Summer Ever" to people here in NYC. We got some great answers about that and summer romance too, which is what BEST SUMMER EVER is all about.

So check out the video and click through to our Kickstarter home page and donate what you can. It's essential we make a strong start out of the gate, as it were, so that Kickstarter will feature us on their homepage and introduce the project to their larger crowd (the key to crowd-funding!).  Simply put, without your help, the movie will not be made. So help us make it happen! Like us on FB, follow us on Twitter, and check out our cool Tumblr too. Thanks for your support and here's wishing you the BEST SUMMER EVER! :)

4 World Trade Center Tops Out At 977 Feet

While all the focus on the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site has been on the massive 1 World Trade Center (formerly known as the Freedom Tower), another milestone was reached this week.  4 World Trade Center, a building that is on the southeastern corner of the site, topped out at 977 feet.  The building's design is not nearly as attention getting as number 1 and that was exactly the point.

The architects designed it to fade away into the sky and reflect the memorial and museum, which is located directly across from it's western entrance. There are some great pictures in the TIMES city blog where the building does almost become part of the sky as the panels are so sheer and reflective. It reminds me of another building in Boston, the Hancock tower, which also had the directive to disappear so as not to disrupt the city's historic skyline when it was built in the '70s.