Fun with Bertolucci
Yesterday, Herr Guitar and I went through our typical Sunday routine of brunch and a movie. Brunch was at Great Jones. Supposedly, Basquiat used to eat there when not starving. They have good biscuits, good coffee, and a great jukebox. Yesterday's music included a song called, "New York's a Lonely Town (When You're the Only Surfer Boy Around)," by the Trade Winds. I know this song because when I was a 60s surf-music obsessed teen, I got my hands on a surf music compilation tape and it was one of the gems. (I lived in California, but loved the idea of getting the hell out of there and missing it. How poignant was the lyric, "I feel so bad each time, I look out there and find, My Woody's outside, covered in snow.") I still have the tape, but I've never heard that song anywhere else.
Oh, and another Great Jones selling point: We once took my brother there and Mark Ibold, the bassist from Pavement, served us our breakfast. How's that for hip?
We weren't sold on seeing a movie. I am willing to see "The Wedding Crashers," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and even "Bad News Bears" or "Hustle and Flow." HG is decidedly not. So I checked the old standby, the Film Forum, to see what's up there. They had the 1970 Bernardo Bertolucci film, "The Conformist." Pauline Kael once called the film, "A triumph of feeling and style," and our membership to FF gets us in for $5 a pop, so why not?
When we got to the theater, there was already a small line. I told HG to get in line while I got tickets. Then as I walked back to meet him, I noticed him pointing wildly at the line in front of him. I thought he was trying to help me locate him, but then I noticed, standing on line about three people ahead of him, was Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth. HG's hero. He got out of line to get another ticket, but the people he was in front of wouldn't save his spot. So as he proceeded to the back of the line, HG called out, "Hi Thurston."
A little backstory: The members of Sonic Youth are very approachable celebrities. Any New York indie rock fan worth her salt has seen either Thurston, his wife/bassist Kim Gordon, or guitarist Lee Renaldo out and about at one point (I've seen all three, multiple times). Anyone with the desire or nerve to have spoken to them knows that they're extremely cool.
Thurston may be the most approachable. And when HG said "Hi," he stopped and talked to us. We offered him a spot in line (it was only fair). We chatted about music, the Dinosaur Jr. show at SummerStage, Vincent Gallo, wealth in America, the line at the Film Forum, and the new Gus Van Sant movie Thurston just did music on, "Last Days." In fact, the friend he was meeting was Michael Pitt, the star of, among other films, "Last Days" and another Bertolucci film, "The Dreamers." Pitt arrived looking cute in his ripped t-shirt, and was really friendly as well.
Oh, the movie was great. It was creepy and beautifully filmed, and I think that "The Godfather" Parts 1 and 2 borrowed a lot of its look and style directly from it. The place was packed with old folks - more so than usual - and I was lucky to be sitting behind a 300+ pound man who moved his head from side to side every five seconds. Why is it that whenever I go to see a subtitled movie at the Film Forum I end up sitting behind this guy? It hurts to move your head back and forth like that - I know because I end up having to follow him just to read the dialogue.
Despite the ensuing neck ache, it was a great New York afternoon. Where else can you make a spur of the moment decision to see a restored masterpiece and end up casually meeting a hot young actor and a guitar god?
Oh, and another Great Jones selling point: We once took my brother there and Mark Ibold, the bassist from Pavement, served us our breakfast. How's that for hip?
We weren't sold on seeing a movie. I am willing to see "The Wedding Crashers," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and even "Bad News Bears" or "Hustle and Flow." HG is decidedly not. So I checked the old standby, the Film Forum, to see what's up there. They had the 1970 Bernardo Bertolucci film, "The Conformist." Pauline Kael once called the film, "A triumph of feeling and style," and our membership to FF gets us in for $5 a pop, so why not?
When we got to the theater, there was already a small line. I told HG to get in line while I got tickets. Then as I walked back to meet him, I noticed him pointing wildly at the line in front of him. I thought he was trying to help me locate him, but then I noticed, standing on line about three people ahead of him, was Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth. HG's hero. He got out of line to get another ticket, but the people he was in front of wouldn't save his spot. So as he proceeded to the back of the line, HG called out, "Hi Thurston."
A little backstory: The members of Sonic Youth are very approachable celebrities. Any New York indie rock fan worth her salt has seen either Thurston, his wife/bassist Kim Gordon, or guitarist Lee Renaldo out and about at one point (I've seen all three, multiple times). Anyone with the desire or nerve to have spoken to them knows that they're extremely cool.
Thurston may be the most approachable. And when HG said "Hi," he stopped and talked to us. We offered him a spot in line (it was only fair). We chatted about music, the Dinosaur Jr. show at SummerStage, Vincent Gallo, wealth in America, the line at the Film Forum, and the new Gus Van Sant movie Thurston just did music on, "Last Days." In fact, the friend he was meeting was Michael Pitt, the star of, among other films, "Last Days" and another Bertolucci film, "The Dreamers." Pitt arrived looking cute in his ripped t-shirt, and was really friendly as well.
Oh, the movie was great. It was creepy and beautifully filmed, and I think that "The Godfather" Parts 1 and 2 borrowed a lot of its look and style directly from it. The place was packed with old folks - more so than usual - and I was lucky to be sitting behind a 300+ pound man who moved his head from side to side every five seconds. Why is it that whenever I go to see a subtitled movie at the Film Forum I end up sitting behind this guy? It hurts to move your head back and forth like that - I know because I end up having to follow him just to read the dialogue.
Despite the ensuing neck ache, it was a great New York afternoon. Where else can you make a spur of the moment decision to see a restored masterpiece and end up casually meeting a hot young actor and a guitar god?
posted by j.m. at 1:24 PM
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