On its website, The Innocence Project is described as “a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent further injustice.” In other words, the non-profit utilizes what limited resources it has to reopen major cases in which DNA evidence was either not available or not originally used.

Once each case is reopened, the defense introduces that evidence to convince the court a very grave error has been made. Over the past 20 years, the Innocence Project has exonerated more than 300 inmates who were wrongly convicted in this country, many of them facing life sentences or more.

300+ overturned convictions. With limited resources. All of the cases reopened by a small team of lawyers who were assisted by criminology students from Cardozo School of Law.

What the fuck?

Perhaps the only reason none of the Central Park Five were exonerated by the Innocence Project was that DNA evidence was not only available at the time of their original trial, it was actually used. What’s more? Despite the fact none of that DNA matched any of the teenage boys in question, the defense charged forward anyway.

There were careers on the line, after all; reputations to be made. And the lives of five boys from East Harlem were considered little more than collateral damage – tiny splinters in the bureaucratic ladder that transformed city detectives into sergeants; criminal lawyers into pundits.

As a result, five teenage boys were convicted of a vicious rape – one that gained considerable notoriety given the female victim was a young, attractive finance exec … from the Upper East Side … who’d been attacked in Central Park … by an alleged pack of teens … from the nearby projects … all of whom hailed from minority households.

In the end, these boys served various sentences of 7-13 years in prison … sentences that have since been vacated after the fact, despite no admission of wrongdoing on the part of the NYPD, nor any similar concession of wrongdoing from the City of New York.

While I rarely delve into this type of thing during a film review, it probably bears mentioning that I happened to see The Central Park Five for the first time a little over a month ago, at a small press screening in Midtown Manhattan. There were less than 30 people in the room at the time, four of the Central Park Five among them.

Over the course of two hours, I sat and watched those four boys – all of them now full-grown men – relive that godforsaken event from late April, 1989 – detectives pressuring them, media outlets vilifying them, citizen assholes clamoring for their blood. I watched one of the accused look down into his lap time and again, for abject fear of looking at the screen. I watched another wiping tears from either eye. I sat for several minutes afterward and listened to Yusef Salaam very calmly explain how all five of them simply wanted vindication from the very institutions that had failed them.

And the entire way home, I simply could not seem to shake the fact that it is STILL so unbelievably easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time in this country, and have your entire world turned upside down for little more than your impoverished station in life. Well, that and the unfortunate – if not all-important – color of your skin.

(The Central Park Five, which was co-directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon, opens Friday in limited release around the country.)  Continue reading →

“A philosopher: a person who constantly experiences, sees, hears, suspects, hopes, dreams extraordinary things; who is struck by his own thoughts as if from without; as if from above and below; as if by his kind of events and thunder-claps; who is himself perhaps a storm and pregnant with new lightnings; a fateful man around whom snarling, quarreling, discord and uncanniness is always going on. A philosopher: alas, a creature which often runs away from itself, is often afraid of itself, but which is too inquisitive not to keep coming to itself again.” 

If there is one thing David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook gets absolutely correct it is Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Speaking from the perspective of a native Delconian (albeit one who has since renounced the place on principle), I can absolutely assure you this is the very same small town – and obligatory mindset – I grew up with.

Robert De Niro’s character? That was my father. Jacki Weaver’s character? That was my mother. That grizzled dude in the DeSean Jackson jersey? I used to get blind drunk with that souse. The good-natured friend with a miserable wife? I knew that guy. In fact, I know that guy. I know his wife. I hate his wife. And you’d hate her too.

The point is Silver Linings nails the whole sordid Delco vibe, right down to the ailing notion every poor schlub’s lifelong fortune is somehow tied to a professional football team.

And yet, if there’s one place Silver Linings breaks its stride – and please forgive me for saying this – it would have to be Brad Cooper. I mean, don’t get me wrong … Cooper does an outstanding job of playing the less-than-average Joe from a South Philly suburb, which is – of course – exactly what he was for half his life. But he struggles to make you buy it in every scene during which he is forced to play bipolar … or manic … or desperate … or any one of a thousand other dark-end places People‘s Sexiest Man Alive has never known.

Other than that, Silver Linings is a really heartfelt story that audiences can both relate to and enjoy.

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. But it’s not better than Cats.

(The Silver Linings Playbook arrives in limited release this weekend with a national rollout to follow.)

All of this was occurring during the final week of September – a bittersweet time of any year throughout the Wildwoods, characterized by less work, thinning crowds, and the sudden, drastic changing of seasons.

That particular September, the town was abuzz with news surrounding the fallout from a seven-alarm fire that had decimated an entire section of the boardwalk. That fire began during the dwindling hours of Labor Day – an act of arson that had claimed half-a-dozen of businesses, including a 50-year old chapel.

Down at the courthouse, Robert Golden – a 48-year old dishwasher who’d been set on fire in an unrelated incident while sleeping on his porch one afternoon in June – had filed suit against the parents of his assailants, asserting they had, “negligently and carelessly permitted their teenagers to go to Wildwood without arranging for competent supervision.” The accused hailed from Delaware County, Pennsylvania – the same South Philly suburb I hailed from.

Mariner’s Landing remained open throughout the weekends, but Surfside Pier had shuttered its doors. Bill Salerno elected to open The Dime Pitch every Saturday and Sunday, insisting there was decent money to be earned. Bill assembled a crew, calling upon me to supervise while he skipped town to attend a destination wedding.

The idea – suggested shortly after we opened on Saturday – was to purchase a quarter-keg and stash it in a freezer behind Anna’s. Only we let the goddamned thing sashay away from us, and by sundown, the entire crew was dipsy-doodled. Around 3 PM, I had been threatened with a lawsuit by the friend of a woman who’d been pelted in the chest with a polyester pick-up truck. Around 4, a pier maintenance man had set a bat loose in the Dime Pitch, where it flapped its desperate wings until I struck it with a broom.

When it came time to close, I had a co-worker pull his car up to the ramp at 25^th Street. We loaded the quarter-keg into his trunk and transported it to a house on East 18^th Street, where we subsequently planned to bleed it dry.

Meanwhile, I was off to Meghan’s father’s house on East 19^th Street, where she was scheduled to call me at 9:45. Meghan was away with her family, but she had lent me a spare set of keys along with her bicycle, thereby allowing me to look after her dogs. And so I arrived and lay in wait on Meghan’s bed, staring blankly at the shade-frame of a window on the wall.

Minutes passed, and the slow-ticking silence lulled me off into a sleep. When I came to, Meghan’s telephone was ringing. I felt around; I located the receiver. Meghan and I spoke at length for the better part of an hour.

The sudden period of sleep had left me groggy, and so I bypassed East 18^th Street and headed south toward Magnolia. I was homeward-bound now, coasting free along Surf Avenue. Around 21^st Street, I swerved head-on into a street sign. From that point forward, Meghan’s bike kept plowing forward, then veering off toward the curb.

As I neared the intersection at 23^rd Street, it was clear a North Wildwood patrol car had fallen in behind me. I made a right. The squad car followed suit – headlight shadows stretching long on either side. I made a break across Atlantic. An unsuspecting motorist blared his horn. Meghan’s sprocket sparked like phosphorous. My torso scraped the ground with searing burns.

Several minutes later I sat planted on the asphalt, listening to a pair of officers crack wise about how I must have “broken the fall with [my] face.”

Meghan’s bike looked like a scrap heap. The left side of my cheek was packed with gauze. There were red and blue flash lights reflecting off the nearby deck of a motel. Yet the only thing that I could think about – the only thing that mattered – was that my girlfriend and employer had seen fit to trust me. No one else who’d known me ever had.

Day 328

***

(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB)

©Copyright Bob Hill

“If you have a golf-balled sized consciousness, then when you read a book, you’ll have a golf-ball sized understanding; when you look out, a golf-ball sized awareness; and when you wake up in the morning, a golf-ball sized wakefulness. But if you could expand that consciousness, then you read the book, more understanding; you look out, more awareness; and when you wake up, more wakefulness. It’s consciousness. And there’s an ocean of pure, vibrant consciousness inside each of us. It’s right at the source and base of mind, right at the source of thought, and it’s also at the source of all matter. And Maharishi Mahesh Yogi teaches a technique called Transcendental Meditation that’s a simple, easy, effortless technique, yet supremely profound that allows any human being to dive within, experiencing subtler levels of mind and intellect, to transcend and experience this ocean of pure consciousness, which is called by modern physics ‘The Unified Field’. And modern science now says that all of matter – everything that is a thing – emerges from this field. This field has qualities, like bliss, intelligence, creativity, universal love, energy, peace. And it’s not the intellectual understanding of this field, but the experiencing of it, that does everything. You dive in – experiencing this field of pure consciousness – and you enliven it; you unfold it. It grows. And the final outcome of this growth of consciousness is called enlightenment. And enlightenment is the full potential of all of us as human beings.”

• Fact: For a while there, Liam Neeson was attached to play the role of Abraham Lincoln.
• Fact: At the red-carpet premiere of Lincoln, Steven Spielberg told Access Hollywood he would not consider directing Disney’s upcoming Star Wars film.
• Fact: Daniel Day-Lewis became so immersed in the role of Lincoln, he would sometimes sign off on emails and texts using the president’s trademark “– A“.
• Fact: The names of several Senators who voted against the 13th Amendment were changed in Spielberg’s film in deference to their descendants.
• Fact: Daniel Day-Lewis will win the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln.

• Opinion: Tony Kushner’s script feels extremely hunkered down, as if it were specifically written to be performed upon a stage (and may very well end up there).
• Opinion: James Spader’s performance is very good. Tommy Lee Jones’ performance is even better.
• Opinion: After two remarkably miscast roles in The Amazing Spider-Man and Lincoln, it may be time to set Sally Field back in mothballs.
• Opinion: Daniel Day-Lewis’s transformation into Lincoln is so complete that, more often than not, audiences will find themselves hard-pressed to spot the slightest hint of an actor hiding underneath all that pallor.
• Opinion: You can feel the able hand of Steven Spielberg throughout, inserting feel-good elements to keep the entire film from veering into darkness.
• Opinion: Lincoln will be nominated for AT LEAST five academy awards – Score, Costumes and Make-up among them.
• Opinion: We used to look to textbooks as a means of rewriting history. Now we look to movies.
• Opinion: Forget everything you might’ve heard about states’ rights. The major point Spielberg’s film seems intent upon driving home, time and again, is that the Civil War begins and ends with the struggle to abolish slavery.
• Opinion: Politicians have been using God as justification for their own prejudices since the dawning of mankind.
• Opinion: Daniel Day-Lewis will win the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln.

(Lincoln is currently open in limited release, with a national rollout to follow this Friday.)

Skyfall is the best James Bond film of the modern era, and it may very well be the best Bond film of all-time. None of which should come as a huge surprise given we’re talking about a movie directed by Sam Mendes, starring Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench and Ralph Fiennes (among others).

Skyfall is also the first Bond film to portray 007 as an aging – if not wholly antiquated – relic from a bygone era. This is a brave new world, so to speak – one in which both James Bond and his long-time coterie need to either prove their worth or face extinction. To that end, Skyfall favors a more nuanced approach, substituting the term “Mother” for M, “Quartermaster” for Q, and the not-so-subtle shaking of a tumbler in lieu of James Bond’s usual drink order.

We’re dealing with a conflicted 007, as well … one who ultimately returns to the trials of his youth in a vague attempt to confront – and perhaps even exorcise – long-lingering demons. This is an overt tip of the cap to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy – one of several throughout Skyfall, including a central subplot that’s torn almost entirely from The Dark Knight‘s playbook.

Despite the inexplicable parallels, Skyfall still manages to stand tall on its own, moving a 50-year old franchise into unprecedented territory. Javier Bardem will – and should – go down as one of the most diabolical villains James Bond has ever faced. And Daniel Craig, while not necessarily the most iconic Bond of all-time, should probably be considered the best.

(Skyfall arrives in theaters nationwide today.)

In the beginning, it was a simple idea: Put aside all of my freelance gigs for a period of one year and channel that energy into a series of side projects that might not otherwise find a home … projects that wouldn’t require me standing on the shoulders of others in order to get my prose across.

What spiraled out of that idea has proven the single most rewarding creative experience of my life. In 12 short months, IFearBrooklyn has given birth to:

• One full-length novel
• 20 well-received editions of Moving On – an ongoing non-fiction series about Wildwood, childhood, and life after drinking (That series winds up its 2nd Season on December 5th, BTW, so – by all means – get your read on, will ya?)
• 26 installments of Good Pictures/Bad Camera, including various slideshows from Manhattan, Brooklyn, Asbury Park, Bar Harbor, Philadelphia, The Chesapeake Bay and beyond.
• 34 capsule-style movie reviews/half-a-dozen show reviews
• A handful of timely editorials
• several obscure, long-form quotes, and, of course,
• The post that started it all (IFB’s actual anniversary falls on the 10th of this month, but, I mean, really, who goes out blogging on a Saturday, right?)

Anyway, all of this is to say, “Thanks,” to each and every one of you who has either visited or supported IFB over the course of the past year. Your ongoing advocacy means the absolute world to me and I only hope that I can find an opportunity to repay that kindness at some point down the line.

For now, I fully encourage you to have a look around the place. Read the first chapter of Subhuman, check out a few editions of Moving On, get your photog on with Good Pictures/Bad Camera, and – assuming you’re so inclined – “Like” IFB on Facebook; follow IFB on Twitter.

There’s plenty more to come in 2013, including the 3rd and 4th Seasons of Moving On, Good Pictures with a better camera (I hope), and a handful of new features … along with oodles more of what you’ve already come to expect.

All the Very Best, Always.

Bob Hill

(Good Pictures/Bad Camera is a regular feature on IFB.)

“For the last 30 years I’ve been writing in my music about the distance between the American dream and American reality. I’ve seen it from inside and outside: as a blue collar kid from a working class home in New Jersey – where my parents struggled, often unsuccessfully, to make ends meet – to my adult life, visiting the 9th Ward in New Orleans after Katrina, or meeting folks from food pantries from all around the United States, who work daily to help our struggling citizens through the hard times we’ve been suffering. The American Dream and an American Reality: Our vote tomorrow is the one undeniable way we get to determine the distance in that equation. Tomorrow, we get a personal hand in shaping the kind of America we want our kids to grow up in.

I’m a husband and a dad, my lovely wife Patti is here with me. We’ve got three kids growing up and on their way out into the world. I’m 63 (Patti is much younger), but we have both lived through some galvanizing moments in American history: the Civil Rights struggle, the Peace Movement, the Woman’s Movement, we played in East Berlin one year before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and we were with Amnesty International a year before the release of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid. These were days when you could feel the winds of change moving and the world shifting beneath your feet. And we both remember another galvanizing moment, the night that President Obama was elected … Continue reading →