Metroland

Metroland Readers Poll '15: Goods and Services

 

Best Optical Store

1. Empire Visionworks

2. DiNapoli Opticians

3. LensCrafters

The recently rebranded Empire Visionsworks is your favorite, but local mainstays DiNapoli was a strong second.

Best Appliance Store

1. Sears

2. John D. Marcella and Son Appliances

3. Lowe’s Home Improvement

Sears may be struggling, but its Kenmore line of products clearly remains popular.

Best Antique Store

1. Silver Fox Salvage

2. Trojan Horse Antiques

3. Aunt Katie’s Attic

Only a handful of votes separated these perennially popular Albany, Troy and Scotia businesses.

Best Bookstore

1. Barnes & Noble Booksellers

2. The Book House

3. Market Block Books

The last standing national bookstore chain may have won, but it was close. And the Book House and Market Block—which are twin heads of one local bookseller—got the most votes combined.

Best Comic Book Store

1. Earthworld Comics

2. Aquilonia Comics

3. Zombie Planet

Earthworld is your superhero source for superheroes.

Best Garden Store/Nursery

1. Hewitt’s Garden Centers

2. Faddegon’s Nursery

3. George’s Market Nursery

If the top three finishers in this category were trees, then Hewitt’s would be the sequoia.

Best Florist

1. Lark Street Flower Market

2. Emil J. Nagengast Florist

3. Frank Gallo & Son Florist

Lark Street comes up roses in this category, but there was strong support for both Nagangast and Gallo. We’re wondering, what happened to former winner Price Chopper?

Best Kitchen Store

1. Different Drummer’s Kitchen: The Cook’s Resource

2. Lowe’s Home Improvement

3. Williams-Sonoma

Different Drummer’s is an all-round gourmand’s store—and you know it.

Best Furniture Store

1. The Old Brick Furniture Co.

2. Taft Furniture

3. Huck Finn’s Warehouse & More

Low prices were first in voters’ minds in this category.

Best Pet Supply Store

1. Benson’s Pet Center

2. PetSmart

3. Healthy Pet Center

Local, independent chain Benson’s edged out PetSmart in this popular category.

Best Gift Store

1. Wit’s End Giftique

2. Maggie’s Gift Shop

3. Romeo’s Gifts

More than 26,000 square feet of selling space gave Clifton Park’s Wit’s End Giftique a clear edge.

Best Wine/Liquor Store

1. Empire Wine & Liquor Outlet

2. All Star Wine & Liquor

3. Exit 9 Wine & Liquor

Our readers enjoy an adult beverage now and then (and again). We know because this was one of the most popular overall categories.

Best Women’s Clothing Store

1. Macy’s

2. Kohl’s

3. Truly Rhe

Times change and retail stores come and go, but Macy’s almost always wins. Props to Troy’s Truly Rhe for a solid showing.

Best Men’s Clothing Store

1. Macy’s

2. Kohl’s

3. Enigma Co.

We’re sensing a pattern here: Macy’s, Kohl’s, and an interesting indie shop in Troy—this time, the Enigma Co.

Best Children’s Clothing Store

1. The Children’s Place

2. Kohl’s

3. GAP Kids

When it comes to dressing your fancy brats, the national chains are seemingly unbeatable.

Best Consignment Clothing Store

1. Plato’s Closet

2. Goodwill

3. (tie) Polkadots, Salvation Army

Only Plato’s Closet and Polkadots are consignments stores. Plato’s is geared to teens, Polkadots caters to children; Plato’s wins. 

Best Sporting Goods Store

1. Dick’s Sporting Goods

2. (tie) Empire Mountain Sports, Goldstock’s

4. Play It Again Sports

The big chains may be overrepresented in this category, but local legends Goldstocks are hanging in there.

Best Head Shop

1. Northern Lights Smoke Shop

2. Orion Boutique

3. Déjà vu

Each establishment has its partisans, but Northern Lights heads the list.

Best Cigar/Tobacco Shop

1. Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe

2. Edleez Tobacco

3. Smoke Shop

Your perennial favorite—Habana Premium—wins again.

Best Holistic Shop

1. Crossroads Gifts & Wellness

2. Honest Weight Food Co-op

3. Hippies, Witches, & Gypsies

Crossroads in Schenectady specializes exclusively on health, wellness, and divine inspiration, and apparently inspiring readers to maximize their voting.

Best Art Supply Store

1. Arlene’s Artist Supply

2. Michael’s

3. Savoir Faire

Arlene’s wins big again—and with a large overall vote total reflecting the store’s high standing in the arts community.

Best Bicycle Shop

1. Downtube Bicycle Works

2. Plaine and Son

3. Troy Bike Rescue

The Downtube folks are the experts at all things cyclist, recognized by readers with their yearly win.

Best Toy Store

1. Toys ’R Us

2. G Willikers

3. Ta Da!

Wow, Toys really are Us, going by their voting score. But if you want something really special, why not try the locally owned runners-up?

Best Jeweler

1. Hannoush Jewelers

2. Kay Jewelers

3. Northeastern Fine Jewelers

It was close, but the family-run Hannoush Jewelers edged out the national chain.

Best Day Spa

1. Kimberley’s A Day Spa

2. Complexions Spa for Beauty & Wellness

3. (tie) White Sands Massage Spa, Roosevelt Baths

For our readers, Kimberley’s in Latham has the magic touch.

Best Musical Instrument Store

1. Parkway Music

2. Drome Sound

3. (tie) Guitar Center, Collar City Guitars

Parkway Music turned it up to 11, proving that they meet your musical needs with a 100-vote victory margin.

Best Apple Orchard

1. Indian Ladder Farms

2. Goold’s Orchards

3. Golden Harvest

Indian Ladder in Altamont won by a bushel load. That Rosie (the Highland heifer) really knows how to get out the vote.

Best Farmers Market

1. Troy Waterfront/Winter Farmers Market

2. Schenectady Greenmarket

3. Saratoga Farmers Market

Is it the selection? Is it the location? Is it the live music? Is it the fact that you’re guaranteed to run into someone you know? With the Troy Farmers Market, it’s all of the above.

Best Produce

1. Honest Weight Food Co-op

2. Troy Farmers Market

3. (tie) Price Chopper, Hannaford

They’re both so good that we’re guessing Honest Weight beat out TFM because it’s indoors year-round.

Best Shopping (Plaza)

1. Stuyvesant Plaza

2. Clifton Park Center

3. Mohawk Commons

A wipeout. Not. Even. Close. Stuyvesant Plaza dominated this category by more than 300 votes.

Best Shopping (Mall)

1. Colonie Center

2. Crossgates Mall

3. Wilton Mall

On the other hand, while Wilton Mall was a distant third, your loyalties to Colonie Center and Crossgates are more closely divided.

Best Shopping (Downtown)

1. Troy

2. Saratoga Springs

3. Albany

You really enjoy the compact, pedestrian-friendly downtown retail offered by Troy and Saratoga. Sorry capital city: Albany wasn’t in the running.

Best Shopping (Outlet)

1. Lee, Mass.

2. Lake George

3. Woodbury Commons

Lee has a lower sales tax. Lee wins.

Best Supermarket

1. Price Chopper/Market Bistro

2. Hannaford

3. Honest Weight Food Co-op

The perennial winners are one-two again, while Honest Weight, looking more like a supermarket in its new location, takes third. But really, have you people ever tried Shop Rite?

Best Health Food Store

1. Honest Weight Food Co-op

2. Whole Foods

3. Uncle Sam’s Health Food

Honest Weight was once the only real health food store in the area; 35 years later, and they’ve once again won this category by a landslide.

Best Record Store (Used)

1. Last Vestige Record Shop

2. River Street Beat Shop

3. FYE

As interest in new vinyl grows, so does your craving for classic vinyl. And Last Vestige wins with its mind-blowing selection. There was plenty of love for Troy’s RSBS, too.

Best Video Game Store

1. GameStop

2. Pastime Legends

3. Jay St. Video Games

The national chain with the ubiquitous mall locations won, but Pastime Legends and Jay St. both received strong support from gamers.

Metroland Readers Poll '15: Arts

 

Best Movie Theater

1. Spectrum 8 Theatres

2. Regal Colonie Center Stadium 13 & RPX

With its wide-ranging booking and amenities, the Spectrum is one of the biggest vote-getters in any category. There’s no number three because most of you just wrote “Bowtie.” There are two Bowtie cinemas and their booking is quite different—specify, people.

Best Museum

1. New York State Museum

2. Albany Institute of History & Art

3. MASS MoCA

The NYSM has to reflect the diversity of New York state’s arts, nature, culture and people. And according to you, they do it very well.

Best Art Gallery

1. Albany Center Gallery

2. (tie) Upstate Artists Guild, MASS MoCA

4. The Hyde Collection

Their gallery exhibits strive to showcase regional artists, and their community events bring art to the streets of the Capital Region. We’re guessing that’s why ACG won.

Best Local Performing Arts Organization

1. Saratoga Performing Arts Center

2. Capital Repertory Theatre

3. Proctors

The breadth of SPAC’s programming more that made up for the fact that their season only lasts part of the year. Capital Rep was a strong second-place finisher.

Best Live Theater Venue

1. Proctors

2. Capital Repertory Theatre

3. Palace Theatre

Proctors won this in a landslide. There is no competing with full-on productions of hit Broadway shows.

Best Comedy Club

1. The Comedy Works

2. Brew Ha Ha Comedy Showcase

3.The Van Dyke

The Comedy Works has two clubs, but received more than 10 times the votes. We’ll attribute it to how they alternate big-name bookings with local showcases.

Best Drive-In Movie Theater

1. Malta Drive-In

2. Hollywood Drive-In

3. Jericho Drive-In

It’s awesome that the region has so many vintage drive-ins, and readers agreed with a big voter turnout for this category; however Malta Drive-In was the winner (maybe there was a surge from chip-fab workers).

Best Children’s Arts Program

1. Steamer No. 10 Theatre

2. Arts Center of the Capital Region

3. Theatre Institute at Sage

A hearty salute to our neighbors across Western Avenue: Steamer No. 10 has made theater come alive for generations of kids.

Best Local Arts Hero

1. Tony Iadicicco

2. Ralph Renna

3. Andrew Gregory

Artist, gallerist, and inventive promoter of the arts from the Hudson to the Mohawk, Tony Iadicicco, executive director of Albany Center Gallery, is clearly your hero.

Best Local Visual Artist

1. Michael Oatman

2. Tony Iadicicco

3. (tie) Alex Waters, Robert Guille

Troy-based multi-media artist Michael Oatman can add recognition by local readers to his long list of accolades.

Best Local Filmmaker

1. Mike Feurstein

2. (tie) Jamel Bosley, Brett Parker

4. Bhawin Suchak

Mike Feurstein, auteur of the four-volume How to Unmake a Bully series, received the volume of votes.

Best Local Fiction Writer

1. Jill Starling

2. William Kennedy

3. Dennis Mahoney

Jill Starling’s topical St. Agnes’ Place apparently resonated with readers for an upset win over perennial favorite William Kennedy.

Best Local Non-Fiction Writer

1. Brett Parker

2. Paul Grondahl

3. William Kennedy

Apparently blogger and non-fiction writer have become synonymous because Brett Parker, a movie blogger, wins this category for the second year in a row, squeaking ahead of author Paul Grondahl, whose latest non-fiction book is These Exalted Acres.  

Best Local Poet

1. Brian Dorn

2. Mary Panza

3. (tie) Jay Renzi, Elizabeth Gordon

The muses were on the side of Brian Dorn this year.

Best Local Solo Musician

1. Erin Harkes

2. Anthony Fallacaro

3. Frank Palangi

The votes were in long before Harkes graced our cover last week: She’s your favorite singer-songwriter.

Best Live Music Venue

1. Saratoga Performing Arts Center

2. Vapor Nightclub

3. Upstate Concert Hall

With beautiful surroundings and with a schedule that runs from major rock bands to world-class classical, it’s no wonder that SPAC is the favorite venue.

Best Dance/Nightclub

1. Vapor Nightclub

2. The Fuze Box

3. Waterworks Pub

Bigger is better when it comes to dance clubs, as Vapor steamed ahead of the runners-up.

Best Open Mic

1. Trick Shots Billiards

2. The Rustic Barn Pub

3. McGeary’s Pub

This was the closest vote total this year in any category, with only one vote separating first from second and second from third place.

Best Art Event

1. Art on Lark

2. Troy Night Out

3. 1st Friday Albany

The yearly Art on Lark, which focuses primarily on art, is your art fair of choice by a wide margin.

Best Country Band

1. Skeeter Creek

2. Big Sky Country

3. Yankee Holler

When it comes to having a loud and loyal fan base, nobody tops Skeeter Creek. Nobody.

Best Local Blues

1. The Accents

2. Bent Rail

3. Holly & Evan

It’s hard to peg the Accents as a blues band when they cover everyone from Rose Royce to Robin Thicke, but the voters have spoken.

Best Local Jazz Band

1. The Chronicles

2. Dylan Perrillo Orchestra

3. Brian Patneaude Quartet

This is probably the second-closest outcome in any category. And while most of you can’t spell “Perillo” or “Patenaude,” you know what you like.

Best Local Punk Band

1. The Last Conspirators

2. The Erotics

3. Slaughterhouse Chorus

Hard touring old-school punk-rock band the Last Conspirators seriously rocked the vote.

Best Local Hip Hop Artist

1. Sean Reid

2. MIRK

3. Masai ATG

Sean Reid (aka DJTwofifty) just edged out your longtime fave MIRK to win this category.

Best Local Rock Band

1. Wild Adriatic

2. Hard Soul

3. Super 400

We love all of your choices. Well done, voters.

Best Local Indie Rock Band

1. Yankee Holler

2. Where’s Alex

3. Wild Adriatic

Skeeter Creek couldn’t touch Yankee Holler in this category.

Best Local Cover Band

1. Skeeter Creek

2. Yankee Holler

3. Big Sky Country

Skeeter Creek: They’re a little bit country; they’re a little bit rock & roll. Yankee Holler weren’t far behind, though.

Best Local Metal Band

1. Maggot Brain

2. (tie) Let Go Daylight, Wartime Manner

4. Dynamite Pleasure Chair

We’re wondering how many votes Maggot Brain got just for their name.

Best Local Hardcore Band

1. Brick by Brick

2. Wartime Manner

3. Aggressive Response

Troycore forever: more than a slogan as Troy metalcore act Brick by Brick racked up the votes.

Best Local Club DJ

1. Mike Cestaro

2. Kendrick DJ Debonair Ricci

3. DJ Trumastr

Newlyweds gave this category an edge, since DJ Mike Cestaro, who does a lot of weddings, won by a slim margin.

Best Comedian

1. Erin Harkes

2. Greg Aidella

3. Jaye McBride

The old line is that musicians really want to be comedians, and vice versa. Harkes actually manages to succeed at both.

New on Blu-ray: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre

 

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (Twilight Time)

Directed by Roger Corman

Roger Corman’s 1967 gangster drama The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre remains as sharp as a punch in the face. Newly released on a fine-looking Blu-ray, the film combines a faux documentary approach (complete with heavy-voiced narration) with bravura set pieces to deliver a vivid portrait of a lovely bunch of murderous sociopaths.

The film is an examination of the circumstances leading to the bloody events of Feb. 14, 1929 in Chicago, when members of a rival gang were gunned down by associates of Al Capone. As the main antagonists, Jason Robards doesn’t look anything like Capone, but he’s appropriately (and effectively) volcanic and threatening; as George “Bugs” Moran, Ralph Meeker at first seems too mild, until the moment he makes the case for killing Capone. It’s one of the film’s great set pieces, punctuated with flashbacks to Capone’s attacks on Moran’s North Side gang. Meeker contorts his face and body in a terrifying rage, making the point that a gang boss doesn’t have to be a madman like Capone to make his enemies—and friends—afraid of him.

Massacre was Corman’s first opportunity to make a film for a major studio (Fox) after a decade of indie success. He didn’t care for the excesses of working for a “major” and went back to being his own boss, but this film shows that he made the most of studio resources.

Corman cheerfully and liberally borrows from the classics, and Massacre seems less of an homage to or update of the original Depression-era gangster cycle than an extension of it. The psychology of the gangsters is much the same: They’re vicious killers who’d steal the wedding ring off their own dead mother’s hand. Ingeniously, Corman and screenwriter Howard Browne (who’d penned a TV version of the events years earlier) even split James Cagney’s Public Enemy character in two: as the brothers Gusenberg, George Segal embodies grinning violence while a brooding David Canary is wracked by doubts. Segal is terrific as he breezes through the picture shooting and smacking people around with a disarming cockiness.

Even with its “voice of doom” narration and docudrama format, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre has amazing energy. It also has the indelible casting of the early gangster films; the actors all look like walked off the page of a Dick Tracy comic strip. What makes this different from those older crime films is that Corman gets to have longer, more violent gun battles—including an epic attempt to kill Capone in which a restaurant is shot to pieces—and use ethnic slurs in a way that even the freewheeling cinema of the early 1930s shied away from.

Budget-conscious Corman re-used sets from other films recently shot on the 20th Century-Fox lot. I immediately recognized one but couldn’t place it; as revealed by Corman himself in the too-short extra Roger Corman Remembers, it’s the bar and whorehouse from Robert Wise’s The Sand Pebbles. He also redressed a key set from another Wise movie as Al Capone’s house; when I watched Massacre the second time I cracked up at identifying the staircase where the Von Trapp family sang their goodnights in The Sound of Music.

Finally, mention must be made of Alfred Newman’s music, which skillfully repurposes period tunes (for which the studio probably held rights) to maximum effect; the discordant theme music fittingly turns the “Charleston” into a dance of death.

Twilight Time’s handsome Blu-ray has few extras, but the quality of the film itself is reason enough to pick it up.

 

Surviving Warner Bros. Silent Films

This list was compiled by Jon C. Mirsalis, and published on the usenet group (via deja.com--anyone remember that?) alt.movies.silent on October 3rd, 1999.

One additional title I know exists is LAND OF THE SILVER FOX, a Rin-Tin-Tin picture which survives (minus Vitaphone disks) at Eastman House. Many of these survive in shortened 16MM versions sold for home viewing/library rental.

Here is the original post, which was in answer to a request for lists of extant Goldwyn and WB silent films:

 

ChaneyFan

 

For reasons a bit too complicated to explain, listing all the extant Warners
silents (my list includes a few part talkies as well since I consider them
silent films with filler) is easier than doing the Goldwyns (it has to do with
the fact that Goldwyn worked under a couple of different company names).  So
here's the surviving Warner Bros. list:  (Title, Year)

Beau Brummel        24

Better 'Ole, The        27

Beware        18        

Beware of Bachelors        28

Brass        23        

Brass Knuckles        27

Broken Hearts of Hollywood        26

Brute, The        27

Caught in the Fog        28

Cave Man, The        26

 

Clash of the Wolves        25        

Conducter 1492        24        

Daddies        24        

Don Juan        26       

 
First Auto, The        27

Footloose Widow, The        26

Fortune Hunter, The        27

Girl from Chicago, The        27

Glorious Betsy        28       

 
Golden Cocoon, The        26   

     
Greyhound Limited, The        29     

   
Heart of Maryland, The        27       

 
Her Marriage Vow        24   

     
Heroes of the Street        22

Hills of Kentucky        27     

   
His Majesty, Bunker Bean        25       

 
If I Were Single        27

Jaws of Steel        27

Jazz Singer, The        27

Lady Windermere's Fan        25       

Lighthouse by the Sea        25        

Limited Mail, The        25

Little Church Around the Corner, The        23

Lover of Camille, The        24

Lucretia Lombard        23      

  
Man on the Box, The        25

Marriage Circle, The        23

Missing Link, The        27

My Official Wife        26

Night Cry, The        26

Noah's Ark        29

Oh, What a Nurse!        26

Old San Francisco        27

Pleasure Buyers, The  25

Sailor's Sweetheart, A  27

Sea Beast, The        26

Singing Fool, The        28

So This is Paris        26

Third Degree, The        26

Three Women        24

Tiger Rose        23

Tracked by the Police        27

When a Man Loves        27       

 
Where the North Begins        23        

==============================

=
Jon Mirsalis
e-mail: [email protected]
Lon Chaney Home Page: http://members.aol.com/ChaneyFan
Jon's Film Sites: http://members.aol.com/ChaneyFan/jonfilm.htm

10 Fun Things to do Today

Attend the opening of Configurations at Saratoga Arts' Arts Center Gallery.

Enjoy the New Red Scare CD-release show at Valentine's.

Pay your respects to his majesty King Khan at MASS MoCA.

Behold IAMDYNAMITE at the Upstate Concert Hall.

Experience the second night of Next Move: Festival of Modern Dance at the GE Theatre.

Engage with the screening of TAO at EMPAC.

Dig the new movie of Keroac's On the Road at the Spectrum 8 Theatres.

Drop by Albany Center Gallery between noon and 5 PM to see the High School Regional.

Chat with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer at Bard.

Be plunged into a state of grace . . . land at the Elvis Lives show at Proctors.

 

So There's This Great Movie Quiz for Cinephiles. . . .

Over on The Twitter, a Tweet by the Self-Styled Siren pointed to a post on her blog about a really swell movie quiz for cinephiles over at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.

The arts editor took the quiz, and . . . . here are my answers:

1. The cemetery scene at the end of Schindler’s List. It doesn’t make the Holocaust all better.

2. “She’s cute as lace pants” Mike Mazurki (left, with Dick Powell), Murder, My Sweet

3. Shampoo

4. As soon as I was old enough to read the credits.

5. The Studio, by John Gregory Dunne

6. Vonetta McGee

7. mumblecore

8. “I wonder what their parents were?” “Careless, my little titmouse, careless.” Peggy Hopkins Joyce and W.C. Fields, International House

9. Footlight Parade

10. Richard Burton

11. Salo. Thanks, but no thanks.

12. Lubitsch & Borzage: Desire.

13. Charlie Chase Columbia Shorts/Bambi/Oz: The Great and Powerful

14. “Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not.” Bela Lugosi, The Black Cat

15. JFK

16. Eva Mendes

17. Bedazzled (1967)

18. What’s the correct aspect ratio for Barry Lyndon/Touch of Evil/Rosemary’s Baby?

19. What’s the correct aspect ratio for Barry Lyndon/Touch of Evil/Rosemary’s Baby?

20. ROBERT RYAN ARE YOU KIDDING?

21. “If they move, kill ’em” William Holden, The Wild Bunch

22. Blessed Event

23. I Am Suzanne! (1933)

24. Ewan McGregor

25. Yes. It’s called Trouble in Paradise.

26. Some of the Albany locations used in Kubrick’s Lolita.

27. The Hanging Tree.

28. Carole Lombard and Jack Benny for To Be or Not To Be.

29. Gloria Grahame.

30. Bill Forsythe.

31. You don’t like Lubitsch???

Ten Fun Things To Do Today

Shine your boots and head to the Times Union Center to see Miranda Lambert.

Experience The Machine Starts at EMPAC.

Take the offspring to the Kidz Expo at the Empire State Plaza.

Check out the QFEST film festival at the GE Theatre at Proctors.

Put on your top hat and go to eba's Ruby Benefit Cabaret at the eba Theatre

Check out the second night of the Dirty Face reunion shows at Valentine's (+ John Powhida)

Drive over to North Adams to see Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal at MASS MoCA

See the new documentary Koch at the Spectrum 8 Theatres.

Chill out to haunted Canadian folkies Cowboy Junkies at the Egg.

Or stay in bed and sleep all day.

 

 

 

Ten Things to Do Today

Experience an art installation at EMPAC.

Check out a comedy show at Proctors.

See a play at Curtain Call Theatre (pictured).

Hear an indie rock icon at Valentine's.

Or hear a singer-songwriter at the Egg,

Or some Canadian rockers at the Upstate Concert Hall.

Or some electronic sounds at MASS MoCA.

Go to the movies.

Prep for Sunday night's Oscar-cast by reading our preview and picks.

Or just stay in bed all day.

 

 

 

It's Oscar Time Again

Our Academy Awards issue is out tomorrow. Here's the article and predictions. And here's the lovely cover painting by Trevor Paul.

Update: Click on the pic to embiggen.

 

A few words on art

"Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... now you tell me what you know"

Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho Marx) debates the meaning of art with a fish peddler-turned-art collector in Animal Crackers, by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind.