Off to See the Wizard

 
Our Monday plans fell through, and we unexpectedly found ourselves with a free afternoon. So the kids and I headed to Easton Town Center for its temporary Wizard of Oz exhibit.

An indoor/outdoor mall isn't the best destination in the winter -- and truthfully isn't so great in the summer when it is very, very hot. So I haven't been to Easton since ... I'm really not sure. I went to a restaurant on the outskirts a few years ago, so maybe that counts.

But Edith likes the Wizard of Oz, and from what I read the exhibit is pretty much a big play area. That was accurate. The kids could create a giant rainbow, play in a farm area (with fake vegetables), crawl through a dark tunnel to test their courage (like the Cowardly Lion), slide, climb and a lot more. The voice altering microphones were hit or miss. (Edith liked listening to her voice as a Munchkin, but it took Atticus a bit to warm up to the Wizard-like voices!)

We stayed a couple of hours, and my kids made fast friends with another group of kids who were there too. We might just have to make another stop before the exhibit leaves town in March!

Movie Theater Outing

I've heard a million times that you do things differently with your second child, and I agree a million percent. Case in point -- yesterday I took Atticus to his first movie at a theater.

Edith's came shortly before she turned three years old. By contrast, Atticus is a few weeks shy of two. In both cases, the first outing was at a local theater that shows movies that have long been released for around $1.50 per ticket. So if the kid can't take it, at least we're out less than 5 bucks.

Edith, Atticus and I saw "Moana," the newest Disney flick. We arrived in the middle of previews, and only a handful of patrons were there. Edith asked a couple of questions too loudly, and Atticus had a couple of minor fussy moments, but all went well. On our way out, I saw another mom who had kids about their same ages. I like to think the smile I gave her was conspiratorial.

It was a lovely outing for a cold, gray day. Looking forward to doing it again.

Movie Night Redefined

We did something different at our neighborhood block party in June -- we borrowed a neighbor's projector and screened "Back to the Future" on our garage door. Adults and kids floated in and out, but Paul and I and a couple of neighbors stuck it out til the end. It was fun.

So fun, in fact, that Paul and I decided to get a projector of our own. We never did decide on what to get each other last Christmas. This seemed like as good a thing as any to settle the score.

And so far, so good. We got it last week and screened our first movie on Friday. My birthday, my pick: "Bride and Prejudice." Paul picked Saturday's Indiana Jones film.

We started a Facebook group for friends and neighbors to join, so we can easily share what is airing when. Our Roku also is compatible, so I'm hoping we can have other events as well, like election night results or Ohio State football games. It's like I'm a kid again and this is my new toy.

"Saturday Night Fever" vs. the Real Bay Ridge

There was one thing I longed to do before we left Brooklyn, and I did it just under the wire:

Watch "Saturday Night Fever."

I had seen it once, before we moved to New York. But this viewing would be different. Why? "Saturday Night Fever" was set in my very own Bay Ridge. I wanted to see how my neighborhood was portrayed.

"Bay Ridge ain't the worst part of Brooklyn," John Travolta as Tony says at one point. "It ain't a hellhole or nothin'."

OK, so it's not portrayed in the absolute best light, but it was interesting all the same.

The movie begins with a shot panning over Bay Ridge to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. I swear if you look closely, you probably could see our apartment building.

But then it cuts to an above-ground subway, which obviously isn't in Bay Ridge. The neighborhood has no trains above ground. It may have been in Bensonhurst, the next-door neighborhood where I understand a lot of the movie was filmed.

Later in the movie you see the characters looking at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge from a bench on the Shore Road Promenade. And speaking of the bridge, at one point Tony mentions it, but the caption said "Brooklyn Bridge" when it was obviously the Verrazano. Brooklyn knowledge for the win!

A final point I found interesting was at the dance contest, when some of the characters said the Puerto Rican dancers were in the wrong neighborhood. I wonder what they would say about Bay Ridge's diversity now.

Filming "A Walk Among the Tombstones" in Bay Ridge

I didn't see Liam Neeson, but I may have pissed him off.

Here's the story:

On Friday, a crew was in Bay Ridge filming "A Walk Among the Tombstones," starring Neeson and Dan Stevens (of "Downton Abbey" fame). The set was only a couple of blocks from home, so after Edith and I dropped off a load at the Laundromat, we walked by to see what we could see.

Which wasn't much. They filmed a scene or two in the 27 minutes before I had to put the clothes in the dryer (OK, I was a little late getting back!). We didn't see any stars; the most interesting thing was watching my grocery store being turned into a movie set.

My grocery store as a filming location.

I didn't know the NYPD had special cars for movie and TV sets!
(See the label at the back of the car.)

Gawkers like me lined the street across from the set.

Later in the afternoon I took a walk around Bay Ridge with two other neighborhood moms and their young sons. We found ourselves at the set again, this time a block away from where it had been earlier.

We parked our strollers in front of the Middle Eastern bakery where they were shooting and waited for something to happen.

A few minutes later a production assistant came up and asked us to move. Liam Neeson said we were distracting him!

Did Neeson really say it? Who knows? But doesn't it make a much better story to think that he had?

We moved down the street and had a laugh. A lady who also had her eyes on the set did say she saw Neeson back there, but we didn't catch a glimpse. I wonder if the crew will return -- the movie is based on the book of the same name, and it seems that it is at least partly set in Bay Ridge.

And who knows -- maybe when the movie comes out you'll see Edith's stroller reflecting in that bakery's windows.

Trucks and trailers lined the side streets.

One Degree from Kevin Bacon

A Kevin Bacon flick outside Paul's office

"Most people live their lives 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon," Paul wrote on his Facebook page in late August, "but today I was just 1 degree from Kevin Bacon as he was filming a movie outside my office."

Coming across TV and movie filmings happens rarely enough to still be exciting. Or at least it is if you know who or what is being filmed. A scene from "The Good Wife" being shot outside my own office a year or two ago, for example, was interesting. But I don't watch the show, so it wasn't that exciting.

I'm sure that if I wanted to go out of my way to see some stars, I could follow a website dedicated to tracking filming locations in New York City. Los Angeles may be the country's capital when it comes to that kind of thing, but plenty of shows film here as well. "30 Rock" is an obvious example that comes quickly to mind.

Still, I think it's more fun to come across the film shootings randomly as Paul recently did. And not nearly as exhausting.

Watching "Prometheus" in 3-D

Good deals are still to be found in New York City, and I snagged one a few months ago on Groupon -- two movie tickets and two small popcorns for $12 at the Bay Ridge theater about 10 blocks away. It's not the same as the $2 tickets we used to get in Bryan, Ohio, but I'm not complaining.

I bought four tickets, intending to use two of them to see "The Hunger Games." But then my 10 weeks of morning sickness began, and the tickets sat unused, with an expiration date of June 30.

Time to see some movies.

So Saturday night Paul and I saw "Prometheus." I wasn't so sure -- I like sci-fi shows like "Fringe" and "Battlestar Galactica," but I hate scary movies. I decided to take a chance, especially since it was showing in 3-D. I'd never seen a 3-D movie outside of Disney World.

I liked it OK. It wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but it was interesting. And it wasn't too scary, although I did hide my eyes at a few parts. Spoiler: I'm not a fan of watching giant alien-snakes being extracted from someone's abdomen.

The 3-D was anticlimactic. I didn't feel like it added anything to the show, and the glasses were a tad bit uncomfortable over my own specs. I'd be interested to know if there's been any movie in which the 3-D really did add to the movie-going experience. I suppose it'll be so common in a few years that I'll think it was funny that I was ever excited to see a whole 3-D feature film in the first place.

The best part of the movie? Being home again after a short, pleasant 10-minute walk.

"Norwegian Wood" Finally in New York

"Norwegian Wood" took me out of my movie theater hibernation.

Before Paul and I saw this Japanese film last weekend, the last time I had been out to a movie was more than two years ago, when I was visiting my family in Defiance over Christmas and we sent to see "Avatar" during a Tuesday buy-one-get-one free matinee that made each seat $1.50 apiece.

Before "Avatar" -- and the only movie I'd ever seen at a theater in New York -- was "Sex and the City." That was an ill-advised expedition to the theater, and after the movie was done, I wished I had followed Paul into the latest Indiana Jones flick.

We occasionally saw movies in Columbus, but the last one we could definitively remember seeing alone together, without any friends or family, was "The Painted Veil." Five years ago.

While the skinflint side of me balked at the $13 ticket price to "Norwegian Wood," it was the sentimental side of me that finally won out.

Seeing limited-release films is one of the perks of living in New York. "Norwegian Wood" opened last weekend in the U.S. only in New York and Washington, D.C. -- and only in one theater in New York at that. Not having access to foreign language and limited release films growing up in northwest Ohio was a matter of some regret when I was in high school. I can still remember how excited I was when Dad took me to see the Italian film "Life Is Beautiful" -- when we were on vacation in Orlando. And just a few weeks into my freshman year of college I got two of my roommates to trek across Columbus to a tiny theater showing the German "Run Lola Run."

Besides, by seeing "Norwegian Wood" Paul and I could have a true and traditional date night: dinner and a movie.

"Norwegian Wood" was playing at the IFC Center, a 5-screen theater near New York University that I've passed a million times. When we got there at 5:15 p.m. Saturday, the 7 p.m. showing was already sold out. As we filed into the 9:45 p.m. (also sold out), I could see why -- there were only about 50 seats in the theater.

I was excited to see one of my favorite books being translated into a movie. "Norwegian Wood" was released in Japan at the end of 2010, and I'd been keeping an eye out for a U.S. release date nearly as long. I hadn't checked since before the holidays, however, so I did a quick Google search a few days after returning to New York. It didn't take long to learn that it was to be at the IFC in just a couple of days, on January 6.

The cinematography was beautiful, and the movie was fairly faithful to Haruki Murakami's book (although a large non-essential chunk was, in fact, eliminated in the movie). Still, somehow the movie didn't evoke the same feeling of wonderment, and was at times a bit clunky. So while my first trip to the theater in such a long time wasn't a total success, "Norwegian Wood" was still a must-see for me both as a Murakami fan and as someone with a childhood dream of being able to see foreign films in my own backyard.