THE GRUNGY GALAS: Brooklyn Fetes the Oscars

While in Hollywood, glamorous stars in silken dresses feted the Oscars at champagne-drenched galas. In Brooklyn, movie snobs wandered over to their regular bars to guffaw at big screens. They hate this stuff; but they just have to watch.
On Bedford, three joints were offering drink specials and big screens while on Grand, Mulholland’s—a multi-screen sports bar—had rolled out a carpet of red construction paper. Down the street, even the grungy Trash Bar—known specifically for being un-glamorous—was already playing E! a full hour before the official red-carpet coverage was set to start. “I honestly love this stuff,” said Char Turrigiano, a Trash regular who was rooting for Slumdog Millionaire—the eventual winner. At Mullholland’s, aspiring screenwriter Scott Cavazos decried the whole charade. “Werner Herzog has not gotten a single Oscar for any documentary, and he’s only ever even sparsely considered,” Cavazos said, grimacing. Then there’s Scorcese: “He lost Taxi Driver to Rocky, Raging Bull to a Robert Redford movie.” And Aniston: “I want to kill Jennifer Aniston.”
To Brooklyn’s self-described unrecognized auteur, Cavazos pretty much sums it up: “The world is a large, uncaring place that has no room for talent in it,” he said. “So Mickey Rourke won’t win.”
Mickey Rourke did not win. And Jennifer Aniston, her skin aglow, her dress sparkling, is immortal.
In Greenpoint, the Black Rabbit Bar—which caters to fun-loving nerds with regular Bingo nights and Smiths-themed speed-dating—was throwing their second annual Oscar – Bingo night.
“The place is usually packed on a Sunday,” owner Kent Lanier said, looking around at empty stools, empty tables, and no one in the bar’s back room. “This actually kills us.” On a pulldown screen, Penelope Cruz was accepting her golden statuette for Best Supporting Actress and down the bar, Greenpoint resident Amanda Luginbill was, she admitted, “tearing up a little.” She and her friend Jen Nielsen had come out to have fun, and now they just had to watch the whole thing. At a table, five women were watching, rapt. Said Taylor Long, a Greenpoint transplant from Los Angeles, as she gazed at Jennifer Aniston: “I just love her dress.” A Williamsburg couple at the bar had come because “We don’t have a TV,” said Donna Noble, “And it’s impossible to download it; I tried.”
The real show was at Monkey Town, the Williamsburg restaurant with a $65 prix-fixe wine-pairing that caters to a gourmet palate; The Mako shark, octopus and shrimp ceviche would be served around the time that the best supporting actor trophy would come up. Here, diners lollygaged against all four walls on low settees facing one of the four jumbo screens on the wall. Here, what is shown is usually of the work of video artists or little known films. But for what he calls “Broadcast Days,” Monkey Town founder Montgomery Knott loves to project good old-fashioned American television. (He has done the Superbowl.) “Film matters a lot to me,” said Knott, who also works as a video artist. Yet he’s less interested in the winners than in the idea that the Oscars are what he described as “meta”—that by watching them, we are watching actors and actresses acting onstage. We see their reactions to their wins and losses, and we temper how genuine they are. The seating arrangement at the restaurant allows for a similar dynamic. Because audience members aren’t just facing a giant screen, but instead facing one another, “There’s a reverberation of reactions,” Knott said. “It cascades in that way.” Ipek Brooks and three of her friends—all of whom are musicians—had to get themselves excited, she said, “for a cheesy reason.” They were rooting for Wall-E. And everyone could tell.
At Spike Hill—the loud, crowded bar on Bedford’s densest block, Greenpoint neighbors Tanya Diaz and David Power had just come out to drink. “I can’t wait to not watch it,” said Diaz. “It’s a sideshow, a Botox fest.” Said Power, “It represents the worst character of our culture—the superficiality, the greed, the real lack of substance.”
Onscreen, stars sashayed through a sunny world. Here, in the dark, narrow bar, the world looked gloomy. “If you look at how things are represented in a Hollywood movie,” Power said, “No one lives that way…It’s a propaganda machine: You are sold a way of life. You think, ‘I’ll suffer for the here and now, and later really get what I deserve.’”
The recession isn’t good for his business—entertainment lighting—which depends on corporate gigs.
“This is a culture where everyone can be put at bay,” he said, “Because of what is largely an illusion.” Onscreen, the illusion was on and he was watching—if only out of the corner of his eye.