The Yards

I’d seen a one-column-wide item about it in the 19& 26 December 2011 issue of the New Yorker magazine. Richard Brody wrote that dierctor James Gray “returned to his native Queens” to film “a blend of operatic drama and documentary veracity.” he states there was “an ending imposed on the film by the producers, with grave results for the film and Gray’s career.”

Not sure how far back the ending in question goes, but I can guess that the very last scene might be it.


Wahlberg plays Leo, who has just come out of prison, serving a couple of year for car theft. He got caught, friends of his did not, and he did not give them up. Street credibility plays an important role in their lives. Phoenix is his best friend, Willie, who is having a serious romance with Leo's cousin, Erica (Theron, who looks great in her Goth colors, dark nail polish, heavy black eye makeup, leather wristband). Caan plays Erica's father, a corrupt owner of a subway car repair company, neck deep in payoffs and sweetheart deals. Steve Lawrence play sthe Queens borough president.


Good acting, and a good story well told.

Free food for millionaires

Really good book. Read it in four days (Monday was a rainy off day). Koreans live all around me in Flushing, and I wanted to read a book about Koreans in America. This one takes place in New York. The family of the main character, Casey Han, lives in Queens (Maspeth, between the gas tanks {does anyone not a New Yorker recognize that landmark?} and Queens Boulevard). She has graduated Princeton, has no job, an Anglo boyfriend and no plans to go to law school; the last three rankle her traditional father. Punched, tossed out, Casey goes to Manhattan, stays at the Carlyle Hotel (as would an aunt, or grandmother, of her best friend), and begins an adventure. There are numerous characters, many fleshed out nicely, and the narrative technique of going inside each head is used effectively.

Reviews are mixed, but I found it a wonderful read.

Chop Shop

Takes places in the Willets Point car shops area, across the street from the new Mets baseball stadium, a trianlge bounded by 126th Street, Willets Point Boulevard and Northern Boulevard. The DVD jacket calls it the Iron Triangle, a term I am not familiar with. In fact, Laura and I walked walked down to see Citi Field yesterday, and walked back to Flushing along Roosevelt Avenue, from where one can see that Triangle and the new stadium.

The film is too bright to be gritty, but it has a kind of harshness to the life it depicts: a 12-year-old waif wise to the hustling it takes to survive on his own and his 15-or-so-year-old sister take up residence in an upstairs room in a car-body repair shop. Alejandro works in steering business into the shop, learning how to do body repairs, peddling DVDs, stealing hub caps from cars parked at Shea Stadium, helping chop up a stolen car, and whatever else he can think of to make money. His sister, Isamar, works at a food cart, hangs out, and makes extra money by performing fellatio on truckers late at night. Ale longs to have a full life with Isamar, saving up money so the two of them can run their own food truck. The acting is not entirely polished, an aspect that acts to the realism of the film. Grim, hopeful, shot with a lot of hand-held cameras to capture characters as they walk, it is a gem of a film.