Movies Til Dawn

You gotta see it to believe it. Here's a 1984 Howard Stern appearance on "Mid-Day Live". Coming up: the weekend numbers on "Rob The Mob" which sound promising...   Subscribe in a reader

A fresh pile of links pertaining to all things "Rob The Mob". Here's the LA Times review, published yesterday. Dig the Chicago Tribune's notice as well. Here's a nice interview I did with The Nerdist in which I discuss important stuff like Italian restaurants. Dig this interview/review from The Washington Square Review . Very important publication for an old downtowner like myself. And here's a video/podcast/weblog/on-line/did I leave anything out?/interview I did with the smart, funny and lovely Sara Stretton for "Anatomy Of A Movie" . We had quite a bit of fun during this interview which, of course, makes me reluctant to watch it. Somebody please give it a look and rate it for me, would you? Take it away, Soupy...   Subscribe in a reader

As the very important second weekend of "Rob The Mob's" theatrical life approaches, dig two pieces that I'm very happy to share with you. Here's a Los Angeles Times feature on the movie, with a refreshing emphasis on the story of how screenwriter Jonathan Fernandez discovered the story and developed it. By the way, the movie opens in LA tomorrow, Friday the 28th, at the Monica Four-Plex in Santa Monica. And here's an essay on the film by the highly controversial film scholar/critic Armond White. I've admired White's criticism over the years, not because we always like the same films (we don't) but because of his erudition, the seriousness with which he views every film and the fact that he really is one of the last of the critics who believes true film criticism matters--that it's not just about "reviewing" what's out there this week. In that sense he comes from the Pauline Kael/James Agee/Andrew Sarris world that is now, ...

Here's  an interview I did with The Moveable Feast  covering a fairly wide set of "Rob The Mob" related topics--why we used 8mm in memory, how Andy Garcia's character developed, why the hell I wanted to do a so-called "mob movie" in the first place, how the song "Love and A Gun", which Stephen Endelman and I wrote for the movie, came into being, etc.etc. And while we're on the subject of Howard Stern, here's another classic NBC bit from the mid-eighties, a fight with "Incubus", Stern's much reviled general manager at the time John Hayes who, apparently, didn't truly understand the monster he was up against. In it, Stern actually storms the General Manager's office while on-air and gets into an actual fight with him. Paul Giamatti played him in the Stern biopic "Private Parts" and they recreated the encounter, which I've also posted below.   Subscribe in a reader

Here's a very nice review of "Rob The Mob" from the website "We Are Movie Geeks". Finally someone mentions Stephen Endelman's lovely score. I got on a youtube jag this morning, killing a couple of hours watching old Soupy Sales shows and supplementing it with some Howard Stern broadcasts involving his scrappy relationship with Soupy. In an infamous show from Stern's NBC days (early 80's) he's enraged that Soupy--who had a radio show at that time which aired right before Sterns--apparently lets his staff eat lunch in the studio, which they then fail to clean up. Stern's anger, as he later admitted, had much to do with his position at NBC (where he was apparently disrespected at every turn) and the reverence with which Soupy--by then a TV and broadcasting legend--was treated. In a moment of pique fueled by a need for revenge, Stern cut the piano wires of Soupy's piano (an in-studio instrument supplied by NBC specifically for Soupy...

"Rob The Mob" debuted this weekend in New York on one screen and became the weekend's top-earning "specialty film" (which is a term that really means "lets put it on one screen and see if anyone cares"). Fortunately it seems that people do. So Millenium will be expanding the film over the coming weeks. Here's the Deadline quote from Millenium's President Bill Lee: "Millennium took crime drama  Rob The Mob  into a single location this weekend. The film, which closed the recent Miami International Film Festival grossed $11,626. Millennium Entertainment noted this from CEO Bill Lee Sunday as it reported numbers: “We’re so pleased and excited about this weekend’s grosses. By going exclusive in NY we were able to hone in on the home-town audience who indeed turned out. This is a great launch for the film. With the support of great reviews, great buzz and great word of mouth we have full confidence that as we expand to LA and Chicago this co...

More coverage, reviews etc. This from Indiewire's "The Playlist". Very nice review in "We Got This Covered" This from the late Roger Ebert, apparently via Ouija Board? A person named Max Nicholson reprinted the plot of the film from a press release , added a meaningless two sentence "review" that makes no sense, then added the sad request that you follow him on twitter/facebook etc. because "Max Nicholson desperately seeks your aprroval." Oh brother. From under which rocks do they crawl? And here's an interview that Andy Garcia and I did together last week in Miami, whilst at the film festival. Off to the theater...   Subscribe in a reader