Crown Heights. 1980. Ed Koch, mayor. It’s remembered as a bad time.
Gritty. Graffiti. AIDS. Party scene. Drugs. Crack cocaine. Hair was high. People were high. Homicides were high. Life was low. Times Square was smut. A gallon of gas — $1.25. Median household income — less than $20,000. The city, near broke, was rough.
A teenager’s gunned down. Colin Warner, a kid, gets wrongfully convicted of murder. Sentenced to life. 2001, after 21 years, he is pardoned. Paroled. And now comes “Crown Heights.” Warner, who participated in the making of this movie, is played by tall, handsome Lakeith Stanfield. So, first, who’s Lakeith Stanfield? In this year’s “Get Out.” Did Netflix’s “War Machine” with Brad Pitt, “Miles Ahead” with Don Cheadle, “Snowden” with Shailene Woodley, and when we met was in a raspberry-colored beanie and gray plaid suit.
Born ’91, he said: “I wasn’t around during that Crown Heights era. Let’s say that during that time I was, at most, maybe just someone’s infatuation.
“I absolutely knew nothing about the Crown Heights time. I’d never even heard about it, and I never read anything about it. Only when I was given the script did I finally find out about it.
“We filmed in Brooklyn. Shooting prison scenes is difficult. Some institutions you can get into, some not. It was hard. It took patience. Certain scenes were done in a defunct prison, an old building where they were moving prisoners in and out. We filmed in a few different facilities, like a real jail in Queens and a decommissioned one in Staten Island.”
And then Stanfield, who’d worked with a dialect coach to re-create Colin Warner’s speech pattern, was led away by his personal newly acquired just-for-him red-carpet handler.
The film opens the 25th.
We just lost a great New Yorker
A little bye-bye to Joe Bologna, whom we lost this week. Fun, sweet, talented, he dearly loved his wife, Renée Taylor. I remember good times in this town when Joe and Renée hauled cameras all over New York for their comedy film, which Joe directed. Lainie Kazan was in it. And Renée was the nonstop-one talking about it. All such good people.
Odds & ends
Ben Brafman, from whom nobody’s heard for 10 minutes, swears there’s movie interest about his client Martin Shkreli: “I’ll broker the deal, provided I play the part of his lawyer”. . .
The piano used by No Vacancy Orchestra in Atlantic City’s Resorts was bought by Merv Griffin, who worked there. Its stool’s the same one that supported Sinatra’s butt when he worked there. And who else would tell you these things?
Bits & pieces
Supersweating. Together. Hank Azaria, CNN’s Brooke Baldwin, David Muir, Tony Danza in Columbus and 67th’s Equinox . . .
Chrystie Street’s new Public hotel helps nearby Sammy’s Roumanian restaurant. Passers-by now get reminded of their chicken fat, blue-bottle seltzer and Omaha-size steaks . . .
Real estate developer Daniel Rose: “Problem today is voters demand more services and benefits than they’re willing to pay in taxes”(?!) . . .
William H. Macy, whose Showtime “Shameless” blew a nomination, is now up for his 13th Emmy . . .
Zac Efron: “ ‘Baywatch’s’ big deal is the tan, but I personally prefer to stay away from sun” . . .
Will Smith once told Rolling Stone that, before he was married, groupies were so desperate, “parents would actually bring their daughters to the hotel, hoping that you’ll sleep with one, fall in love and take her with you.”
A carful of blond, two-legged cats driving on the LIE: “You can always tell a widow in the Hamptons. She’s the one in the black tennis outfit.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.