First Call

This is a personal film for me. I found it by chance on YouTube. Those 8 am bars were really gems with truly interesting people. I went to those morning places in 2000 (the year film was made) because I worked overnight. I knew 2 of the characters in the film, I hadn't thought of them in years. A great time capsule. New York truly was a place you could do anything you could think of before the arrival of Giuliani and Bloomberg who transformed iNew York into a much more mundane playground for the super wealthy. I'm still in New York but would never move here today. This movie was a nostalgic reminder of when NYC really was the destination for misfits from around the world.

I must admit, this is something I've long been curious about as, although I was quite a hedonist for many years, the idea of going into a bar in the morning I found appalling. So the natural assumption is they are all alcoholics, but that is not the case. The bios of each of the characters, and they are characters, is slowly revealed through the documentary, with some, like Simon, being enough to fill an hour just with his own story. It's also a great time capsule of a world that is probably disappearing as cafes increase and bars decrease, and these drinkers are moved on to the streets, or drugs.