A lot of famous people live, or at least spend time, in New York City. I've had friends tell me they've run into everyone from Uma Thurman (hanging out in the Village) to Bill Clinton (coming out of Serendipity, not McDonald's).
I've also seen a couple of celebrities, but there's one I keep running into - on the street, in the grocery store - Abe Vigoda. That's right, Abe Vigoda. You know, Detective Phil Fish from Barney Miller, Sal Tessio from The Godfather ("Tom, can you get me off the hook? For old times' sake?" "Can't do it Sally.").
Abe Vigoda
The first time I saw Abe, we were both doing our grocery shopping in Food Emporium. As soon as I left the store I called my father:
Dude, Abe Vigoda shops in my Food Emporium!
Aron, Abe Vigoda is dead.
My father was wrong then, and he's wrong as of 4:10pm EST today.
The first time I heard of Flight of the Conchords was a few months ago on the subway, when I saw an ad proclaiming that they are 'New Zealand's fourth most popular comedy folk duo'. Since then, I've had a couple of friends send me links to clips of their comedy sketches, and the other weekend I watched an episode of their HBO show at Len's. They are hilarious.
This clip was sent to me this morning by my friend Mo. It immediately made me think of my French friends Julie and Ludo, and how I used to enjoy practicing my French with them (all 5 phrases).
Last week Hoy sent an email around to all of his friends about one of his short films, One Square:
Last week you may remember hearing about the comments Sheryl Crow made promoting the use of one square of toilet paper. It turns out she wasn't the first to imagine such a premise--below is the link to my short film entitled ONE SQUARE.
ONE SQUARE is a "green comedy" that envisions a world in which the government rations toilet paper in an effort to conserve resources. It brings to fruition the suggestions that Sheryl Crow made, exploring what would happen in a humorous yet thought-provoking way.
Please check it out, and depending on where you work, you may want to forward it to watch on your home computer as it is not quite PG-13 because of its subject matter (think South Park/Dave Chappelle/Adult Swim).
All I ask is that for each time you laugh during the film, choose one person to forward this link to (or more, if you like). So 5 laughs = 5 people. And 0 laughs = you really need to lighten up a bit. Feel free to rate it, too (be honest if you love it, dishonest if you don't ;)
Thanks for watching and I look forward to hearing your feedback/comments!
Last week was the sixth annual Tribeca film festival here in New York City. An old high school friend of mine, Hoy, works at the Tribeca Film Institute, the organizers of the festival, and comp'd me tickets to a couple of the shows.
A Dirty Carnival can be described with one word - violent. This Korean film tells the story of Byung-du, a low-level mobster trying to help his dying mother and younger brother and sister. Byung-du's 'career' seems to be moving along nicely until he's reacquainted with an old friend from school, Min-Ho, who is now a movie producer. A Dirty Carnival has elements of other mob movies such as Goodfellas and The Godfather (and even goes as far as completely duplicating the scene in The Godfather where Carlo is strangled in a car). There's even a scene at the end that was similar to The Sixth Sense and Fight Club, where the main character flashes back to earlier moments in the movie to help explain why the current scene is happening. Overall, although I thought the movie was interesting, I didn't think any of the themes were very original, and really couldn't get past the brutally violent fight scenes.
Dj Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation is a DJ-meets-film experience. Dj Spooky's show involves him 'remixing' DW Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, a controversial film used by the Ku Klux Klan as a recruiting tool. I enjoyed the idea, having a soundtrack playing to the film, and Dj Spooky 'mixing' the film in the same spirit as he would mix music at a club. I think I would have enjoyed it more, and gotten more out of the experience, if I had seen the original movie. Dj Spooky was recently interviewed on NPR, which you can listen to here.
