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.  

Randy Rainbow Does John Travolta In New Video

The amazing Randy Rainbow has joined the pile-on re; John Travolta's infamous gaffe during Sunday's Oscars, but with inspried results. He has taken Idinia Menzel's nom de Oscar "Adele Dazeem" and smartly matched it to the song "La Vie Boheme" from RENT (in which she famously got her start) to create a musical mishmash of mispronounced celebrity names. It's like a musical version of the SLATE Travoltifier that went super-viral on Monday, giving that news site its most viewed story ever (nearly 4 million hits). Randy is one of my favorite online comedians and with this one, including a hilariously slowed down version of Travolta's clip, he has knocked it out of the park.

The Oscar Pizza Guy Gets His Tip

The biggest question post-Oscar, besides what Matthew McConaughey or John Travolta were thinking, was what happened to all that money Ellen collected for the pizza guy? 

Well, after a flurry of social media concern, the answer came yesterday during Ellen's post-Oscar show. The lucky guy Edgar Martirosyan sat down for a chat and Ellen presented him, not just with the $600 she collected from folks like Brad Pitt and Harvey Weinstein but also an additional $400 she threw in herself for a cool 1K. In addition to that, Ellen ordered countless boxes of pizza for her audience, which was surely another boon to his family-owned Big Mama's and Papa Pizza in Hollywood. 

I was curious about the outcome of this and couldn't find much on the interwebs. But leave it to MTV News who knows there audience (pizza!!!) to report the story. The interview with Martirosyan is pretty cute too as he reveals that Julia Roberts was his biggest movie crush and he got to hand her a slice. Some people were critical of the pizza bit taking up too much time on a ceremony that is always overlong, but I thought it was fun and (as Ellen mentions) quite practical as all those actresses were hungry, having starved themselves for weeks to fit into their dresses. 

SCANDAL and FELICITY Star Scott Foley Is Kinda Cute

Scott Foley is getting a TV second coming lately, with his role on SCANDAL. But I will always think of him at Noel from FELICITY, one side of the pained love triangle that was at the center of that show's existence. I was sorta hooked on this show for the first season or so. I know--it was a little cheesy, a little ridiculous, but it was J.J. Abrams pre-LOST and had its charms to say the least. At the end of the show's 4 year run, FELICITY chose Ben (sorta) but now it looks like she chose wrong. 

In a new spread for some towel company called Charisma (!) that was featured on Logo's blog, Foley shows he is quite an equal match to the hunky Ben (played by Scott Speedman). So I would say that qualifies Noel not just for the Hi-Fi Bri Kinda Cute hall of fame, but sorta elevates him to "Kinda Hot" as well. Just make sure you watch the somewhat cheesy video too of a behind the scenes look at his shoot. It's a borderline SNL-skit about how much Scott likes fancy towels and how he never feels sexy, except when his wife tells him. Oh yeah, he has a wife. Well as Billy Wilder once wrote, "Nobody's perfect." :)

The YANK! Cast Recording Is Now Available And It's A Classic

Last night, I went to the York Theater to celebrate the official release of the cast album for YANK!, a musical about gay soldiers in WWII written by my colleagues David and Joe Zellnik. (You can download it today via iTunes for just 10 clams!) From when I first heard about the idea for this show, I've been a big fan and I've seen it more than a few times, in it's many incarnations, from a reading in a rehearsal studio on 42nd Street to a beautiful production at the Gallery Players in Brooklyn.
But these did not prepare me for how amazing this recording is.

With rich orchestrations by Bway vet Jonathan Tunick and a jazzy Big Band sound, listening to these songs is now somewhat like discovering the old '40s era journal that kicks off the show's opening scene; these songs sound like a time capsule from a long lost past that is familiar yet strikingly different too. If you like your musical theatre old school, this show is like something from the 1940s except for the fact that it's memorable songs, especially the aching "Reme'bring You", are about two men who fall in love during WWII.

I was a supporter of the Kickstarter campaign that made this beautiful CD possible. Now that its available to the public, David and Joe are hoping that as this music gets out into the world, more productions of the show will happen and eventually the show will end up where it deserves to be--on Broadway. Hey...if the gays can play for the NBA, anything is possible!  :)

Today's The 50th Anniversary Of The Beatles First U.S. Concert At Washington Coliseum

While The Beatles' NYC appearance on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW gets most of the attention for their American debut, the Fab Four's first live concert for a paying audience took place in Washington DC. Two days after being seen by nearly 75 million Americans, the group played for 8,000 screaming fans at the Washington Coliseum a few blocks from Union Station, where they arrived by train in a snowstorm.

Today's Washington Post has a fantastic oral history of that first Beatles show, with attendees like Al Gore (who grew up in DC) and Albert Maysles (who shot the concert) and Sir Paul reminiscing about it all. There are some great details, like the chat Ringo had with a child on the train and the teen screaming which had police officers putting bullets in their ears. You can also watch footage from that show on iTunes new Beatles channel, along with two of The Beatles SULLIVAN segments.  I watched these uncut broadcast segments after the CBS tribute on Sunday kept showing tantalizingly short clips. They are really remarkable...the screaming is annoying but also electric, especially during "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". At one point, Ed himself cannot quiet the audience down to speak in intro'ing the second segment.

Finally, a live celebration of the anniversary is happening tonight at the old Coliseum itself (which now goes by its original name U Line Arena). It's been brought back to life for a one night only restaging of that first show with a Beatles tribute band. They will play the exact same set list and the show will start, as it did then, at exactly 8:31pm.  And just like the original, it is also sold out.

B.J. Novak Is A Funny Guy And A Great Writer

Actor B.J. Novak, known for his funny roles in THE OFFICE and, more recently, as Richard Sherman in SAVING MR. BANKS, is now taking on a somewhat different role; that of a newly published author. He has a collection of short stories that just came out this month called ONE MORE THING: STORIES AND MORE STORIES.

I haven't read the whole book but I did read one of his stories recently and thought it was really great. It's called "Kellogg" and is about a boy who thinks he has won a cereal sweepstakes contest. It's classic short story writing with a modern twist to the proceedings which made it an engrossing and wickedly funny read. You can check out "Kellog" on the literary website Nautilus and the book is now available on Amazon.

The Epic Super Bowl Commercial Seen Only In Georgia

There has been lots of talk about how this year's lineup of Super Bowl spots were cute and cuddly and non-offensive. Budweiser's puppy ad seemed to be the gold standard for a kinder and gentler advertising onslaught, with not the usual raunch of the past.  However, there is one Super Bowl commercial you probably have not seen that it sorta out there. Not raunchy really but raw and kinda kickass, like a music video from the '80s. 

This ad was for a personal injury attorney in named Jamie Casino, which already makes it sounds like he's in an '80s crime movie. I mean, you know you are in for something unique when a TV commercial starts off quoting the Bible. What follows is an epic (for ads anyway) 2-minute long heavy metal music video story of redemption and vengeance, not to mention flame throwing and slow-mo sledge hammering. It is awesome and, despite being shown as a local spot at a Fox affiliate in Savannah, it is racking up the hits on YouTube (almost 5M today). My only question--is that really his actual son in the video too? The Daily News has more details on how this all happened, if you're interested. 

Two 2013 Fest Faves Are Now Available: G.B.F. and STRANGER BY THE LAKE

Now that awards season is in full swing and the studios have their prestige pics playing theaters everywhere, January and February are often a slow time for mainstream films. Unless that is you have interested in naked Zac Efron in THAT AWKARD MOMENT... whose Tomato Meter hovers around 20%! However, if you're looking for a couple good indies, there are two films that were popular on the festival circuit last year that are now available in various forms of commercial release.

G.B.F. is Darren Stein's hysterical high school comedy about a teen gay who a sough-after prized possession, or Gay Best Friend, by the three most popular girls in school. The film is a romp filled with some great one liners and a hilarious performance by Paul Iacono (from MTV's HARD TIMES OF RJ BERGER) with Megan Mullally as his very progressive mom. Also, I'd recommend checking it out in a theatre near you if possible as its fun to see with an audience--their FB page has more info. Or you can stream it on iTunes too.

The other film is about 180 degrees from G.B.F. in terms of content and style but is still a must-see. The French film STRANGER BY THE LAKE, directed by Alain Guiradie, caused a sensation at Cannes last year for it's bold depiction of an all-male cruising area in which some nefarious deeds take place. I caught it at the NY Film Festival and thought it was great. The dialogue is sparse, the scenery is gorgeous, and the sex is serious--this film would actually deserve an NC-17, whereas G.B.F.'s "R" rating still baffles the mind. Anyway, STRANGER is a sexy and atmospheric dramatic thriller that is pure cinema with shades of Hitchcock as well. It's in theaters this week with trailer below.

It Was 30 Years Ago Today--Apple Introduces Macintosh

30 years ago today, just a few days after a remarkable Super Bowl commercial touting it's new product, Apple introduced the Macintosh computer to the world and personal computing would never be the same. Below is the video of a very young, charming Steve Jobs introducing the new machine to loud hoots and hollers and he slips in a 3.5 inch disc (remember those!) and the small B/W screen starts to some some graphic and letters. By our standards today, it seems pretty ho-hum and the audience reaction over the top. But this was the first personal computer with a graphical interface...and it truly blew people's minds.

I have fond memories of the original Mac. I remember a guy in my college dorm who had one, which amazed everyone (it retailed for nearly $2500 bucks!). And then, a year later, the computers were available to everyone in the Boston College computer center. I remember writing my first short stories and crafting the plots for my first films using the Mac. I even used it to draw some characters for an animated cut-out film (ala SOUTH PARK) that I shot on Super 8. I'd like to get that one online one of these days! In the meantime, here's Steve Jobs and the Macintosh...