So, I should be closing this week *hopefully* and moving to Brooklyn this weekend. It has me thinking a lot about neighborhoods and New York, and whenever I think about that, I always think of this scene in 25th Hour where Edward Norton is in the bathroom of his father's bar. He goes off into this rant, cursing out all the different New York neighborhoods and accompanying inhabitants. When he got to Bensonhurst, I was pretty sure I knew some of those guys and exactly where they were when they filmed it.
25th Hour is a really powerful movie, and the situation effectively packs a lifetime into a single day--Edward Norton's last day as a free man before he goes off to jain for a seven year sentence.
What would you do? How would you spend it? Who would you want to be with?
The supporting cast is great, too. Robert Scoble... eerrr.. Phillip Seymor Hoffman couldn't be more uncomfortable tagging along the last day of a ride that left without him some years ago. He and Barry Pepper play Norton's childhood friends whose paths all diverged pretty significantly, making the juxtaposition of their presence on this contrived last day all the more emotional and complicated. Anna Paquin, as Hoffman's underage and oversexed student, Brian Cox as Norton's Dad, and Rosario Dawson as the girlfriend that might have turned Norton in round out a really perfect cast. This film is a must see for Edward Nortan fans, New Yorkers, and just about anyone else.