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Movie Shoot in Greenwich Village

March 18, 2008

If you’re in NYC for any length of time, you start to see these sorts of signs all over the place. And the prettier/grittier the place, the more often you see them.

It’s a notice that, if you had parked on this street (Greenwich Street) on Sunday, March 16th, you’d have been towed away. They’re making a movie called “New York, I Love You”.

Hey, I sympathize with the sentiment. I checked IMDB and they have this. At this time, the entry is pretty bare, but it says that 12 filmmakers are making an anthology based on the title’s premise. The directors and actors seem like a pretty first-rate crew, too. But, then, I don’t go to movies that often so I only recognized about a third of the names.

But, like I said, I like the sentiment of the title.

I still have a problem with the sentiment of the notice, though. NYC really lets the movie/TV industry have their way on everything. I don’t know if I really like giving these guys the right to block off entire streets for hours/days. But, it does let people see NYC in its best light.

I don’t know where they’re filming, as these signs go up not only next to the location of the shots, but to areas they are going to be parking all of the vehicles used in carrying cameras and food and actors and all. But, I did see some photogenic looking buildings here.

Yeah, that’s the same sign.

-H

Categories: Celebrity Points, Events, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, Wanderings

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Theater Row in Hell’s Kitchen…and a bit ‘o the Bard

March 17, 2008

A co-worker alerted me to a new production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

So, I thought I ought to go. And when I heard who was doing it, I really knew I must, absolutely must, go.

It was TBTB, the acronym for Theater Breaking Through Barriers. It used to be called the Theater for the Blind. I’ve never seen any of their productions, but I figured it would be an interesting interpretation.

And it was. It was more than that. It was terrific. I’m not that fond of the play itself (I just don’t enjoy the storyline that much), but their production was nicely done. You see, they didn’t really play off the idea of the disabilities, but their real gimmick is that they were only going to have four actors playing all of the parts. That meant that each actor would handle eight or more rolls. And, on occasion, both rolls are on stage at the same time. Talking with each other.

And you ain’t seen nothing til you’ve seen a blind actor doing quick costume changes to talk with himself…and one of “himselves” is a woman. Kudos.

The show is at Theater Row in Hell’s Kitchen, 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues. It is my favorite off-off-Broadway venue. It holds a number of separate smaller theaters (kind of a live theater multiplex) and this play was in The Kirk. It holds about 100 seats.

I could only tell disabilities in two of the actors, there was only one blind guy and one who has cerebal palsy. Another great part is that there was no quarter given to them on account of the disability. The actor with CP (Gregg Mozgala) had to jump about the stage in his role as Romeo. The blind actor had to wander the stage and pick up stuff at one point and sword fight at other points.

The Kirk’s inside before the beginning.

If you look carefully, you may see the wires across the stage floor. They were used as marks for the blind actor (George Ashiotis). When he did his switching of roles, it was great. He did conversations with his off-stage self and would go back and change during it.

But the best switching was done by the lone female (Emily Young). For a long conversation between Juliet and Paris (she playing both parts), she kept walking back and forth behind a barrier (just behind the small box at the center in the picture above) and putting up her hood to show that she was Paris, or down to show that she was Juliet. And she kept them straight. I think we were all at the edge of our seats waiting for a slip, but there was none.

And I say all of this and Nicholas Viselli and Emily Young are probably amazed/amused that I didn’t spot their disabilities (if they have any). But disabilities weren’t part of the play (although I kept hearing lines about blindness and light that I hadn’t noticed before). And that was the great thing. I went to the play expecting to have them put out the lights for a large portion of it to force the audience to “see” the play the way a blind person would, but got a straight-out production of Shakespeare that ignored any limitations.

Oh, and another gimmick that I liked was the idea that they kept putting up Southern and Western accents (and occasional other ones that didn’t work quite as well) into the play. No British accents, but American ones. (Viselli’s Texan Mr. Capulet was the best accent.)

Well done.

-H

Categories: Broadway, Celebrity Points, Events

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FUBAR Disaster update

March 16, 2008

As promised, I went up to the general area of the crane collapse. I knew it would be blocked off well away from the actual site, and of course it was.

The crane collapsed between 1st Avenue and 2nd Avenue on 51st Street. Here’s a scene from 48th St and Second Avenue.

I could get as high as 49th Street before they shut down the street to traffic (including pedestrians).

At 49th Street, there were a number of newscrews doing interviews.

I don’t know the station or anything. I did see a truck from Macromedia doing some satellite sort of broadcasting, but no one was around the truck.

The only good news from this is that the death toll hasn’t seemed to grow from the initial four, although there are another four in critical condition.

The sobering picture of the moment (St. Patrick’s is tomorrow and we need some of that, I’d guess).

If you can’t read it, that the Mobile Command Center of the Medical Examiner. And there’s an empty gurney outside of it.

Another sobering sight was a truck from the Salvation Army. They had set up facilities to get residents places to stay. I don’t know if they allow anyone in neighboring buildings to stay in, but the idea of having 2 blocks evacuated in every direction is horrible. There are a lot of people living there. Many thousands, I’d suspect. Hotel rooms…$300 to $500 a night for a decent place.

Oh, I do need to mention this. In my previous post, I said I hadn’t heard more sirens and helicopters than usual. Well, last night the helicopters never seemed to go away. I kept changing the local channels and seeing live broadcasts from them, too. It’s still a little weird for me to hear sounds outside the window while watching broadcasts of the events on TV.

UPDATE 3/17/08: The death toll has risen to seven.

-H

Categories: Events, Manhattan, Mid-town

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Westminster Dog Show Part 4

February 15, 2008

And now to the last of what I saw at Westminster. All in all, it was a very pleasant evening, but I’m an early-to-bed kind of guy and didn’t want to get home just before midnight. So, once the Terrier group was finished, I decided to head out.

I’m glad that the Terriers were the second group. Had they been the last, I would have been more tempted to stay. But I probably would have left anyway.

Lakeland Terrier #6

One think I found very interesting is captured in the picture above. The handlers are actually moving quite a bit faster than it appears on TV. In the above case (and in too many of these pictures), they’re practically just a blur.

Manchester Terrier (standard) #9.

Miniature Bull Terrier #11.

Miniature Schnauzer #5. The last dog I had was this breed. Just a wonderful little dog: didn’t bark, didn’t shed, and didn’t lick. And watched every move I ever made: that dog knew my mind…and how to get food out of me.

Norfolk Terrier #7.

Norwich Terrier #8. I’ve always thought it was strange that they separate the Norwich and the Norfolk. With the exception of the ears being up on the Norfolk, they appear exactly alike. The ear difference doesn’t seem enough to differentiate for me. (Of course, the 13-inch versus the 15-inch Beagles where both sides can reportly be born in the same litter seems just as strange.)

Parson Russell Terrier #5.

Scottish Terrier #8. The Scottie is always a crowd favorite. It’s the first dog I really remember from my childhood (I have faint memories of an earlier one, though.) For all my less-than-stellar pictures in these postings, I kind of like this picture of the Scottie. The problem with Scottie pictures is that the blackest ones take the worst pictures, but their color is one of the key attributes. As normal, you can’t see any of the detail in the dog below, but it has that perfect profile.

Sealyham Terrier #5. Look at the exuberance in this dog. It won the Terrier Group and I sure didn’t resent the choice. As much as I liked some of the others, this one was special.

Skye Terrier #6.

Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier #15.

Staffordshire Bull Terrier #6.

Welsh Terrier #11.

West Highland White Terrier #15. This was the last of the Terriers.

Then it was time for the judging.

Once again, there was no voiceover from the announcer. You got a general idea of who was being selected, but it was all done in relative silence. The Sealyham won and the others congratulated the handler.

And the final four picture.

At this point, the TV commercials started and we finally got the verbal announcement. I, of course, wasn’t sure exactly which dog had won up to that moment, but I was certainly in the minority of the crowd. From the previous break between groups, I knew that there was going to be a long wait for the next group, so decided it was time to leave.

Actually, there was a mass of people getting up and moving out. Most were probably going to take a break themselves, but I was in a crowd that kept on going to the outside. I guess others either had to work or just wanted to see the Terriers.

-H

Categories: Events, Mid-town

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Westminster Dog Show Part 3

February 14, 2008

One of the problems being at the Garden during Westminster is that there is little announcing beyond the “main” announcer describing the dogs, so you really don’t know what is going on. Each time the winners are chosen, the TV audience hears who it is and all, but we had to wait until a commercial to find out who won. Well…depending on your knowledge of the dogs. When I saw the beagle win, I didn’t know for sure which of the dogs it was. Not that I don’t know beagles, but there are several variations plus foxhounds and the like. For me, it’s only leglength that distinguished that particular dog type. So we waited til the commercial, the beagle was announced, and a lady near me said that it was the favorite for winning the whole shebang (which it did the next night).

But, this post is about the Terriers. I love that group. Once again, they came into the arena from the left. At least they came after a really long delay. It must have been interview time on TV.

Airdale Terrier #7.

American Staffordshire Terrier #9.

Australian Terrier #11.

Bedlington Terrier #8.

Border Terrier #9.

Bull Terrier (colored) #8.

Bull Terrier (white) #9.

Cairn Terrier #5.

The Dandie Dinmont Terrier was announced and then, as fast as lightning, dropped. I guess “AB” means “absent”. I don’t know if anything showed up on TV about it.

Fox Terrier (smooth) #5.

Fox Terrier (white) #7.

Glen of Imaal Terrier #10.

Irish Terrier #8.

Kerry Blue Terrier #5.

Then it was time for a commercial break.

During the mid-group commercials, they would switch sides for judging. The dogs that had been show were just milling around with their handlers behind their yellow boxes. The group that was getting ready to show would come out onto the main carpet area apparently to get the dogs ready for the limelight.

As as they were on commercial, I’ll do the same and wait for the next post to finish up the Terriers.

-H

Categories: Events, Mid-town

Comments: 3 Comments

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