Larry Ree 1977 NYC East Village
Break the Addiction
Hello again. I’m checking in from the home front for another stimulating post. I saw a couple of movies this weekend. Break the Addiction: An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore documentary about global warming was scary. It’s ironic that the movie theatre was so cold that I should have brought along a jacket. Talk about energy wasting. Anyway if the charts and predictions are true things don’t look too hopeful. I actually take this all with a grain of salt since the film is narrated by a politician, and probably exagerated somewhat.
Then Sunday night I took in an old 40’s movie at Anthology Archives in the East Village titled Rome: Open City A tense Resistance story, set during the German occupation of Rome, with subtitles in Italian. Shot newsreel style on Roman streets ravaged by war, the film still packs an enormous emotional punch, with fine performances from Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi. Again the theatre was ice old. And Anthology is supposed to be a non profit arts organization. I wonder where they are getting all the funding to run the AC. The only way to beat the inevitable global warming scenario is to eject from Western civilization as we know it.
Brokeback Mountain
I went to see Brokeback Mountain last weekend. I was impressed. The cinematography was superb even if it was not really filmed in the American Rockies but in Canada’s Alberta instead. The reviews set me up for the emotional rollercoaster as predicted. I read the interview in The Advocate with Heath Ledger. He’s a fellow New Yorker living in Brooklyn where he says he can live without being recognized void of aggressive paparazzi. His cowboy accent fooled me as being authentic. I had no idea that he was Australian.
New York has a transit strike that actually is nice for me. I bike everywhere so it really doesn’t effect me. The neighborhood has been pleasantly quiet without the tourists. The rattle or the early morning N R trains under the building is gone. I can actually sleep in.
Here’s another photo from the archives that I recently uncovered. It’s up for auction on Ebay now. Good luck and bidding.