keep moving

Saw The Departed for the second time yesterday. The first time I saw it was in a theater back in 2006, after a long string of Chinese movies including some Andy Lau stuff, and it was an experience in assessing how it compared to the original, Infernal Affairs. (Pretty well, although the conflicting loyalties element from IA was lacking.) Also a moment of AAAAA YOU KILLED MY PRESIDENT, because I'd been watching The West Wing.

This time around was mostly an exercise in AAAA I KNOW WHAT THAT BUILDING IS, I KNOW WHERE THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT, THAT GEOGRAPHY MAKES PERFECT SENSE.

Except... except for the scene where they were exercising at the State Police academy.

Which was an exercise in pausing the movie and screaming at the screen because THAT'S THE FREAKING THROGS NECK BRIDGE IN THE BACKGROUND, YOU FILMED THIS SCENE IN THE BRONX, WHAT THE HELL, SCORSESE.

NO I WILL NOT SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP

BOSTON DOES NOT HAVE SUSPENSION BRIDGES LIKE THAT

BOSTON HAS ONE SUSPENSION BRIDGE AND IT'S THE ZAKIM AND IT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THAT

EVEN THE REST OF NEW YORK DOESN'T HAVE BRIDGES LIKE THAT, I KNOW EVERY SUSPENSION BRIDGE IN NEW YORK CITY AND THERE IS ONLY ONE LIKE THAT

THAT'S THE GODDAMN THROGS NECK BRIDGE, MY GRANDFATHER DROVE ME PAST THAT GODDAMN BRIDGE EVERY DAY OF THIRD GRADE AND FOURTH GRADE

WHAT THE FUCK, SCORSESE



(I lived in New York City from the time I was born to the year I turned eleven. I moved to Jersey City and then to Hoboken in the early 2000s. I have bicycled over every suspension bridge in New York City except the Throgs Neck and the Whitestone, multiple times. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is ridiculously high-decked; the Whitestone is sort of skinny-looking; the Triboro's Queens span, now called the Robert F. Kennedy bridge for whatever reason, is fancier and also my great-grandfather was one of the laborers who built it so I paid a lot of attention to its looks; the George Washington is hugely bulkier and you can see all the crossbeams; the Manhattan Bridge is completely unmistakable; the Williamsburg Bridge even more so; the Brooklyn Bridge is the Brooklyn Bridge and John Roebling will rise from his grave and smack you with a length of cable if you mistake it for anything else. There was no way that was another bridge, and there was no way that view was from the Queens side. Tiny as it was, the sight of that bridge over the trees was an incredibly jarring YOU ARE NOT IN MASSACHUSETTS moment.)