Rare FERRIS BUELLER Audio Commentary Available Online

For all John Hughes' acclaim and fame as a filmmaker, he only recorded one audio commentary track for his iconic films and it was for FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF. It was done for the 1999 release of the film on DVD but it's only the version released that year that includes Hughes commentary track...all subsequent versions of the DVD had the track removed, as he was apparently unhappy with the way it turned out. 

A story on IndieWire alerted me to the fact that the commentary is now available as an audio download which you can listen to alongside a DVD and it is hard to see why he didn't like it. I heard the first 15 minutes and it's really amazing the amount of detail he goes into each scene and how specifically he understood all these roles, not just Ferris. He gives some truly succinct descriptions of the characters and the actors he chose to play those roles and why everyone fit the bill.  There are some great trivial details too, like the fact that in the opening scene all four actors in the Bueller family, the mother/father and the son/daughter, were all actually dating and in love. Ferris' movie parents, in fact, got married after the film was completed!

This is one of my favorite films so, as a director, hearing the commentary is truly amazing. It's so clear Hughes knew exactly what he was doing with this film and, more surprisingly how comfortable he was with actors adding a lot of improv and material themselves. Hughes admits his favorite line in the moive ("not a lesson" after Ferris plays the clarinet) was made up by Matthew Broderick himself. 

NY TIMES Nightlife Review I Wrote For Les Garcons At Le Baron

A couple weeks ago, I got to check out a fancy new gay night called Les Garcons for the NY TIMES style section. I occasionally write bar reviews for thier Boite column and you can read my article/review online and in today's paper as well.

What made this night on the town different than the usual go-go boys and cocktails thing was the location. And in New York, it's all about location :) The party is at the previously uber-exclusive Le Baron, the New York branch of the nightlife empire of Andre Saraiva. The club is highly art directed/decorated, creating the feel of an unusually glamourous night on the town (in Chinatown no less) that felt like being in an old movie. I couldn't include this in the article due to length but one of my favorite quotes was a fellow patron, who said: "I didn't think this sort of thing existed in New York anymore." Neither did I.

LED Lights On Empire State Building Put On A Show

The Empire State Building got a lighting makeover which debuted this week. Brand new LED light banks have been installed for the building's exterior that now create a rainbow of millions of colors that can flash to a syncrhonized beat.

The premiere of the new system happened Monday evening at 9PM with a radio simulcast of Alicia Keys songs "Girl On Fire" and "Empire State of Mind". The new system is called the Philips Color Kinetic Lighting System and creates a whole new look for midtown's signature tower.

I have to say that as cool as it is it also reminds me of those kooky synchronized house lighting displays, which I've featured on here before. Is this new look too kitschy for the staid Empire State Building?

NYFA Provides Help For Artists Struggling After Sandy

The New York Foundation of the Arts is providing emergency grants to artists in the tri-state area who were affected by Superstorm Sandy. Many artists had their studios flooded in low-lying areas like Red Hook, Gowanus, Dumbo and in Chelsea a number of galleries were hit hard too.

NYFA has been getting generous support from the Warhol and Rauschenberg Foundations, as well as many private donors who have supported this fund, which on average is giving artists 1K-5K. If you need to apply or know any artists who suffered losses due to the storm, you can find out more information about the emergency grants here. Please share this story and help spread the word in the NYC artistic community.

Green-Wood Cemetery Damaged Severely By Sandy

Continuing with the Sandy aftermath stories, there were some photos on the TIMES City Blog over the weekend showing how the superstormstorm did some serious damage at Green-Wood Cemetary in Brooklyn. I've written here about Green-Wood a couple times before and my visits to this beautiful resting place for thousands of New Yorkers, including famous folks like Leonard Bernstein, George Tilyreou and Jean-Michael Basquiat. Located  on the highest landpoint in Kings County and overlooking the harbor, the cemetery took a severe hit from Sandy with nearly 300 trees felled. In addition to that, many headstones and statuary (like the headless angel above) were damages by the falling trees and high winds.

The cleanup is expected to cost nearly half a million dollars and the cemetery, which is a national landmark, is having it's finances strained. Insurance will not cover the headstones and statuary, which are not owned by the cemetery but whose families they commemorate are long gone. So they are seeking donations via their website if you want to check it out. This is one of the most beautiful spots in the city so hopefully they can reach their goal, plant new trees and restore some of the monuments.

200 Year Old Tribeca House Is No Match For Sandy

The TIMES this week had the sad but incredibly detailed story of a 200 year old house (only about 6 blocks from my place) that has not survived Superstorm Sandy. The house, located on Canal Street at Greenwich and less than two blocks from the Hudson, was flooded during the storm and it's already weak structure was further compromised  The city has condemned it and it will now have to come down.

This story is a fascinating look at the history of the city as seen through this one little house. Worth reading if you are an urban history buff, like myself.

HALF-SHARE Show Debuts For Free On The Web Tonight

A couple years ago, I co-produced a pilot for a half-hour comedy called HALF-SHARE, about life in a group house on Fire Island. While the trailer's been online for a while, many people have asked me where they can see the entire show. Well, now I have an answer. Tonight, the show will be "airing" as a free streaming program on the HALF-SHARE website at 10pm EST.  If you miss that, you can also purchase it on Amazon.com at 3 different levels; $1.99 to rent, $4.99 to buy as a digital download, and $14.99 to owne a copy of the DVD.  As an extra incentive to buy, 50% of all net profits from the sales of HALF-SHARE are going to the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBT youth, which was devastated by flooding during Superstorm Sandy.

The show has actually been available at Amazon for the last few weeks and has received an amazing 5-star review on the site with one word used in most of the reviews--"hilarious".  I may be biased but I would have to agree. This show has an incredibly funny cast, including Alec Mapa, Jack Plotnick and Sam Pancake as well as indie film star Jesse Archer (who also co-wrote and co-directed the show with Sean Hanley, who previously wrote for THE NANNY). So please check it out and support your local indie film/TV friends. I guarantee that, if you do, you will be thankful for the extra laughs this week of Thanksgiving! :)

Nate Silver Is Kinda Cute

In the nervous months leading up to this year's Presidential elections, my friends were all freaking out. They said it's gonna be close, Obama might loose, panic, scream, etc.  However, I was relatively certain this was not going to be the case. Why? I was following Nate Silver's weekly 538 blog on the NY TIMES website.  Silver, a super-nerdy statistician, predicted the final electoral results with 100% accuracy in the end. And now he is a superstar.  Oh yeah, and he's also gay.

Silver officially came out in a piece published in the UK's Guardian today. It turns out this 34 year old wunderkind is also kinda cute, too, so I'm adding him today to the Pantheon of "Kinda Cute" here on Hi-Fi Bri. You can read all about Nate and his mastery of the Presidential numbers game here. Before he got into politics, Silver was a baseball stats geek and before that gamed online poker sites for more then 400K. So let's do the math here...young + smart + gay + rich + kinda cute = total husband material. 

SATURDAY SPECIAL: Look Out! Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends

This is one of the funnier skits I've seen on College Humor. It has a nice soft political spin too in that it is a big argument for marriage equality. Because if we can't have our man, we're gonna take your women! :)  Best line--the quiche.

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Two Articles This Week In The NY TIMES and NEXT Magazine

In an unusual confluence, two feature articles I've been working on for the past couple of months were published in the last two days. I wrote an article about the emergence and growing popularity of Boylesque for the NY TIMES style section, which appeared in Thursday's paper. And then I have a feature in NEXT magazine's "State of Drag" issue, about the sex and dating lives of drag queens. 

The TIMES piece came about as I've been a bit of a Boylesque fan-boy since attending Tigger's "Man-A-Tease" at the Coney Island Sideshow By The Seashore three summers ago. I think it's a fascinating twist to the whole neo-burlesque revival and really puts an unusual male spin on a traditionally female art form. My story in NEXT came about as they were searching for ideas for the state of drag issue. A friend of mine who has recently been performing in drag told me how it had greatly improved his sex life and that intrigued me.  Not enough to don drag but so much so that it got me to write about the dating lives of drag queens, something I feel is not discussed or heard about even. 

Anyway, hope you enjoy these stories as some weekend reading. And you can look for a couple more stories from me in the TIMES style section in the coming weeks.