First Annual SMC Pledge Drive

By donating now, you can help your favorite film distillers relocate from their GPS-resistant subterranean bunker to...wait for it...the freakin Godfather house.

That's right, the very Staten Island home you remember from the movie (the greatest of all time? To Be Distilled) is on the block for the bargain price of $2.9 million. That's only $2.9 million each from our fans! And in this market? How can we refuse?

Send Vinny Guns back to Shaolin. Boom!

Playlist: Cropsey

Jasper Cropsey was a 19th century Staten Island resident who became well known for his Hudson Valley School paintings. The name Cropsey also is a name of an avenue in Brooklyn, New York that I lived near for years. Apparently, it is also the Name of a New York urban legend that says a crazed man who has a hook or knife for a hand kidnaps little children and kills them in the woods in many New England and Mid-Atlantic states. This documentary is about the Cropsey legend that apparently the directors of this film were aware of as they grew up in Staten Island. The director and producer are about my age and I have never heard of this legend...maybe other Staten Islanders can let us know if they have heard of this legend.

The doc goes on to tell of the link between the Cropsey legend, The Willowbrook State School for mentally handicapped kids, the Geraldo Rivera expose in 1972 that exposed the Willowbrook atrocities, the Greenbelt forest, the disappearance of many missing kids in Staten Island including the Jennifer Sweigart case (which I do remember from 1987), and a man who many believe to be Cropsey, but they never come out and say it. The doc is very loose and vague at times...it made me interested again in my old hometown, it also reminded me why I wanted out of there...the garbage, the dumps, the bad accents...etc.

The directors show the old Willowbrook (where I used to play soccer all the time and had field day once)...and to think, the doc exposes the fact that dead kid bodies were found throughout, including Jennifer Sweigart. Let us know if you have heard of Cropsey.

Playlist: Big Fan & Staten Island

Move over, Bollywood (or at least Williamsburg) there's a new hipster mecca: a little island named Staten (or Staaten Eylandt for our Dutch readers). It's the rise of Shaolin Cinema. Two recent indie films were not only filmed on the borough, but actually take place there. Really. While Big Fan and, yes, Staten Island, aren't necessarily Hard Eight or Reservoir Dogs, they're what we in the business like to call "a start". And while it pains me to admit there are similarities to the over-filmed Brooklyn--and godforgiveme, the Jersey Shore--the Island has a wealth of cultural nuances all its own. The psychic underpinnings of being the "forgotten borough" alone would make a showcase historical drama. So it goes.

As for the films we do have, my biggest gripe about James DeMonaco's wittier than expected Staten Island is that there isn't enough Staten Island. When you make such an overt point of establishing a setting, you have to make that place a character in itself. Yes, it's not New Orleans or Paris, but cinematically speaking, it is an exotic locale that should be used to the director's advantage. (For more on this movie and Italian-Americans, check out what my fellow Malter, Vin, has to say.)

Big Fan does a better job of utilizing the Island, in particular a certain mindset that is instantly familiar to anyone who grew up there. It's a small movie, but it comes across as real, a subtle character study that reminded me in tone of The Wrestler which makes sense since it was written by the same guy, Robert D. Siegel (making his directoral debut here). Free fact: Siegel is also the former editor-in-chief of The Onion.
Know what's an incredibly underrated movie? A Bronx Tale. Directed by? Robert DeNiro. Now I'm not asking for or expecting an SI DeNiro or Scorcese. But, how about A Staten Island Tale?