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I grew up outdoors. As a kid, we played kick the can, whiffle ball, and tag with the neighborhood kids. We drafted touch football teams — complete with uniforms crafted from t-shirts and magic markers — and faced off against rival blocks (“Woodbine Street vs. Forest Avenue!”). For vacation, mom and dad took us fishing…

“I don’t know of any great secret films, do you?” That’s Steven Soderbergh speaking. He looks exactly as I suspected: bald, bespectacled, black t-shirt and jeans; a hip Freddy Krueger sans burn scars. And he’s speaks as I’d suspected: clever, dry, smart. I like him immediately. But I always have. “Sex, Lies and Video Tape”…

Ed Burns’ film, “The Groomsmen,” was a constant punchline over the course of three or four pre-Tribeca planning meetings at work last week. I wasn’t making the jokes, though, or even laughing; I pre-ordered my tickets the moment they went on sale. Apparently, Burns’ brand of heart-felt, New York-centric talkie isn’t in my colleagues’ wheelhouse.…

In the fall of 1996, in a fluorescent-lit cubicle deep within Rolling Stone’s Sixth Avenue offices, my editor, Matt Hendrickson, asked me, “Do you know Luna?” I lied. Three nights later, Chris and I were stage right at the band’s downtown show, bobbing, swaying, and smiling to its “full-tilt, cosmic radio clamor.” “Though frontman Dean…

I’ll admit it (though it probably won’t come as much of a surprise): I’m a sucker for romantic comedies. Given the right mood on the right rainy Saturday, I’ll pause (for the three hundred and twenty-sixth time) to watch Harry run through the streets of New York to find Sally (“I came here tonight because…

I’m getting a little tired of writing about adjusting to life without the rock ‘n roll fantasy, and you’re probably getting tired of reading about it. So I’m starting a new series: Favorite Things. Could be a song, a movie, or a pair of shoes. These are the things that make me happy. I love…