...Warner Bros. said last week that “Tenet” would not have a traditional global day-and-date release — a surprising (though not unprecedented) break from tradition since North America is the world’s biggest film market and remains pivotal for major movies to turn a profit. But the studio hopes to innovate and recalibrate given the fact that foreign markets are already starting to reopen safely and desperately need new Hollywood movies to entice crowds.

If theaters in other countries are ready to go and we’re not, then they probably should get to see Tenet first. It’s unfortunate that piracy and spoiler-filled online discussions are the price Americans will have to pay until we can see the movie safely, but maybe it’s what we deserve for not wearing masks.

I’m seeing a lot of talk about the possibility of Hollywood productions moving abroad for the short term. That’s a trend that had started before The Virus: James Cameron, for instance, has been making the Avatar sequels in New Zealand, and after a brief shutdown earlier this year, he’s back at it. I could see some studios relocating to someplace like Vancouver if it was a matter of keeping their doors open and getting new product to those international markets. Meanwhile, streaming and VOD options remain a safe and viable option.

Regarding Tenet: I remain uncertain whether or not I’ll go see it, assuming theaters will be open by September (not a sure thing at all). If this had been a normal year, there’s no question I would’ve been there opening weekend, but the incredible amount of buildup around this movie once again has me questioning whether or not any of it is warranted. I’m sure it is and I’m just being contrary.

I’m more concerned about the possibility that I may have to let go of my attachment to the theatrical experience of seeing a movie sooner rather than later—but I’ll talk more about that later this month. One thing’s for sure: movies and TV won’t look the same once this is over. (Speaking of Tenet, did you know star John David Washington used to play in the NFL?)

More to follow.

The Wild Angels
YouTube viewing

Roger Corman is still alive and making movies! This Variety piece from last December discusses his latest projects and how he’s adapted to the technological changes to the industry—and even during the quarantine, he’s encouraged others to keep making movies.

To go into his career as an independent producer-writer-director, including discussing the many film superstars who started out with him when they were nobodies, would take way too long, so let’s focus on one aspect of it: his association with indie production company American International Pictures.

Founded by Samuel Arkoff & James Nicholson in 1954, their mandate was finding low-budget films that could be released as double features for the burgeoning teen market. Their first release was a Corman production, The Fast and the Furious. (Fun fact: Corman licensed that title to Universal in 2001, and when the long-running sports car franchise became a hit, Corman got a tiny piece of the profits.)

Corman had spent the 60s making adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories with Vincent Price and even spent a little time at Columbia Pictures. Then one day he became aware of motorcycles.

...Under the new plan, Friends of the Loew’s will be involved in the renovation plans, and oversee community programming, while the commercial operator will be charged with finding national and international acts to perform at the 3,000-seat theater.

UPDATE 6.15: I had thought Friends of the Loews would have made a statement by now, but they haven’t yet, so I’ll chime in with my thoughts. First, all due credit for this victory, in a battle that had gone on at least since 2014, goes to Colin Egan and everyone at FoL for keeping this special place viable and functional for decades. They are the real heroes here.

FoL has said in the past the future of the Loews was as a non-profit venue that caters to the headliners as well as the local acts, so when I see statements regarding “national and international acts,” I got a bit concerned, so I hope they will publicly renew their commitment to this path soon, a plan which is in the city’s best interests as well as the theater’s. To his credit, mayor Steven Fulop specifically mentioned the diverse communities within JC in Thursday‘a press conference, so I remain hopeful for the moment. Also, I believe old movies will continue to have a place at the Loews, at an affordable price, that everyone can enjoy.

Fulop and JC would be wise to continue to emphasize the Loews’ convenient location across the street from the PATH train, only minutes from midtown Manhattan. While not the same thing, I believe lessons can and must be learned from the fustercluck that resulted from transportation from the Super Bowl at the Meadowlands a few years ago, and support mass transit during major events, such as a concert at the Loews.

Plus, I hope the Loews’ renewal will mean downtown JC’s renewal. I’ve walked around the area surrounding the theater; it’s not terrible, but it could be better—and “better” does not necessarily mean homogenized and made to look like everyplace else while stripping it of its cultural identity. There can and should be a balance.

And all of this, of course, is contingent on a solution to our Much Bigger Problem coming as soon as possible. Still, this news gives us a future to which we can look forward.

I announced it on Twitter and perhaps you’ve already noticed the change here, but for the record: WSW now moderates comments. This is a change I had thought about doing before, but I didn’t believe it was truly necessary until the spammers started getting bolder. I don’t want this; we’ve gone this far without needing to moderate comments, but I believe it’s better this way, at least for now. You (and you know who you are) have always provided insight and wit to go along with my posts. You’re not the problem and never were.

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My third 5K run turned out well, but it didn’t feel that way. I beat my personal best time by perhaps three minutes, but the whole run felt tougher than usual. It was windy, but not gusty, the sky was mostly cloudy, and there was no hint of rain or snow. I just felt like the whole thing was a harder push than usual, like I was pushing harder than before. I slowed to a walking pace a lot, and I had to remind myself to not get comfortable. And once again, the presence of so many other people changed my mental approach, making me think of the competition instead of my own game... but I still set a personal record. I did something right.

———————-

Last month Virginia and I went to an unusual twin bill of Georges Melies films: A Trip to the Moon and Kingdom of the Fairies. Both silents were accompanied by original live scores by composer Kyle Simpson and his chamber orchestra, held at The Dimenna Center for Classical Music in Manhattan. A university professor, musician and conductor, as well as a composer, he briefly talked of his love for film in general and how with this project, he sought to create scores that would match the story and themes of these movies, and I thought he did. His scores made both films feel almost contemporary. In addition to the movies, there was an “undercard” of film scores by Phillip Glass and Alexander Borodin, performed by the Red Line String Quartet. I’ve always liked Glass’ music. I’ve seen it performed live before, but not like this. It felt different, yet recognizable as his work. Virginia loved the whole thing, of course.

Links on the other side.

It: Chapter Two
seen @ Squire Great Neck Cinemas, Great Neck, NY

After witnessing so many movie theaters close within the past several years (the latest casualty: the Beekman on the east side of Manhattan), it’s nice to write about a new theater, one that’s independent and affordable! As I mentioned in this month’s links roundup, the staff of Movieworld, formerly in Douglaston, Queens, have found a new home on the other side of the border. The Squire Great Neck Cinemas opened in Great Neck, in Nassau County, back in April—I found out about it a couple of weeks ago—and I went there this week to see It: Chapter Two.

I knew the trip would be much longer than when I would visit Movieworld; indeed, I took two LONG bus rides plus a lot of walking—a short walk to the first bus and a much longer walk after the second bus. All told, it took me around two and a quarter hours to get to the Squire. Movieworld was about a half hour to forty-five minutes less.

It was my first time in Great Neck. It’s a nice neighborhood. Middle Neck Road, the street where the Squire resides, is made up of two and three-story Tudor-style buildings with a variety of shops. The Long Island Rail Road stops there, as does at least one bus. The road was narrow, so traffic didn’t speed everywhere. It seemed racially mixed, but mostly Jewish.


The Squire itself was small but well integrated into the neighborhood, with an old-fashioned marquee, not digital. Inside it looks much like any other multiplex—the previous owners kept it well maintained, from what I could see. The auditorium seats were comfortable and the bathroom was clean. So far, it doesn’t have a distinct identity, like Movieworld did—not just the fact that you had to access it underneath a mall parking lot, but the old school (as in Classic Hollywood) posters and portraits, the neon, the concession stand hub. It’s still kind of generic, but it’s very early. Movieworld had their space for over thirty years.

According to the guy I talked to, attracting crowds on weekends was tricky because many of the Jews in Great Neck are observant, so the crowds on Friday nights and Saturdays aren’t as big as they could be yet, but they’re gonna do things like upgrade the seating and hold contests—I saw some from earlier this summer on their Facebook page—so I expect them to grow into their niche in time.


As for the movie: I never read the Stephen King book, but I know he approved of the changes to accommodate the modern audience. Chapter One didn’t leave a great impression on me, but I thought it was sufficiently scary, and I feel mostly the same way about the second half. It was nice to recognize Freddy from Shazam as part of the kid cast—he better be careful or he’ll be typecast as the cripple kid!

I wouldn’t rule out returning to the Squire, but the journey there is killer. I’m reminded of the even longer trek to the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers. Both places are worth the trip for different reasons, but I don’t need to visit either one; I still have options closer to home. I just wanted to see the Squire for myself and know that Movieworld’s spirit lives on.

The Squire Great Neck Cinemas

...”When we were making the movie, we could feel the whole country burning up—Negroes, hippies, students,” he said. “I meant to work this feeling into the symbols in the movie, like Captain America’s Great Chrome Bike—that beautiful machine covered with stars and stripes with all the money in the gas tank is America—and that any moment we can be shot off it—BOOM—explosion—that’s the end. At the start of the movie, Peter and I do a very American thing—we commit a crime, we go for the easy money. That’s one of the big problems with the country right now: everybody’s going for the easy money. Not just obvious, simple crimes, but big corporations committing corporate crimes.”

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Next month is the Murder She Wrote Cookalong at Silver Screen Suppers, and this week, I plan to buy the ingredients for the recipe I’ll cook for the event, chicken paprika. When it comes to choosing what to cook, I rely on three criteria: can I afford it, can I make it, and will I like it? I’ve never had chicken paprika before, but I’m guessing I’ll find it agreeable, and I have some of the ingredients already. I often take pictures of the finished dish to post on Facebook, but never of the dish in progress, but I’ll have plenty of light, and though none of you will be able to sample it, I hope it’ll at least look appetizing.

More after the jump.

The Richard Matheson Blogathon is an event devoted to the career of the science fiction/thriller writer of film, television and fiction. Debbie and I thank you for taking part. Be sure to check our blogs to discover all the entries!

Duel
YouTube viewing

I never learned to drive, so I've never been subject to "road rage." Sure, I've ridden with drivers who have gotten mad at other drivers and vented their frustration at them in some fashion. Sadly, it happens all too often these days because some people are either too ignorant or too impatient to follow the rules of the road.

But being mad enough at another driver to try to do them harm? Man, I hope I never see that first-hand. That takes a special kind of crazy. Why does that kinda stuff happen anyway?

First Man
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY

The moon was half full the day I saw First Man. I noticed it on my way home, the sky darkening early in the fall sky. Sometimes when I look at it, I wonder what our primitive ancestors made of it — an image in the sky that changes shape consistently. I'll bet they made up some pretty good stories about what it was and what it was for.

We can only guess whether they thought it was a place to which humans could visit.

Next year will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing, when Neil Armstrong made his "giant leap for mankind," with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. First Man makes us appreciate, with nail-biting, white-knuckle clarity, how utterly dangerous this venture was. No lie, some of those scenes in space were difficult to watch because the camera kept spinning and spinning.


This movie has been used as a piñata by the right and the left for reasons too stupid to get into (seriously, I'm not even gonna justify them with links). I didn't read about any of it until after I saw the movie. I think they're both full of shit, as they usually are. And that's all I have to say about that.

Some very rich people are investing in space travel these days so some other rich people can pay for the privilege. The rest of us will have to wait our turn, and by then, who knows, we could all be dead. It seems to me space travel would be a good idea so we can think about living in places other than Earth — but what do I know? I'm not Elon Musk.


So how about that Damien Chazelle, huh? In a short time, he's established himself as a filmmaker to watch: one who takes on a variety of subjects with a vision for carrying them out. He gets some intense performances out of his actors, his cinematographers are distinctive, his Oscar-winning composer, Justin Hurwitz, is superb (I liked his work on First Man), and he's only 33. Dude's going places.

Not a whole lot to talk about this month. Cynthia Nixon was robbed, the novel rewrite is going great, and things between me and Virginia are swell. The Neil Simon Blogathon is in a couple of weeks; there's still time to join Paddy and myself for the occasion, if you want in.

Let's jump straight to the links for once!

Raquel answers questions from her readers.

Ivan discusses the century-old comic strip Gasoline Alley and the two films inspired by it.

Jacqueline ponders whether this Depression-era film endorsed socialism.

Jennifer talks contemporary high school movies and compares them with her own experience.

Le writes about a very early Ernst Lubitsch silent film which challenges gender roles.

Variety's coverage of Cynthia Nixon's loss in the New York primaries.

What are Feedspot's choices for the Top 30 Classic Film Blogs?

The Wizard of Oz ruby slippers, after having gone missing for 13 years, have been found!

Gauging the truthiness of films "based on a true story."

Bullwinkle and political satire.

Is it possible liking trash cinema makes you smarter?

Claudette Colbert liked cooking desserts.

Armie Hammer hearts scooters.

Finally, best wishes to Crystal of In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood, who's recovering from surgery.

Here's something I haven't talked about yet: the Disney/Fox deal. Last month it was approved by the shareholders, and now I gotta believe Disney won't be satisfied until they own all of Hollywood. This is kinda disturbing. Should one studio have this level of power? If it's not a monopoly yet, it's beginning to feel like one.

One wonders what Unca Walt himself would have made of all this. It's a cinch he wouldn't recognize the business he started so long ago. Maybe I'll do a post on him.

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It occurs to me I haven't been to any outdoor movies this summer. This is unusual; it's something I've indulged in for as long as WSW has been around, but not this year.

Meeting Virginia has meant doing different things with my spare time, so there's that. She's actually not a big moviegoer (I had to remind her who Tom Hanks is), and as you've read, we've been doing things like going to plays and concerts instead.

I don't mind; she's exposed me to new stuff I wouldn't have known of before, and being with her has been more than worth it, even if the play or concert bored me on occasion.

Perhaps going to outdoor movies was a way to occupy my time in the absence of someone like her in my life. Don't know — but I find I haven't missed them much. Hope you haven't either.

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So Spock is gonna appear in Discovery; this does not surprise me in the slightest. As soon as I saw in the first half of the pilot that Cmdr. Burnham was raised on Vulcan and conveniently knew Sarek, I knew it was only a matter of time before they figured out a way to work Spock into the series. That's not what I wanna talk about.

I read the news on a Star Trek Facebook group. I'm not part of the group; I was just lurking. Ever since I chose not to subscribe to CBS All Access to watch Discovery, I've shied away from the fan groups, blogs, and news sites because I knew Discovery would be a big part of their coverage. I looked at this group, though, because I missed being part of the fandom.

The Trek canon (not owned by Disney) is growing, and will continue to grow in the near future —maybe not in all the ways I want it to, but it is happening. Will it follow the Discovery model and be part of the streaming service? Unless someone says otherwise, I can only assume so, which means I may have to reassess my anti-streaming stance. I know I said Trek fandom no longer needs to rely on CBS or Paramount, but things have changed in a big way since then. Maybe I need to get with the times?

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Starting to pick up a little around here; we got some more blogathons scheduled for the coming months, and some good-looking movies are on deck. Hope you'll stick around.

Links after the jump.

A Wrinkle in Time
seen @ Alamo Drafthouse, Yonkers NY

Madeleine L'Engle almost gave up writing by age forty on account of all the rejections she kept receiving. The reality of rejection is something I've read about on a few writers blogs: how one has to accept the fact that no matter how spectacular you think your work is, the odds of you hitting a home run with it the first time at bat, or the tenth, are slim at best. Some writers tell you to embrace rejection as a fact of writing life, since it's happened to the best authors as well as the worst.

I haven't written enough to experience rejection to the same degree, partially because much of my work is self-published — including this blog, in a way. I know when I finish revising my novel and sending it out to authors, though (assuming I don't self-publish that too), I'll have to face that reality as well. I'm probably not ready for that, but who ever is?



L'Engle's book A Wrinkle in Time was rejected over thirty times. I cannot imagine what that must be like: to receive a litany of no's yet to keep going anyway. Actually, I take that back, I can imagine that: I suspect it's like going on blind date after blind date and never getting past that initial dinner-and-a-movie stage. You question your self-worth.

One of the wittiest and most heartfelt books about writing is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. She talks about what she calls "the myth of publication":

...Many nonwriters assume that publication is a thunderously joyous event in the writer's life, and it is certainly the biggest and brightest carrot dangling before the eyes of my students. They believe that if they themselves were to get published, their lives would change instantly, dramatically, and for the better. Their self-esteem would flourish, all self-doubt would be erased like a typo. Entire paragraphs and manuscripts of disappointment and rejection and lack of faith would be wiped out by one push of a psychic delete button and replaced by a quiet, tender sense of worth and belonging. Then they could wrap the world in flame.

But this is not exactly what happens. Or at any rate, this is not what it has been like for me.

L'Engle's path to publication is by no means unique, but it's a textbook example of how a writer needs (justified) faith in their work, even in this time where self-publishing your work is easier than before. My path is probably harder than many: I'm writing a sports novel, not exactly a popular genre — but it's what I want to do. I'll just have to suck up the inevitable rejections when the time comes. But I won't like it.

I never read Wrinkle as a kid. No particular reason; there were lots of books I never got around to in my childhood. Not sure how eight-year-old me would have taken to it, but I imagine the religious elements would've flown over my head — except I'm told there's a scene with Jesus, Buddha, Einstein and Gandhi all together, as a kind of spiritual Justice League.


That did not make the new film adaptation of Wrinkle, needless to say. While I thought it was good, it did have a touchy-feely vibe to it, and knowing of L'Engle's spiritual beliefs now, I can see why, even though much of the religious aspects were expunged for the film.

It reminded me, in part, of The NeverEnding Story. The nebulous force known only as the It (sans red balloons) is a lot like the Nothing, with similar effects — and love is the redemptive counterforce in the end. It's all very earnest, in its way, not that this is necessarily a bad thing.

The best line I read from Ava DuVernay about Wrinkle came when she was asked about opening a month after Black Panther, even though the two films have very little in common besides having black directors. She compared Panther to Michael Jackson's Thriller album and said she'd settle for being Prince's 1999 album, since they both came out in 1982. I thought that was funny. Still, if the reviews are any indication, she may have to settle for being the Rolling Stones' Still Life.


Once again I left my house well over three hours in advance to get to the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers, and once again I just barely made it, only this time the trains were to blame. The train that took me into Manhattan totally bypassed the station in which I had to get off because something had happened there; the conductor, of course, didn't specify. I had to get out at the next stop and walk back down 57th Street to take the uptown train to the Boogie Down Bronx — but then that train was delayed two stops from the end of the line for 15-20 minutes due to "signal problems." Have I mentioned how effed up the subways are lately?

Madeleine L'Engle's granddaughters write her biography

Darkest Hour
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens NY

If you know me by now, you may be able to guess what my favorite scene was in Darkest Hour. England had the Nazi wolves howling at the door, the government was all set to negotiate for a surrender, and Winston Churchill was the only official left who still wanted to fight. He decides to talk to the people, get their opinion, so what does he do?

He takes public transportation.

Did this moment really happen? Who cares? It makes for good drama; indeed, it's not unlike Henry V walking among his troops on the eve of battle. Churchill mentions he had never taken the subway before — believable, given the kind of life he had led prior to that moment — yet he understood this was where he could take the pulse of the people. True, he could have gone into a pub, but he chose the subway, or the underground, as the Brits call it, and the people told him what they wanted: to fight. More to the point, he listened.



It goes without saying that we're currently experiencing a leadership void in Washington, but here in New York, there's another lack of leadership taking place, and it, too, involves the subways.

We have a governor, who controls the administration that operates our subways, who has also ridden the rails to talk to the people, only it's usually for things like ribbon-cutting ceremonies for a new station (usually delivered late and over budget).



In Hour, Churchill knew enough about the value of the subway to go there and engage the people in a dialogue during a time of crisis. Twitter overflows with stories of our broken trains, tweeted directly to the governor, the same guy who declared a state of emergency on the subways last year, but his silence has been deafening. Which man looks more like a leader to you?

Anyway, back to the movie: these days we take this period in history for granted in the sense that we say, of course we had to fight the Nazis; no question about it, but at the time, in England, it wasn't so obvious. No one knew for sure how far Germany would go, and negotiating a peace with them must have made sense to a lot of folks because who the hell wanted them to come in and kick England's ass arse? Churchill, however, saw more to the situation than that.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
seen @ AMC Loews Orpheum 7, New York NY

I regret I have not travelled often by train. Oh, I take the subway all the time, living in New York, not to mention the occasional ride on the commuter rails to Long Island and upstate, but to sit in a reclining seat (one you can sleep in), to have a separate car where you can eat, another where you can look out on the vast landscape as you chug along to wherever you're going... that's special.

Train travel is more of a social experience than air travel - or it used to be, anyway, before everyone had a laptop or a cell phone or an iPod. Back in the 90s, I went to Chicago by train; on the way back, I met this pregnant Japanese girl who was meeting her husband in New York. We had a nice time chatting. When we arrived in Penn Station, I recall giving her directions to - was it Port Authority? - someplace important like that; wherever it was her husband was supposed to meet her.

Currently, Amtrak links New York to the rest of the country via two tracks within a single tunnel, however, in 2012, Hurricane Sandy dealt serious damage to this connection.

The Gateway Tunnel project is an initiative led by Amtrak to build a new tunnel under the Hudson River. Amtrak believes construction could begin next year, despite a lack of commitment by the president to supply federal funding. Personally, I'll believe it when I see it.



Around the world, train travel is regarded differently. High-speed rail (HSR) makes regional travel quick and relatively easy. China's trains are the fastest overall, but the "Red Arrow," the Trenitalia Frecciarossa 1000 - doing a crisp 220 MPH up and down Italy - is currently the fastest in Europe. The Amtrak Acela Express, by contrast, goes 150 MPH between Boston and DC. Although HSR is coming to California soon, the truth is, rail travel isn't the priority here that it is in other developed nations.

Still, none of these sleek, ultra-modern jaguars have the mystique and allure of the Orient Express. Begun in 1883 as a route from Paris to Istanbul (not Constantinople), it evolved into the ultimate luxury rail line. A version of the original line still exists today; if you got the dough, you can ride it.



The Orient Express has been represented in almost every popular media you can think of, including the Bond film From Russia with Love, a George Cukor film called Travels with My Aunt, and of course, a caboose-ful of adaptations of the Agatha Christie novel Murder on the Orient Express.

Kenneth Branagh is the latest filmmaker to ride the famous rail, readapting the Christie tale; he also leads an all-star cast as the epically-mustachioed detective Hercule Poirot. This was my first exposure to the story; I never read the book or saw any of the other films, so I liked it more, perhaps, than a number of reviewers, or Vija, with whom I saw the film.



I recognize the classic mystery conventions of the story, because they've been re-used and parodied so often: everyone bowing to Poirot's genius; the relative civility of the suspects; the way they conveniently line up for Poirot when he's about to reveal whodunnit. It's okay. This is a modern movie but it has an old-fashioned aesthetic.

This is all I will say about Harvey Weinstein, because I know you're sick of reading about him by now: I can't say I'm surprised, for one thing. Given his past inability to keep his hands off films (they called him "Harvey Scissorhands" for a reason), it follows that a man who wields power so cavalierly might also have a problem with keeping his hands off women too.

Harvey will do his time in Hollywood jail (and maybe real jail too) and he'll return; the only question is how long. I mean, if Mel Gibson can come back, and direct a film nominated for Best Picture, anything is possible, no? Bottom line, though: the industry needs to retire the casting couch for good.

Moving on: the novel is close to done, although I've been doing a lot more reading about the book business, and getting a debut novel published is a hell of a lot harder than people think. I was uncertain I wanted to sustain a career as a writer, but the signs point to building up a body of work before your novel can even get considered for publication: short stories, freelance articles - oh, and I should probably write a second manuscript while I'm at it. 

Do I wanna do all this? I can't deny I like writing; this blog is proof of that - and I have no shortage of ideas. I've come this far; I don't feel ready to set fiction writing aside yet. I think next year I may look into doing shorter stories, in addition to revising the novel; I'm told short stories are in now. I guess I'm willing to keep going; I'm just trepidatious as to where this all will lead...

I still haven't decided whether to see Justice League or not. I probably won't, but something could still change my mind.

Your links: 

FlixChatter Ruth's short film played at the Twin Cities Film Festival!

Aurora and pals got to visit Joel McCrea's ranch.

Raquel eulogizes Hugh Hefner as a film fan.

Danny reviews a rare Edward G. Robinson film that sounds really interesting.

Jacqueline writes about the Claude Rains version of Phantom of the Opera and the tragic tale of its leading lady.

Debbie is reminded of her parents' wedding while watching Father of the Bride.

Tippi Hedren on Harvey Weinstein (and Hitchcock).

Marsha Hunt, whom I've talked about here before, hit the century mark last month.

Why didn't anyone ever tell me Tom Petty was in The Postman? Also, there was a movie called I Hate Tom Petty.

What if Lord of the Rings had been made in the late 30s by Warner Bros?

And then there was the time theater owners helped curtail rowdy trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

Citizen Jane: Battle for the City
seen @ Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, New York NY

I noticed the change in New York very quickly, days after I returned from living in Columbus. I took the subway to Williamsburg. I had worked in that neighborhood for over two years, and I was aware of its growing status as the new cool place to live. When I stepped outside, I noticed something right away: an increased presence of bicyclists. Not just for sport, either, but regular people too, mostly young, their bikes chained to racks in large clusters.

That wasn't all. I had heard talk about how Times Square had been drastically reconfigured. Suddenly there was all this room for people to walk around. I couldn't believe my ears. Times Square was notorious for its traffic gridlock and the way people were overstuffed onto the sidewalks. I went there, though, and I saw it for myself. Broadway and Seventh Avenues had been streamlined - several blocks of Broadway were closed to traffic - and there was all this space in the streets for people to loiter. There were actually beach chairs scattered about the area! I had to laugh.

Like many New Yorkers, I had always believed traffic - whether it meant bumper-to-bumper cars clogging the roads, making travel difficult at best, or the other extreme, cars going too fast, injuring or even killing pedestrians - was an intractable fact of city life to be struggled against, without any real solution. Living in Columbus, a much smaller town without 24/7 public transit, forced me to get around on a bike. I viewed traffic from a much different perspective, to say the least.

It also made me aware, for the first time, of the value of streets. I associated with other bicyclists. Through them, I understood cars have had a monopoly on streets for decades, here in America and around the world. I learned it doesn't have to stay that way. It wasn't until I returned to New York, though, that I saw that potential for changing the status quo begin to be fulfilled. In many ways, we have Jane Jacobs to thank for that.



Citizen Jane: Battle for the City documents not only the life and work of the journalist, author and activist, it diagrams the history of the changes the automobile wrought upon city streets and neighborhoods everywhere, as well as how and why they need to be opposed.

The film quotes liberally from Jacobs' game-changing 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Through simple observation, Jacobs argued that neighborhoods viewed as "slums" by some have the elements - variety of businesses, day and night; density of housing; people constantly on the street, aware of each other's presence - necessary for growth, an idea that flew in the face of the wave of "urban renewal," i.e., the tearing down of neighborhoods, sweeping the city at the time, led by Jacobs' nemesis, city planner Robert Moses.

Robert Moses

The film goes into the epic battle between Jacobs, favoring people and neighborhoods, and Moses, the champion of autocentrism and wide, long highways - over the future of New York's development. Moses is regarded as a bad guy now, but the truth is, he did a lot for New York: building bridges, beaches, pools and yes, housing. The high-rise I live in was built by Moses.

It was more the way high-rises were made that was the problem: isolated from the surrounding streets, inefficient use of space, discouraging the spontaneity Jacobs saw out her West Village apartment window. The film goes into the popularity of early 20th century architecture that encouraged these kinds of buildings.

Jacobs' ideas are recognized as valid by many city planners today, but putting them into action - doing things like altering street design to slow speeding cars; reconfiguring streets to allow for other means of travel, including bikes; building more pedestrian space - means facing vocal opposition from folks who benefit from and prefer the status quo established by cars. Many of them won't give that up without a fight.



Former NYC transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, in her recent book Streetfight, advocates wedding Moses' persistence and gumption to Jacobs' ideals in order to build more equitable streets and livable neighborhoods:

...Retrofitting our cities for the new urban age and achieving Jane Jacobs's vision today will require Moses-like vision and action for building the next generation of city roads, ones that will accommodate pedestrians, bikes and buses safely and not just single-occupancy vehicles with their diminishing returns for our streets.... Reversing the atrophy afflicting our city streets requires a change-based urbanism that creates short-term results - results that can create new expectations and demand for more projects.

I saw Citizen Jane with Vija on Sunday and then went to my weekly writing group. On my way home, I passed by a live concert held within a pedestrian plaza in Jackson Heights, built several years ago. At the time, the local businesses were vehemently against it, fearing a loss of revenue from the closing of a single block of a street and the rerouting of a bus to facilitate this new open space. For awhile, it looked like the plaza might not survive.

Sunday night, I saw it packed with people, sitting inside and standing all around the perimeter, with a small group near the stage, children as well as adults, dancing to the music. This is far from the first time I've seen the plaza so busy, but it was the first time I saw such a festive atmosphere so early in the season. Imagine how it'll get come the summer!

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Related:
Streetfilms charts the path towards safer streets
Why does car-free = loser in movies and TV?
Woody v. bike lanes: dawn of ignorance

The Jack Lemmon Blogathon is this year's WSW event, spotlighting the great actor. My thanks to Le for co-hosting with me. Check both our blogs for a complete listing of everyone taking part!

The Out-of-Towners (1970)
YouTube viewing

I'm glad I traveled as much as I did when I was younger. When I was still into comics, I had self-published several different titles, and to promote them, I appeared at conventions around the country. I flew. I took the train. Mostly, I rode the bus. It's hard, sometimes, to appreciate the scenery when the AC is on high, a baby's yelling two rows behind you and the guy next to you has fallen asleep and is snoring loudly again, but you pick your moments of tranquility where you find them.

The concept of the "staycation" grew, strangely enough, around the time I was about to move out of New York! I think I've since learned the value of local excursions, in this case, meaning state-wide. Through Bibi & Eric, I've seen more of upstate New York than I would normally, to the point where I've developed an interest in seeing other upstate towns on my own. Last summer I visited Nyack, for example.

Everyone loves to travel, but do it often enough and you anticipate bad things happening along the way. You endure them and they drive you crazy and you laugh about them afterwards and you talk about them at parties for the next twenty years. First, though, you have to endure them. 


This brings us to The Out-of-Towners. Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis go through more hell trying to get to New York in this movie than two people have a right to, but it's all in the name of laughs. That final scene may not be as funny in a post-9-11 world, but overall, I liked the movie.

I wanna talk about the penultimate scene, in particular, Dennis' speech to Lemmon. Take a look at it and then come back here. (Begin at around 6:40.)

First, it's a bit shocking to hear a Neil Simon character put down New York so completely, with such finality. It's almost like that scene in Quiz Show where Queens-born Martin Scorsese says, "Queens is not New York!" (Some of us still haven't quite forgiven him for that one.)


History shows, however, that Gwen was expressing a very real feeling, not only about New York in 1970, but cities in general at the time. Urban renewal, white flight, an increase in inner-city crime, labor unrest, civil rights protests, and more: New York wasn't the only American city experiencing such changes, but it was the most prominent. After 1970, it would only get worse before it got better.

In the movie, George's reaction to the indignities he suffers is to want to sue everyone in sight, while Gwen can only watch stupefied and say "Oh my god" over and over. It's all meant to be funny, but there's a lot of truth in these characterizations.

Fast forward forty years or so. We're slowly re-learning the value of cities: as sustainable sources of green energy; as multimodal hubs that move more people more efficiently; as political asylums for foreign refugees. Robert Moses' way, of building straighter and wider roads that fracture neighborhoods and displace communities, has been proven wrong. 


I learned that while living in Ohio, where George and Gwen come from and where they're eager to return in the end. They probably benefit from the effects of urban sprawl I witnessed while living there: a decentralized core, increased use of the car at the expense of public transportation, more space given over for parking and less for people. Their children may feel differently about it, however, once they grow up.

It's interesting to note that Steve Martin's 1999 remake ends with him and Goldie Hawn staying in New York. But why not? The city had long since begun to clean up its act by that point. Now it's the opposite extreme: an over-priced, gentrified tourists' paradise that squeezes the lower classes further and further towards the margins. I <3 NY!

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Other Jack Lemmon films:
Mister Roberts
Some Like it Hot
How to Murder Your Wife