A 1986 Video Tour Of RuPaul's Meatpacking "Penthouse"

I came across this video on YouTube of RuPaul giving a tour of his NYC "penthouse" back in June of 1986. He lived for a while in a round rooftop room above the formerly seedy Jane Hotel, soon after he moved to New York for the second time apparently. Not only does "baby Ru" look amazing, the footage itself is incredible for it's slice of Meatpacking life (which I've posted about before) from waaaaay back in the day. Nelson Sullivan is the videographer, who lived around the corner at 5 Ninth Avenue, a town house which is still there surrounded by the commercial insanity that "MeaPa" has become.

The most remarkable thing watching this now is how utterly empty that area of the city was during the day. I had my own first hand experience with this back when I was in film school at NYU and we shot one of my classmates' films entirely in the area. We had no permits and no one bothered us, as no one was around, except maybe a couple hookers who stayed away (knowing we were students w/no cash!). We even shot a car chase sequence through the bumpy streets there with no police intervention at all. 

Anyway, this video is a great trip to the lost world of the old West Village with some great views of the the city and gay life at that time.

Reel Estates App Finds Famous Film/TV Locations

I was reading my NYU Alumni magazine this week and came across an article about an app for finding famous movie and TV locations. Put together by an NYU grad Gadi Harel from the class of '93, Reel Estates started from his own curiosity about visiting the real locations of pop culture touchtones, like the Brady home in Studio City, LA.

The app is location based and will show you what notable filming sites are nearby... perfect when tooling around NYC or Hollywood. But also, the app covers the rest of the country too with places like the BREAKING BAD house in New Mexico.  Harel has more than 600 famous sites listed in the app. I need to add this one to my iPhone and, finally, go in search of the Archie Bunker residence in my now-native Queens.

Kicking Off Prom Season, A Podcast About My Prom Novel

It's May and that means prom season is in full swing. So for your listening pleasure, Simon & Schuster has a podcast on YouTube that I did a few years ago about my debut novel A REALLY NICE PROM MESS. This is my first novel for young adults which tells the story about a gay couple who goes on a secret double date to the prom which doesn't stay secret for long and then complications/chaos ensue (see police, drug dealers, strippers, et al). The book was nearly banned in 2009 by a library in Wisconsin just because there were gay characters in it. Anyway, the podcast is about 4 minutes long and, in it, I talk about about the book and my prom experiences, as I went to a few! You can purchase the paperback on Amazon and I guarantee it makes for fun summer/beach reading.

A Live TV Version Of GREASE On Fox in 2015

In TV and movies, success always inspires imitation. So after the smashing return of live musicals to television with NBC's SOUND OF MUSIC last December, now other networks are getting in on the game. 

EW reports today that Fox is going to do a 3-hour live version of the classic 50s musical. The film version's John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John have always been the Danny/Sandy combo to beat. So it will be interesting what sort of casting craziness they try to spark some similar chemistry. 

Already, some suggestions out there in the Twitter-verse are Zac Efron and Taylor Swift. While that sounds good on paper, there might be that problem of acting which caused a lot of critical concern with the theatrical novice Carrie Underwood "playing" Maria in SOUND OF MUSIC. But then again, it's live TV so it's really all about the number of eyeballs they can get to the sets for a show that everyone knows backwards and forwards. Let the casting games begin!

Day And Date (And Festival) Release For Joss Whedon's IN YOUR EYES

As the film world continues to go digital, a new model of getting films out to the public has taken off this year. In recent years, so-called day-and-date releases where a feature would be made available on all platforms theatrical, VOD, download, on the same day was becoming popular and increasingly successful.

Now the latest twist in this happened on Monday when a new Joss Whedon's feature IN YOUR EYES (which he co-wrote and produced) opened at the Tribeca Film Festival while, on the same day, was made available on Vimeo as a digital download for $5. The release was a bit of a surprise, promoting many to compare it to Beyonce's recent out-of-the-blue album drop on iTunes.

As strange as it may seem to drop a movie out there with no advance warning, it's a model that makes some sense in that when a film is riding a wave of reviews and press coverage at a festival, it's the prime time to make the film available to the public at large who is reading about it everywhere. Netflix realized thiswhen they released the documentary MITT a week after its Sundance premiere. And, when you're Joss Whedon, with a sizable social-media footprint and devoted fan base (me included!), that helps spread the insta-word rather quickly too.

Here's the preview of the film below...
In Your Eyes - Trailer from Bellwether Pictures on Vimeo.

Breaking Down The Title Sequence For MAD MEN

The Washington Post did a fun video breakdown of the title sequence of MAD MEN, as it started its 7th and final season last night. This was part of a longer story in the Arts section about how, in the current golden age of television, it's also a golden age for title sequences as well.

The iconic MAD MEN opening started with an idea by creator Matthew Weiner that was originally going to be live action and not animation. It would have followed the real life Don Draper on his daily commute from the 'burbs and into Manhattan, up to his office where he would then proceed to jump out the window. The falling-man element stayed but the rest became much more impressionistic while still making clear the 1960s setting (utilizing period snapshots) and the advertising milieu (with large ads projected on the buildings).

A great deal of thought and production goes into these 1-2 minute segments that become essential for setting the tone of the show and also branding the content too. The article states how in these days of DVR-ing people rarely fast-forward through them, appreciating the effort and artistry of the titles. In addition to MAD MEN, I personally love the time lapses of DC that start each episode of HOSUE OF CARDS on an ominous note. Anyway, here's the segment below from PostTV which breaks down MAD MEN.

An Oral History of HEATHERS...and HEATHERS 2

On March 31, 1989, New World Features released their last film before going out of business, a dark high school comedy called HEATHERS. It only grossed a little over a million and was considered a flop. Until, that is, home video made it a high school cult classic with some very quotable lines. I didn't wait for home video and saw it that April in DC (at the Outer Circle) and it blew my mind. Even more exciting was that a friend I'd done summer theatre with was in the film with a couple lines too!

In honor of HEATHERS 25th anniversary, and the recent opening of the HEATHERS musical off-Broadway, Entertainment Weekly has put together a highly entertaining oral history about the making of HEATHERS.  Winona Ryder sounds somewhat obsessed with the film, stating she's seen it over 50 times and always watches til the end if she catches it on TV. And to think that her role could've gone to Jennifer Connelly or Justine Bateman, both of whom turned the part down before it was given to Winona.

There's also some great details here about an idea for a sequel to HEATHERS that writer Daniel Waters was toying with in which Winona's character ends up in Washington working for a "Senator Heather" (played by Meryl Streep!) and goes on to assassinate the president. It almost sounds like a very special episode of HOUSE OF CARDS!

The Original "Cliffhanger" Is 100 Years Old

My favorite NYC history blog, The Bowery Boys, had a great story this weekend on the 100th anniversary of the "cliffhanger". The term comes from the famous silent films series THE PERILS OF PAULINE, the first of which debuted 100 years ago this month. 

Even more fascinating is that the cliffs that Pauline hung off, which is where the term comes from, are the Palisades in NJ (pictured here). New Jersey and New York City is where the film industry began and thrived for a couple decades before migrating towards better weather (and cheaper real estate for growing studios) to the West Coast.

Also somewhat notable is exactly where Pauline's adventures took place. Before Gov. Christie made it famous for a traffic jam, Ft. Lee was the site of filming for the first of these serialized adventures in which a young girl with an inheritance is lured towards danger by a man seeking her money. Below is the original film in this series, available on YouTube.  

A Cinematic Clip Tour Of Dirty Old New York

Over at The EV Grieve, they've posted the fifth in a series of cinematic clip tours of New York from back in its less glamorous period. These were created by cinephile Jonathan Hertzberg, who is obsessed with the dirty old NYC of the late 60s, 1970s and 1980s. His latest 25 minute tour de grit is put together with a number of notable films (TAKING OF PELHAM 123, SUPERMAN, TAXI DRIVER) and some lesser known films, some of which even I couldn't guess (what is Barbra Streisand doing with a bunch of thugs cruising down the East River?!).

Some of the clips are classics, others curiosities, but the real interest is often the background or the location itself. There's one remarkable shot of 1970s Times Square that shows not only the old HoJo's (one of my favorite spots) but also a still-operating Horn & Hardart automat. And there is a great sequence of shots around the 8:00 minute mark of Jessica Lange and King Kong at the old World Trade Center, ending with Kong dead on the wide beach that used to abut the site made from the excavation of the twin towers and later developed into Battery Park City and the World Financial Center.

Make sure you stay 'til the end for an Oscar-like tribute to actors associated with NYC who are no longer with us.
Dirty Old New York aka Fun City, Part V from Jonathan Hertzberg on Vimeo.

New Doc Delves Into Mystery of Photographer Vivian Maier

Since first hearing about her in 2010, I've been fascinated with the mystery of now legendary urban photographer Vivan Maier. She was a mid-century professional nanny, living in NYC and then Chicago, who took nearly 100,000 photos that were all stashed away in a storage locker and never seen by anyone. The locker was auctioned off in 2007 and the man who bought it, John Maloof, started posting the pictures online (the one here is from her New York days), showing the world a remarkable body of work that drew comparisons to contemporary artists like Evans, Arbus, Weegee and even Cindy Sherman. 

Now Maloof, along with producer Charlie Siskel (Gene's nephew!), has made a documentary which looks at the curious story of the woman behind these remarkable photos. The movie, profiled in yesterday's TIMES, comes out this Friday that IFC Center and I can't wait to see it. The trailer is great, hinting at the revelations about her extremely private life from the children she cared for.