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Ice Cubes
OK, perhaps I picked the wrong day to leave my Italian Market neighborhood. Anthony Bourdain was strolling up and down my block of Ninth Street, filming bits of his television show The Layover with stops at Di Bruno’s (where owner Emilio Magnucci chatted him up), Paesano's (eating “Livveraces” and hanging with owner Peter McAndrews) and the living shrine to Brit chef Marco Pierre White before heading to Amis and Dirty Frank’s. This morning he was at Pho 75. I should stay home more often.
I only left the Ital because the cast and crew of Paranoia started their tour of South Philly at the same time Bourdain was in the Market. While film trucks lined both sides of South Fifth from Tasker to Moore, from Morris and Sixth to Moyamensing and South Fourth at Cross (the area doubles for Brooklyn), the main action of Paranoia took place between Fourth and Fifth on Morris. That’s where we repeatedly watched Liam Hemsworth’s character (all in white) getting yelled at by Josh Holloway’s character (in a charcoal colored suit and tie). Who doesn’t love symbols of purity and evil at odds with each other, especially when it involves the nice guy from Hunger Games and “Sawyer” from Lost?
Before that scene started, I watched Hemsworth go between trailers without a shirt while my photographer was changing lenses. Drat that. After that scene wrapped, Holloway headed to his trailer just doors from Hemsworth’s wherein upon his exit, he grabbed a smoke, put on a baseball cap and shades and greeted us before taking off for the day. Filming hadn’t ended though — the next Paranoia scene was set to involve Hemsworth and Richard Dreyfuss. So out came Dreyfuss from the last trailer in the row, equipped with a back brace and wearing a faux Brooklyn baseball jersey. It was then, as we shot Dreyfuss, that security had had enough of us and blocked the rest of our shots. OK then, we’ll see you at that double wide ex-church on Lombard between Eighth and Ninth, the one you dolled up to look like a stately manor, even if you won’t see us (word has it that most of the shoot at that location is indoors). Bring Indiana Jones and Commissioner Gordon (Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman) with you next time.
A recent Italian-Market story printed in the Philadelphia Business Journal and re-blogged by Grub Street yesterday mentions that the gaping hole behind Anastasi Seafood off the corner of Ninth Street and Washington Avenue is set to become a mixed-use restaurant/retail business courtesy of the N.Y.-based Midwood Investment & Development. The one time Ice House space (once owned by neighboring Giordano’s Fruit & Produce) is scheduled to hold 31,000 square feet of underground parking, which is good for the car-spot-stressed area replete with business owners and vendors.
For the record though, this is the same story that this very writer wrote about for the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2009 and again for a City Paper cover in 2010. Is this just a case of the development firm putting out feelers and trying to initiate a discussion with the City so to finally put into use a space it has held for five-plus years? At one point, long before discussions arose regarding a retail/restaurant space for that corner, a tony home for the elderly and the infirm was discussed for that space. At present, a similarly themed home is currently being erected at 10th and Ellsworth streets. A rep from Midwood told PBJ that they’d like to have the Ninth & Washington project up and running for 2014. Stay tuned.
I love my photographer Scott Weiner and during our time as friends and co-workers he and I have covered some, well, honestly happily tasteless stuff. Howard Stern events. Wrestling matches. Discount evangelists. This week though, we struck the mother lode: Damon Feldman meets Octomom with Michael Lohan and the Margeras on board, and the next-to-last week of filming the current cast of MTV’s Jersey Shore.
Now that local E-list celebrity boxing promoter Damon Feldman is famous for getting somebody with cash to supposedly put up money for a beef-settling bout between Drake and Chris Brown, the only place he can go is down. Which is good, I guess, for Feldman. Down is where he and his minion live and thrive. Feldman, local radio personality Shila (from the Chio Show), Nadya “Octomom” Suleman and her implants hung out for a weigh-in at Fox And Hound in King of Prussia and a pillow fight at Marple Sports Arena in Broomall, Pa. with refs Michael Lohan and Bam Margera’s parents April and Phil. I feel bad for the Margeras. I’ve met them and they're nice people. Their son should make more money and get them away from this mess.
Then there’s the last 15 minutes of fame for the current cast of Jersey Shore which will end its shooting within the next ten days. A pregnant Snooki, a Botoxed J WoWWW, a slimmed down Deena and a roided-up Ronnie are doing their best to make the most of Seaside Heights, N.J., and God bless Scott Weiner for having the tenacity and intestinal fortitude to sit through this dreck so you don’t have to.
(a_amorosi@citypaper.net) (@ADAmorosi)
(Photos by Scott Weiner)
View galleryThe death of someone you know, love or just read about is always a good opportunity to promote oneself. You can make yourself look humble or sympathetic while staying on PR point. That’s what our old pal Damon Feldman has done to an extent with the still-being-investigated passage of Rodney King. Now, for the record, Feldman wouldn’t be the only person in history to do as much — more than a few members of the Jackson family found time to promote themselves during Michael Jackson’s post-mortem. Feldman, the promoter/curator of Celebrity Boxing (pillows, oversized gloves), apparently was the one of the last people to have spoken to the legendary beating victim on Saturday afternoon. Feldman told TMZ that King was in a good mood (reportedly King was drinking and smoking weed that day so perhaps that accounts for his high spirits) and how the pair were to discuss another celebrity bout with baseball-er Jose Canseco that would be announced during a June 29 press conference. King has fought for Feldman on several occasions and wound up befriending the local promoter.
Since the time of King’s death, he has appeared on cable news outlets talking about his bud. But without missing a beat, Feldman has gone into full promotion mode on his next big project — a wishful grudge match with Damon Feldman offering Drake and Chris Brown three one-minute rounds to settle their beef. (Damon has sent out notes for a potential date if Drake and Brown take him up on the cash offer, Sat., Aug. 25, at Los Angeles’ Staples Center). Then there’s Feldman’s June 22/23 bout starring Octomom (who has troubles of her own this week, keeping a house) battling someone named Shelia from Wired 96.5’s morning show and Michael “Lindsay’s dad” Lohan as the event’s referee. While the fight occurs this Saturday in King of Prussia, a press conference featuring Lohan and Octo takes places at the Fox & the Hound in the same neighborhood. Since Feldman and Lohan have pillow fought in the past it’s all good clean fun even if you do feel grimy just by knowing this goes on.
A few things from Philly’s film front this week. Until we get the hard scoop on who’ll hit downtown first, if at all, this summer — Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese or Will Smith (as previously mentioned) — this will have to hold us.
Several weeks ago, we mentioned that Dead Man Down’s last days of filming would happen around (not on) June 20. Tuesday in the late night a.m., yellow fliers popped up around the Italian Market and starting this morning, June 21-22, the Colin Farrell/Terrence Howard film’s final sessions will commence in my neighborhood. The yellow signs are all over Washington, Passyunk at Ninth and the Ellsworth/Kimball area between 7th and 11th streets and state that the filming will go from 9 a.m. Thursday to 9 a.m. Friday. It’ll be a scorcher, gents. Farrell’s Irish. Bring sun block. And fans, this should be your last look-see as he’s said his goodbyes to his hotel and sporting club compadres in town. Greater Philly Film doyenne Sharon Pinkenson confirmed that this is the last shoot.
After Real Housewife of New York Ramona Singer freaked out and hauled ass from the photogs at Parx Casino several weeks ago, it’s nice to see the saner side (if that’s what you require from reality stars) of the Bravo network’s lady-centric crew at work, promoting themselves without too much drama.
Real Housewife (NJ division) Teresa Giudice fanned-out and flashed copies of her new New York Times best-seller (!?) Fabulicious! as well as her other (two other in fact, both on the Times’ list) Pulitzer-nominated tomes to a huge crowd at the University Book Store on Wednesday night. She’s no genius but she’s brilliant at figuring out what down-to-earth foodies want to know about home-cooked Italian dishes and how to appeal to viewers of stale-air fare like Celebrity Apprentice.
Meanwhile, ex-Real Housewife (NYC division) Bethenny Frankel debuted her somewhat ribald talk show, Bethenny (Fox 29 weekdays) with a Philly blitz this week that included hanging at Xfinity Live with 95.7 BEN-FM’s Marilyn Russell and Good Day Philadelphia’s Mike Jerrick, co-hosting Jerrick's morning gig and a nosh at Talula's Garden. After having chatted with her about her lecture series and her Skinnygirl drink line in the past, I can attest that this lady’s sharp as a tack with a quick answer for every dumb question and a nearly witty quip (she ain’t Oscar Wilde, kids) for every situation. The talk show isn’t half bad either. Sheesh.
Sorry it took a minute to process Atlantic City’s Revel, the $2.4 billion hotel/casino on its opening weekend with Beyoncé in tow.
A glass-and-steel structure 710 feet high (NJ’s second talent building) filled with nearly 2,000 rooms (each with a bay or ocean view) and a 130,000 square-foot casino is plenty to consider. The pop-soul queen’s show at Revel’s 5,050-seat Ovation Hall was just gorgeous icing on an extravagant cake. And I didn’t even get a chance to sample restaurants (Philly’s Jose Garces has three) or the spa.
The Ovation is a wide room whose acoustics were stellar and sightlines were great. There wasn’t a bad seat in the house as Beyoncé, her all-female band and crew of dancers, wound through the most spell-binding light-and-visual display I’ve witnessed since Roger Waters’ “The Wall.”
While loud geometric symbols popped behind her, Bay (never in better voice) sashayed and dry-humped as she made silly tough-girl faces. She raced through the femme-empowered “Run This World” with its heart-beat bass rumbling through the Ovation and turned a mash-up of “Naughty Girl” and the late Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” into a snaky delight. Beyoncé slowed to a romantic shimmer on heart-break ballads such as the heavenly “Halo” and a handily grand version of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” While the smashing “Crazy in Love” had the thrilling sonic vibrancy of a fast train riding off its rails, the quick dance-off “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” shook even harder.
With that, it was difficult to know which was more epic — witnessing Beyoncé at her best or Revel at its start.
One of the most annoying things about Wizard World, the traveling comic-con of adventure-film fanatics, comix nerds and sci-fi freakazoids that took place over the weekend at Pennsylvania Convention Center is that you really can’t get near the animals in captivity without waving a banana at them. Translation: The meeting of all the Star Trek captains, the reunion of Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell (that’s Quantum Leap to the novices) and getting alltogthertooclose to Avengers’ Chris Hemsworth as a member of the press — even if you had something pre-arranged — was a non-starting situation unless you were paying someone to stand still for you. That’s how these guys make their money at these conventions, which is fine for the fans but not the working press. Ray Bradbury would’ve turned over in his grave if he had been dead last week. That could be why Heroes’ Hayden Panettiere began to hide from intrepid Ice photog Scott Weiner in his series of three photos — he wasn’t paying her. One-time Superman Dean Cain was nice but if you notice, his steely gaze was just off to the left of our lens. The reason? No money for the Man of Steel. Luckily, comic strip god Stan Lee and the unexpectedly cool Sean Patrick Flenery and Norman Redus from the dark lark Boondock Saints saved the day with their cool. My heroes.
With Colin Farrell filming away from downtown and Sigourney Weaver lost in South West Philly, you haven’t heard much about the Philly filming of Dead Man Down and Political Animals for a minute. But there is some other local-shoot news: USA Network’s Animals just hired Vanessa Redgrave to play a lesbian Supreme Court Justice. “The buzz is fantastic so we’re hoping to get an order for more episodes,” says Sharon Pinkenson, exec directress of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, excited too that Redgrave will be working in Philly. While Pinkenson goes on to say that Dead Man Down will wrap its local shoot around the 20th of June and Political Animals goes till mid-July, she also confirmed the rumor I started several weeks ago in Ice Ill when I mentioned that Harrison Ford would be in town. The reason: Paranoia, a tale of corporate intrigue filmed by a British production company co-starring Liam Hemsworth, Embeth Davidtz and Gary Oldman. Yes, Gary Oldman will be in Philadelphia. Dag. “We’re expecting a late July start in Center City mostly for Paranoia,” states Pinkenson.
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