Blog Archives

Over at Vanity Fair, Scott Price has a long piece on “Diner”:

The second crisis hit when an on-set fire cost another night of shooting, and MGM refused to budget another day. Levinson needed more time. Sova suggested breaking out a second camera in the diner, to speed things up by filming actors on both sides of the table simultaneously. That, however, created a problem with sound: instead of clipping a lavalier microphone to just one actor and allowing him to say his lines cleanly—that is, without overlap from other actors, so it can be edited into a scene later—the new situation demanded that all the actors, on-camera and off, be miked. Robert Altman aside, at the time it was still rare to use overlapping dialogue, especially for trivial, tabletop chatter. “What Levinson did in a revolutionary way 30 years ago,” John Hamburg says, “is something we’re doing now.”

It was, for the final two weeks, a kind of liberation. “Because we didn’t have to worry about overlaps, we could really ad-lib,” Guttenberg says. “You could ad-lib offstage and throw the guy a fastball, and he could catch it and throw it high. That’s what made the experience so unique in filmmaking: you didn’t have to match ‘what we did last time.’ It was ‘Just give me something extraordinary. Take it wherever you want to go.’ ”

…Banter is a delicate thing, crippled by obvious effort, destroyed when, as so often happens on sitcoms, it’s reduced to point scoring or put-downs. Reiser was so quick, so on, that there are moments in Diner when he sounds as if he’s trying out material. But Levinson was also going for something deeper, a casualness implying dynamics and affections that reach back years, and even the screw-ups nail that quality. The best comes when Guttenberg’s Eddie asks Boogie, “Sinatra or Mathis?,” and Rourke brushes him back with “Presley.” “Elvis Presley?,” Guttenberg’s Eddie says. “You’re sick … ” He starts to improvise, but it’s like watching a kid let go of the handlebars for the first time: he knows he’s going to crash. “You’ve gone like two steps below … ,” Guttenberg stammers, “in my … my, uh, book.” Clearly, a blown take: The actors giggle, Stern spits up his drink, breaks character, and says, “Once again … ” But rather than splice in a cleaner run, Levinson went with the mess.

For more, check out this Q&A I found in an old issue of American Film: My Dinner with Barry (Robert Ward)

And yeah, that’s the same Robert Ward who wrote the famous “Straw that stirs the drink” Reggie profile for Sport.

The Kid Stays in the Picture.

Street shot by our man Bags.

Here’s a little remix I did with my man from Questionable Sound years ago. Classic Guru verse over a Madlib beat.

09 Lemonade Was A Popular Drink (and it still is)

[Photo Credit: Joshuaself.com]

Where a token booth once stood. Downtown side of the 50th street station on the IRT.

Roomier. But makes me sad when I think of the clerks who are out of work in the name of progress.

I recently found a diary that I kept in 1985. I turned 14 that June. Pasted to the pages are ticket stubs  from the movies I saw (“View to a Kill,” “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”), from the Eric Clapton concert my mom took me to for my birthday, and the ball games I saw. There’s some writing in there, updates on Pony League games and school work,  but there’s more drawing than writing.

Here’s a few pages…

My man, Reggie.

Good ol’ Knucksie,  Phil Niekro.

In August my mother rented a cheap little cabin for a week out near the tip of Long Island. My twin sister, Sam,  and one of her friends came along with us. The highlight of the week was finally getting to see “Back to the Future,” which I’d be pining to see for weeks.

What I’ll remember most, however, is listening to the Yankees on the radio. The night before we left, I went with my father to see them play the first of a four-game series against the Red Sox. The Yanks won in extra innings and then won again on Saturday and Sunday too. On Monday afternoon, Ken Griffey made a great catch in the 9th inning as the Yanks swept the Sox.

Mom didn’t want us watching TV while we were on vacation  so I had to listen to the games on the radio. But I begged her to let me watch the news later that night to see the highlights and she did. The next day, Griffey’s catch was on the back page of the Daily News. We bought the paper and  I copied the picture into my diary.

That’s my favorite Yankee catch of the 1980s (which is saying something considering how many sick plays Winfield made).

Rest in Peace.

The Jeremy Lin show hits the road tonight. He’ll face another riveting young point guard, Ricky Rubio, along with Kevin Love and the T Wolves.

Should be fun.

[You can order the Shao Lin t-shirt at shop.akufuncture.com]

Some light snow in the city this morning.

The Lakers are in town to play the Knicks tonight. They’ll have tired legs after beating the Celtics in overtime last night so the home team has a shot to win this game.

Let’s hope it’s a fun time.

The Yanks and the Pirates are talking A.J. Burnett, writes Marc Carig.

Blue Note Album Cover Week ends with a couple of gems.

Over at Pinstriped Bible, Rebecca Glass examines  ESPN prospect analyst Keith Law’s Top 10 Yankee prospects.  Check it out.

[Photo Credit: J. Meric/Getty Images]

Serious Eats on how to increase your spice tolerance.

[Photo Credit: Nutmeg Disrupted]

Check out this coolness:

New York Calling from Vas on Vimeo.

[Photo Credit: Jake Dobkin]

Ah, De La+Biz=Happy Friday.

Ridley Scott recently held a 3-minute movie competition called “Tell it Your Way.” The movie could not contain more than six lines of narrative.

Here’s the winner, directed by an American, Keegan Wilcox:

More Blue Note, More.

Yeah and I know it’s not the season but still these pickled garlicky red peppers over at Smitten Kitchen look great.

I love the “Director’s Cut” reprint series over at Grantland. Today, they’ve got a 1995 New Yorker piece by David Remnick titled “Back in Play.” It’s about Michael Jordan’s return to the NBA:

For my own peace of mind, I talked with two of Jordan’s precursors at the guard position — Bob Cousy and Walt Frazier — and neither had any doubt that Jordan would scrape off the rust in time for the trials of May. Retired ballplayers — especially players of a certain level — are often touchy about the subject of the current crop. They can be grouchy, deliberately uncomprehending, like aging composers whining about the new-fangled twelve-tone stuff. But not where Jordan is concerned. Cousy, who led the Celtics in the fifties and early sixties, and Frazier, who led the Knicks in the late sixties and the seventies, would not begrudge Jordan his eminence.

“Until six or seven years ago, I thought Larry Bird was the best player I had ever seen,” Cousy, who works as a broadcaster for his old team, said. “Now there is no question in anyone’s mind that Jordan is the best. He has no perceptible weaknesses. He is perhaps the most gifted athlete who has ever played this foolish game, and that helps, but there are a lot of great athletes in his league. It’s a matter of will, too. Jordan is always in what I call a ready position, like a jungle animal who is always alert, stalking, searching. It’s like the shortstop getting down and crouching with every pitch. Jordan has that awareness, and that costs you physically. If you do it, you are so exhausted you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. Not many athletes do it. To me, he hasn’t lost a thing.”

“Leapers are usually not great shooters, but Michael is the exception,” Frazier said. “If you give him a few inches, he buries the jump shot. When he gets inside, his back is to the basket and he’s shakin’ and bakin’ and you’re dead. When he drives, good night. He’s gone. Now that the league has made hand-checking illegal — you can’t push your man around on defense any longer — it’s conceivable that Michael could score even more. I don’t think he’s even sensed that he has more license now. When he does, he’ll be scoring sixty if he feels like it.”