CITY ISLAND DVD RELEASE ROCKS ON...

Behold a welter of publicity for the "CIty Island" DVD. But first behold my newest and absolutely last Salon column about the movie. It truly is a wrap up...and if you read this blog semi-faithfully you may recognize the contents of it.

Now: dig Fandango's "DVD OF THE WEEK".

And don't forget the caption contest from Screen Junkies which awards a three month subscription to Netflix. I have a feeling the boat has already sailed on the contest, but waddahell?

Here's an incredibly stupid mention from something called NBC Chicago Blog which manages to praise the film while getting virtually everything else wrong. "It had trouble finding an audience"? Is that why we were open 24 weeks? "No big name star"...Ladies and Gentleman, may I introduce Mr. Lifetime Achievements Up the Yin-Yang Internationally Celebrated star of thirty plus movies, the iconic Andy "Chopped Liver" Garcia! Oy vey. Chicago, huh?

And the grand state of Oklahoma gets into the act with this quite positive notice.

And now I'll close for the moment. But first, it is with bemused pride that I hereby include a review from today (Friday's)
New York Post by Lou Lumenick of Rob Reiner's new film "Flipped". Mr. Lumenick wonders how this material would have
faired in another director's hands. And who do you suppose that director is?

Oh! And happy birthday to my favorite sax player and simply one of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th century, Lester Young.

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CITY ISLAND RE-BOOT!

Let's just say I was on summer vacation (which I sort of was if you consider not writing or blogging but meaning to and so feeling stressed every day for not getting anything done a "vacation") and pretend that my utter desertion of this precious slice of the weblog world was, indeed, a temporary manifestation of the so-called "Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer"--a lousy title for a lousy song recorded by the wonderful Nat "King" Cole before his lousy lung cancer death at 45 in the summer of....Christ, somebody stop this endless sentence! Nat?



See? I told you it was lousy.

And now for the main attraction. GUESS WHAT MOVIE IS BEING RELEASED ON DVD ON AUGUST 24th? Yep. "City Island" has now journeyed all the way from idea, past the script stage, through endless financing and casting travails, down the rocky road of the festival circuit, into a theatrical distributor's welcoming arms, through a 22 WEEK THEATRICAL RUN, and now skids to its finale with a superb DVD release. Check out Amazon. Or your local Walmarts, natch. By the way, the above photo is of the French DVD cover...replete with Frenchy writing on the back which I can't make head or tail of.

What will you find on the disc? Well, it's in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Extras include a charming commentary from me and Andy Garcia (at least it felt charming when we recorded it a few months ago in a studio deep in Hollywood...or was it the lunch afterward at Musso and Frank followed by the tour of the historic Capitol Records buidling--courtesy of Andy's long relationship wit them--that left such a charming glow? )There is also a delightful featurette entitled "Dinner With the Rizzos" which features me and the cast (Andy, Julianna Margulies, Dominik Garcia-Lorido, Steven Straight) discussing the film over some pasta and wine (filmed, I might add, at ten AM one morning....and yes we DID eat the pasta and drink the wine...) There are a handful of deleted scenes as well--which make quite interesting viewing if you've seen and enjoyed the film, and of course the theatrical trailer is included.

But that's not all the news--not buy a longshot, buppy. Did you know you could win a free DVD? Check out this link and
see what the hell I'm talking about.

More soon (much sooner than the last time--I'm back now and will be posting regularly through the awards season)....because, after all, it's the awards season and even if "City Island" doesn't grab any awards attention, I'll be taking you through the process of the season step by excruciating step. Meanwhile, here is Andy on Peter Bart and Peter Guber's "In The House"...

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