Tuesday, October 31, 2017

I am fine and there is nothing to report from Chambers Street

Friends --

I know that many of you have been hearing/reading about a police incident involving a truck driver who plowed through the bike lane in Lower Manhattan and ended up being apprehended by the NYPD on Chambers Street earlier this afternoon. I am happy to report that although I am actually in the neighborhood -- I teach at BMCC in about an hour -- I am fine. I saw nothing other than a lot of traffic disrupted. I'm in the building in which I teach, a few blocks away and all is well.

And as the announcer says in Fritz Lang's While the City Sleeps, stay tuned to the Kyne News Service for further developments.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Back from the Underground

About the only thing more worthless than a blogger's promises would be his bank account. That said, I hope that this post will mark a small return to activity.

It's certainly been an interesting couple of months, as witness my coverage of the NY Film Festival in Jewish Week. I have two pieces that ran during the recently concluded event, which you can read here and here.

Perhaps more important, the paper just put my response to the Harvey Weinstein controversies here.

And, finally, a shout-out to a new documentary, Thy Father's Chair, a portrait of twin brothers, both Orthodox Jews, trying to deal with their hoarding problem. The primary focus is on their developing relationship with the cleaners,

 



 
who are specially trained to deal with this neurosis. The result is a markedly compassionate film and as such a blessed departure from the prurient freak-show treatment that the subject usually receives in the media. The film, directed by Alex Lora and Antonio Tibaldi, is currently playing at the Village East Cinema in New York City, and opens in LA on Friday, October 20, at Laemmle’s Music Hall.



This blog no longer exists

 As you can probably tell, I have been too busy (and/or too porrly motivated) to continue Cine-Journal. The final straw was that some genius...