Where our intrepid reporter gets thrown off her own street….
Well, I got home from work at about 7 on Friday and there were already cranes and lighting fixture trucks and trailers all over. And of course the all important catering table, under a smashing white canopy. Not on my block, but one up. (For the New Yorkers and Familar-With’s, I’m between West End and Broadway, this was between Broadway and Amsterdam.) I grabbed my camera but my pictures would have been of…. cranes and lighting fixture trucks and trailers. Exciting, right? I could have gotten some crew people laying down a dolly track but that would have been about as entertaining as a shot of the un-recycled newspapers on my living room floor.
So I gave up on that and went to the evening service at my synagogue. The production people seemed to have parked their trailers in the exact route I usually take and they were in descending order of importance. By the time I reached the actual singles scene, er, synagogue, we were up to a trailer labeled “maitre d’.” That’s just sad, really.
On the way home, when I told my friend I was going to walk back through the shooting location, and not go around it, he was incredulous. Why would anyone intentionally go through there? Are we not nonchalant New Yorkers who avoid that kind of thing? Right, right, but I have a blog now. Besides, it was the Sabbath and I couldn’t use a camera so I’d look like I just momentarily stopped to wrinkle my forehead and wonder what was going on.
I was sure everything would be finished by then but really, the second I turned onto my street, I saw Hugh Grant in a big hulking olive L.L. Bean type jacket leaning on a car. Hey! Look at that. I joined a crowd of gawkers who, had they not been wearing dark clothing and chic haircuts, could have been on a “Star Maps” tour of Hollywood. “Look,” they told me, “you can just see Drew Barrymore there… there!” I looked, she was there, looking cute and peppy, just like you’re imagining her right this second.
It was kind of a bizarre scene of semi-interested neighbors, the previously mentioned starstruck, and my fellow Orthodox walking through with tinfoil covered dishes on their way to Sabbath meals. One of the crew guys was eating Passover cake, that neon three-level rainbow kind. Lots of the crew people were drinking take-out coffee in cardboard cups but Hugh had an enormous coffee cup. The real, china kind. My, aren’t we important!
OK, so I imagined the shoot would start within minutes. Yeah, that was an incorrect assumption. While I waited, there was this guy on the crew who kept walking back and forth and berating us hall-monitor style. He kind of looked like a skinnier version of Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters but had the intonation of David Spade. His impotence was pretty hysterical. He’d say things like, “I’ve warned you not to use flash photography, now I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Then he’d immediately walk away. Uh, you’re going to have to stick around if you want to make that happen, big guy. Needless to say, nobody moved.
Finally, a woman with more balls shifted us all down the street, just on the other side of a yellow crane. I guess she wasn’t really informed much about the production because within minutes another guy came along and said, “You’re all right in the shot! What are you doing here?” I couldn’t help myself. I said, “I live here.” That didn’t score me any points. We were moved a few more feet towards the corner and promptly told that the entire intersection was part of the shot. Could we keep moving, maybe to the West Side Highway or Jersey or Kansas?
Listen, slick, do you have any idea how much I pay to live here? It’d blow your socks off and right into the shot. But, hell, that’s it, I’m totally willing to be treated like a recalcitrant child but not on my own freaking street. I went home and ate dinner. On the way to my apartment I saw that they did have some extras all lined up and waiting for the filming to start. Ha! I’ll be having chicken soup while you stand & chill, fools.
To answer your question, yes I will be seeing this movie when it comes out.
