Monday, June 29, 2009

Bad memories


CBS News had a report last night about an impromptu memorial service held at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station nearby in Brooklyn, commemorating the filming of Michael Jackson's Bad video on its mezzanine level in 1987. I thought it looked familiar when I saw the video over the weekend, but incorrectly pegged it as the Lafayette stop. (Neither is my main stop.)

Hoyt-Schermerhorn has hosted several film shoots, notably the (bad) remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, where it doubled for Times Square, and also The Warriors (1979) and Coming to America and Crocodile Dundee II in 1988. Props to Jacko for shooting in what is still a pretty dingy and underlit stretch of the neighborhood at night, but I assume director Martin Scorsese and writer Richard Price, fresh off 1986's The Color of Money, knew the score.

(And what does Scorsese think of the passing of his one-time star? And where is Tatum O'Neal in all this? She was the one who was out of MJ's life in that hit song, and she was I assume well-acquainted with the departed Farrah Fawcett. After a decent interval passes, if it hasn't passed already in the ravening news cycle, I'm sure she'll have some stories to tell.)

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