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Eleventh Plague

At my first Passover dinner last night, at a friend’s father’s house in Park Slope, the recitation of the plagues that God afflicted on the Egyptians began ringing some ugly  bells. The extremely dum-dum looking Hillary Swank movie ‘The Reaping”, in which she plays an investigator who discredits biblical “phenomenon” (why, exactly, would someone waste their time discrediting if they didn’t Believe?) takes on the whole ten plagues theme and re-sets it in a swampy Southern town. Leaving aside for the moment the depressing fact of two-time Oscar winner Swank joining the ranks of Halle Barry and Jamie Foxx in interpreting their post-award leverage to make a lot of ultra-broad pop garbage, the timing of the film’s release is highly curious, falling as it does at end of the Jewish holiday. Does Warner Bros. think Jewish parents are going to take their kids to matinees before the Seder to a CGI-laden, contemporary re-imagining of the plagues that reads like a horror movie? I agree with this opionated subway passenger:

 

Got To Give The People, Give The People What They Want.

Typepad blogs list the referring address for visitors, and I’ve discovered that the single biggest tag that drives search engines to Meerkat is 'Joseph Gordon Levitt'. Closely followed by 'Prison Porn'. The combo of Gordon Levitt’s predominantly underage body of work and that factleaves me a little uneasy, but I’m not above exploiting a little light pedophilia for traffic's sake.

The posters for JGL's new film The Lookout caught my eye on the Bowery yesterday. Looks promising, even if the trailer casts it in a way-too backwards narrative light, the most overused trick in the quasi-indie playbook. Director Scott Frank did write Out Of Sight, however, a movie so good that even Jennifer Lopez came off as a credible Fed, as well as delivering the most gorgeously narcotic cinematic pas de deux in recent memory.

JGL looks soulful and raw entirely without cant in this one, as is usual for this anomaly in glossy young Hollywood. Good chin, too.

Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year

Shot from a moving F train on the Williamsburg Bridge this afternoon, using the Nokia N73. 

Brooklyn Afternoon and Evening

All shot on the Nokia N73.

Bike Workshop

I went to a party last night, right around the corner from my apartment in Bed Stuy. It was a bunch of Reed kids and there was a keg and a DJ and everyone was dancing, including a guy in a Spiderman costume. In a room at one end of the loft space there was this bike workshop. It was one of those moments when you remember that the city will always be able to surprise you.

Shot on the Nokia N73.