Leaving New York, Never Easy.

New York, New York, the center of the world, the city that never sleeps. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. And if you can’t…well, then, I guess you pack up a U-Haul and move on down the road. (Or is it “Then we take Berlin“?) At any rate, after a seven-year stint here in the Harlem-Morningside environs, Berk and I are leaving Manhattan on Wednesday for (hopefully) greener pastures. My next real destination is still undetermined, pending the vagaries of the job search, but for now I’ll be returning to the nest to continue writing the dissertation and otherwise scrounge for remunerative employ. We’ll see how it goes from there.

As for NYC, on one hand, I’m really going to miss this town. The sheer energy of Gotham always puts a spring in my step, and I really enjoy that distinct New York sensation of living in the center of the hive, ever-so-slightly in the future. On the other hand, I’d be lying if I didn’t concede that this city tends to aggravate my natural Irish melancholy, particularly once you factor in the usual grad school isolation, the happenstance that many of my better friends left some time ago, and the sad fact that, romantically speaking, I got crushed here…twice. But, no hard feelings, New York. Sure, there are lingering ghosts in this city, and if I never live as alone again as I have the past two years, it’ll be soon enough. But, I still love Manhattan, and I always will, and I would definitely look forward to doing another stint here at some point, if it turns out to be in the cards.

In any case, the future — however hazy at the moment — beckons. So, I’d expect it to be quiet here over the next few days as my brother and I lug my accumulated belongings down the Eastern Seaboard. Until then, hope everyone had a relaxing and appropriately reflective Memorial Day, and I’ll be in touch on the other end. And, if you’re an NYC reader and I didn’t see ya before I left, I expect I’ll be back for visits, more often than not. (I mean, this is New York.) Until then, be safe, y’all.

Wright and Wrong.

“I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me. They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites…I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?” I haven’t watched the Sunday shows yet, but, if today’s press is any indication, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the big story in the news, after he delivered remarks in several venues aimed at defending himself against the recent media throng, as well as horrifying attempts by the like of George Stephanopoulos to McCarthify him on national television. (As I said here, we seem to have entirely skipped the rails when kindly ole Mike Huckabee is the biggest voice for tolerance and historical understanding in the conversation.)

At any rate, the return of Obama’s Angry Black Preacher-Man prompted tut-tuts of electoral worry from Clinton-leaning concern trolls like like Salon‘s Joan Walsh, and the usual waiting for the other-shoe-to-drop from breathless political blogs like War Room and Ben Smith. What I haven’t seen yet today, amid all the puttering from the press on the subject of Wright, is any attempt to put the Reverend’s remarks in context of this weekend’s highly dubious acquittal in the Sean Bell case. To wit, New York City cops shoot an unarmed black man and his friends 50 times and end up getting off for it, and, outside of Harlem, there’s barely a shrug, including in the news media. Meanwhile, when it comes to anything and everything involving the fates of Natalee Holloway, Laci Peterson, and any other white damsel in distress, the press drone on about it endlessly, funnelling info to us months or even years after the cases have gone cold. But, as they say, this ain’t Aruba, b**ch.

Is Rev. Wright angry? At this point, and as this weekend’s fiasco makes clear, he has every right to be. Perhaps the press and the punditocracy could investigate more thoroughly why black America may be less inclined to think well of our nation at times, rather than working themselves into yet another holier-than-thou froth about occasional intemperate remarks, and/or endlessly fretting about their potential impact on the electoral whims of the white working class. God forbid these media asshats break out of their echo chamber bubble once in awhile and do some honest-to-goodness reporting. Heck, I’d be happy just to see a few of ’em think for themselves.

Spitzergate: From Tragedy to Inevitable Farce.

I’m not going to cover all the sordid details of the Spitzer case here — he’s gone, so, politically speaking, there’s not much else to say about it (and — for the moment anyway — the search for a possible campaign funds connection sounds likes a fishing expedition.) Nevertheless, regarding the news coverage here in the Apple, it — to no one’s surprise, I guess — has already pushed past prurient to wallow in the tacky. When the feeding frenzy first locked on to “Kristen’s” MySpace page (5 million hits in a day), I actually felt sorta bad for the poor girl. (Ok, I know, she’s not poor — she makes $5500/hr. Still.) Prostitution is illegal, true, but she’s still basically a troubled kid engaged in a seedy enterprise, and I think it’d be pretty hard for any personal site — this one included — to withstand that level of withering, snark-heavy scrutiny from the entire world at large. That being said, from front-page, come-hither portfolios all over NY today to 200 large made on music downloads overnight, I have a feeling the last thing Ms. Dupre needs right now is anyone’s pity. Oh well. Milk it, I guess.

Just be clear, I’m not saying the coverage is anywhere near as repellent as the media aftermath to the Virginia Tech killings, and I know sex has sold newspapers since the dawn of the printing press. (I mean, the tabloids caught my attention this morning.) But, c’mon now. In any case, I’m guessing Silla Wall Spitzer is having a truly terrible day.

(By the way, if anyone cares about my own editorial decision to post a pic of Ashley Dupre here, I did so to be fair to Ms. Iseman, of McCain fame. The lesson here seems to be: If you must get caught in a sex scandal (or what the NYT thinks might be a sex scandal), try to keep the seamier-type pics off of the Internets.) Update: Client 9 radio? Um, yeah.

Spitzer’s Out…Hubris or Death Wish?

“I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize. Over the course of my public life, I have insisted — I believe correctly — that people regardless of their position or power take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor.” Spitzergate comes to its inevitable close as the Governor resigned this morning, paving the way for Lt. Governor David Paterson to take office in Albany. (Yes that means Clinton -1.)

I know that some Dems have argued that Spitzer shouldn’t resign, citing David Vitter in particular, and that something is fishy about the Dubya Justice Department’s handling of this case. To be sure, I haven’t been relishing the unsightly upsurge in schadenfreude among the GOP, Wall Street, and exactly the type of corporate ne’er-do-wells Spitzer spent a lifetime fighting.

But, let’s get real here: Spitzer’s actions weren’t only brazenly and colossally dumb, they were patently illegal. Now, one can question the purported immorality of the world’s oldest profession, and I would be among those who think it’s a relatively victimless crime, situations like human trafficking excepted. But given that Spitzer is a guy who’s personally put people in jail for prostitution and then condemned them in the press, this would seem to be a no-brainer. He had to go down for this, or he would have put himself above the law. So whether or not Spitzer had well-connected political enemies — and, of course, he does — is somewhat beside the point here. The real problem here is that Gov. Spitzer was so unfathomably stupid as to engage in illegal acts that he — better than virtually anyone else alive — knew would result in his downfall. And the tragedy is that, given what Spitzer might’ve accomplished in office otherwise, everyone now pays the price for his apparent inability to restrain his appetites.

Spitzer Self-Destructs.

How about a good, old-fashioned Democratic sex scandal? In a political shocker today, New York Governor, rising Dem star, and purported ethics champion Eliot Spitzer appears to have an affinity for prostitutes. More to come after Spitzer’s press conference, but, really, what was he thinking? Spitzer was no Jimmy Walker — He’s cultivated his squeaky-clean public persona as a moral crusader since day one. That was his whole cachet. And given the enemies he’s made, there was no way on God’s green earth he was going to be able to keep that sort of thing quiet. It’s sheer idiocy on his part. Update: “I am disappointed that I failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself.” Spitzer makes a brief statement, and word comes out of a wiretap. Stick a fork in him, he’s done.

Update 2: Within an hour of the story’s leak, Gov. Spitzer gets unpersoned by Team Clinton, with all traces of his existence removed from Clinton’s website. (He endorsed her back in May.) Which makes it as good a time as any to note that, if he resigns this evening as some expect, Sen. Clinton loses a superdelegate. His likely successor, Lt. Gov David Paterson, would be the Empire State’s first (and America’s third) black governor, as well as New York’s first blind one. He is already a Clinton superdelegate (although, according to some reports, potentially a wavering one.) While on the subject, Obama picked up two more supers today regardless. Update 3: It doesn’t seem Spitzer is resigning tonight.

Hizzoner is Out.

“In the weeks and months ahead, I will continue to work to steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward substance. And while I have always said I am not running for president, the race is too important to sit on the sidelines, and so I have changed my mind in one area. If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach — and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy — I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the White House.” In a NYT editorial this morning, Mayor Bloomberg confirms he’s not seeking the Oval Office in 2008, and may even endorse somebody eventually. This isn’t all that surprising, given that the two major party candidates with the most independent cachet now look to be facing each other in the general. I betting a Romney v. Clinton contest might’ve brought a different story.

NYC: The Fix was In?

“At the sprawling Riverside Park Community apartments at Broadway and 135th Street, Alician D. Barksdale said she had voted for Mr. Obama and her daughter had, too, by absentee ballot. ‘Everyone around here voted for him,’ she said.” City election officials find “major discrepancies” between the reported and actual vote totals here in NYC. In 80 of the city’s 6106 election districts — including the nearby 94th election district right here in Harlem (I’m in the adjacent 93rd) — Obama was reported to have the grand total of 0 votes. (Clinton now leads the 94th 261-136, which frankly still sounds off for this neighborhood.) “In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.“

Local party officials here in Sen. Clinton’s home state are calling the mistakes a result of human error. “‘I’m sure it’s a clerical error of some sort,’ Mr. Wright said. ‘Being around elections for the last 25 years, no candidate receives zero votes.’” (Hmm. Funny how these poll officials, instead of transposing a few numbers or somesuch, just accidentally wrote down a big fat zero.) In any case, the official count is what really matters in the end anyway, and — if this trend keeps up — there’s a possibility Sen. Obama might pick up a few more delegates here in the city.

More to the point, in an age where we can squeeze in 5-10 ATMs a city block, and all of them seem to know exactly how much (or how little) money I have, why are we still relying on a half-century-old voting system that allows for these sorts of “human error”? It’s the 21st century, people. Update: Although most reports seem to indicate the problem was legitimately human error, Hizzoner claims fraud.

Isiahfield.

“Isiah’s rhetoric has always been persuasive. He’s been dealt a bad hand. He had to make extreme moves. Every trade he’s made, the Knicks have come out ahead on talent. No one, he implies, could’ve done any more. But to get a handle on what Isiah’s done as a GM, I’ve evaluated every major move he’s made during his tenure, from trades to free-agent signings to draft picks to coaching hires. The record seems to be seriously at odds with Isiah’s claims.” In a two-part series, ESPN’s Chad Ford surveys the colossal wreckage made of the New York Knickerbockers, and suggests the way to start digging out.

It’s Godzilla, We’re Japan.

While poorly executed, surprisingly unengaging, and mostly banal, Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield, the much-hyped version of Godzilla-meets-The Blair Witch Project produced by Lost/Alias guru J.J. Abrams, does pose at its heart one truly frightening scenario: What would you do if the moment the next 9/11-level catastrophic event happens here in New York City, you just happen to be stuck at a party downtown with a bunch of godawful douchebags? Seriously, though, I’m not sure how you screw up a ground-eye-view of “Huge Monster Destroying New York” so badly, but Cloverfield is as big a January dog as they come. Not above milking blatant 9/11 imagery for gravitas (which doesn’t offend me per se, although I do wish it was in the service of a better story), Cloverfield basically tries to be little more than a monster movie thrill ride for the Youtube generation. (The film is bookended by a trip to Coney Island, and, yeah, I’d say that’s about right.) But given that the none of the main characters are all that likable, and given that the film falters on the promise of showing NYC in full disaster mode, I can’t say it’s a ride worth paying for, Sadly, one or two brief moments notwithstanding, last year’s eerie teaser is about as good as it gets.

The setup’s all in that teaser, of course, but that doesn’t stop Cloverfield, an 85-minute movie, from starting off wicked slow. After a few moments with two young lovers in a Deluxe Apartment in the Sky (Time Warner Center, to be exact), the film begins with a surprise going-away party downtown for Rob (Michael Stahl-David), a young financial type heading for Japan. (Not to obsess over real estate, but this apartment too is as impressive as the monster.) We then spend about 20 minutes wandering around said party, meeting all the young beautiful people who may or may not become Cthulhu food. (Rob, it seems, has many friends, but none of them are plain-looking.) So, let’s see, there’s Rob’s brother Jason (Mike Vogel), his best friend (and our cameraman) Hud (T.J. Miller), Jason’s girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas), Hud’s current crush Marlena (Lizzy Caplan)…but conspicuously absent amid them all (at first) is the fetching young lass we saw in the opening moments with Rob, Beth (Odette Yustman). She shows up late, with — ZOMG SC4ND4L! — another man in tow (I think his name was Travis, but it doesn’t matter — he’s a plot point that’s forgotten anyway), and, soon thereafter, leaves in a huff. (By now you may be thinking, uh, where’s the monster in all of this 90210 dreck? Yes, my thoughts exactly.) Anyway, so after enough time has elapsed that Beth could’ve gotten back home, there’s a shaking and a rumbling and…finally…well, you know what happens next.

Now, I could’ve forgiven Cloverfield its interminably long set-up if we then got a New York City disaster movie for the ages. But, after letting some obvious 9/11-ish images and moments — the collapsing buildings, clouds of billowing smoke, panicked cell phone calls — do the heavy lifting, the film mostly just stalls out. As far as the story goes, Rob decides he must go save Beth from the TWC, and, for reasons that don’t make much sense, everyone else just decides to tag along. Ok, that’s fine — you gotta get the protagonists moving around New York for one reason or another. Except, once the monster attacks, the city is almost completely empty, aside from U.S. infantrymen (who, as my friend pointed out, somehow got there before the Air Force.) I mean, it’s Manhattan. You’d think there’d be people wandering around everywhere in various states of terror and confusion, but, nope, all two million people either hunkered down or got out right away. In fact, other than the Statue of Liberty and the 9/11 nods, there’s not much point for the film to have taken place in New York at all. I mean, sure, there’s a sequence in the subway tunnels in which our heroes magically leap from Spring St. to 59th St. (and one which will seem rather derivative if you saw 28 Weeks Later or The Descent.) But, otherwise, this could have taken place pretty much anywhere.

If this review all sounds a bit nit-picky, well, perhaps. But, when the film never really engages at an emotional or visceral level, you gotta do something to pass the time. (The midnight crowd at my local Magic Johnson sat there more dutiful than dumbstruck.) Except for the occasional rare moment, as when the gang get caught in a full-out alley melee between the creature and the US Army, or witness a horse pulling an empty cart around Central Park, Cloverfield never establishes a groove. And everytime you think it might start to get interesting, it falls back into Archie and Veronica grandstanding. Throw in a few wildly implausible escapes and people rallying from seriously painful injuries, and there’s not much here to recommend. To be honest, I’d wait for the video. And, if no one ever finds said video under all the debris in Central Park, well, trust me, you didn’t miss much.

Legend of the Fall.

In Francis Lawrence’s I am Legend, Will Smith wanders the streets of New York City, his only companion his trusty, loyal, and free-spirited canine sidekick. To stave off the despair and dementia that lurks behind interminable loneliness, he dotes on his dog and immerses himself in routine: He watches as many movies as possible, indulges in his music collection, broadcasts his continued existence into the ether, and throws himself into his work, a solitary investigation marked by repetition and feelings of futility, one whose fruits he knows will more than likely go unused and unread. To all of this, I say: Who the hell wants to sit through a movie about the last year and change of grad school? And couldn’t they find a sheltie to play l’il Berk? (As for yours truly, I’d have gone Philip Seymour Hoffman or Paul Bettany — maybe Michael Cera for the flashbacks — but, hey, Will Smith works too.)

Seriously, though, when I first heard word they were doing another take on Richard Matheson’s eerie 1954 novella, and that word was penned by hackmeister Akiva Goldsman and read “We’re blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge!“, I figured this would be a big budget stinker, along the lines of Alex Proyas’ version of I, Robot. And yet, while a action blockbuster has been grafted onto the basic story (and it’s moved from suburban California to the heart of Metropolis), Francis Lawrence’s I am Legend is surprisingly true to the grim feel of the novella. In short, Legend is a much quieter and more melancholy film than I ever expected. And, while it definitely has some problems, it’s probably my favorite big budget blockbuster of the year, with the possible exception of The Bourne Ultimatum. True, Lawrence’s take on Constantine in 2005 turned out better than I figured as well. Still, I’m actually quite surprised by how moody and haunting this film turned out to be. (And, give credit where it’s due. Like Paul Haggis and In the Valley of Elah, I’m forced to concede that Goldsman might not always be the kiss of death.)

I am Legend begins innocuously enough with a sports report — It looks like the Yankees and Cubs in the World Series, although LA has an outside shot at a pennant too. But, in the near future, it ain’t just the ball players injecting experimental serums anymore. As a doctor (Emma Thompson) on the news informs us, scientists have altered the measles to work as the ultimate body-cleansing virus, in effect working as a cure for cancer. (A Cure for Cancer! This follows the baseball scores?) Cut to New York City, three years later. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, nothing beside remains…except one man (Will Smith) and his dog (Abbey), chasing down a herd of deer through the empty steel corridors of a desiccated Manhattan. (Sorta like Llewellyn Moss in No Country for Old Men, except now that country is everywhere, and the deermeat is worth more than the bag of money.) Clearly, something has gone Horribly Wrong. As we come to discover, that heralded cure backfired in dismal fashion, killing 90% of the Earth’s population immediately and turning the rest, a la the rage virus in 28 Days and 28 Weeks Later, into violent, depraved monsters with a taste for blood and a susceptibility to sunlight. This Last Man on Earth is one Robert Neville, an army scientist (blessedly immune to the disease) who spends his days in a Jamesian manse on Washington Square, working on a cure to beat back the infection, and his nights just trying to stay alive. (Put simply, “scientific atrocity, he’s the survivor.”) But, even with Samantha, his German shepherd, by his side, the loneliness and omnipresent danger are taking their toll. And as he succumbs deeper into hopelessness — and the creatures show signs of learning — his coping strategies begin to shift. Forget the cure…Maybe it’s time just to chase these Crazy Baldheads out of town…

Now, as I said, I am Legend does have it share of problems. The movie becomes more of a conventional actioner as it moves along, and the last act in particular feels weaker than the rest of the film. Looking exactly like the cave-dwellers in Neil Marshall’s The Descent, the CGI creatures have an ill-favored and badly-rendered look, and the more you see of them the less scary they become. Also, in complete counterpoint to what Dr. Neville tells us about the infecteds’ “social deevolution,” they eventually seem to get behind a Lurtz/Solomon Grundy of sorts. But his presence or authority is never really explained — he’s just a tacked-on Big Bad. I had trouble believing that somebody could’ve heard of Damien Marley but not his father Bob. (And, since you’re seemingly geared to the teeth, Dr. Neville, may I make some suggestions? 1) Infrared scope. 2) Night-Vision goggles.)

All that being said, for most of I am Legend‘s run it’s a surprisingly rich and nuanced film. Will Smith is invariably an appealing presence, but he doesn’t rely on his easy charisma or “Aw, hell no!” bluster much here. His performance is tinged with melancholy, and he does some great work in some really awful moments. Also, I feared going in that the canine companion bit would come across as a gimmick, just a cute creature for Smith to bounce off expository monologues. But Sam isn’t just Wilson the Volleyball — she’s a living, breathing character of her own. (Nor is she Lassie — she doesn’t seem preternaturally smart, and occasionally does dumb dog things, which seemed all too realistic.) And then there’s New York after the Fall, which in itself is a sort of character in the film. In shot after shot (somewhat akin to, but less showy than, the opening Times Square sequence of Vanilla Sky), Lawrence captures the eeriness of this great city laid low. Other than the aforementioned Brooklyn Bridge, “Ground Zero,” as Neville now calls it, hasn’t been destroyed or ravaged. It’s just empty, an overgrown, city-sized echo chamber for his pangs of isolation. (And as the Marley song goes, “It hurts to be alone.”) But, hey, even in a desolate New York City, with vampires lurking in the dark places, there are still plenty of fun ways to pass the time, and particularly if you have a good dog by your side.