Share
'I Like Killing Flies'
Rob Nelson
Tuesday, July 18th 2006
"Postmodern pancakes" won't go out of style anytime soon and neither will this endearingly cockeyed portrait, albeit four years old, of Shopsin's, the venerable West Village greasy spoon–cum–fusion haven (900 menu items!) that for decades has been owned and operated by head chef/resident philosopher and world-class crank Kenny Shopsin. Shot in the summer after Calvin Trillin's 4,000-word New Yorker ode brought a new set of customers for Shopsin to bully back to the curb, I Like Killing Flies does as much as any movie could to humanize the R. Crumb of restaurateurs. "They have to prove it to me that they're OK to feed," he says of first-time visitors to the joint. The doc follows Shopsin's begrudging move from Bedford Street to Carmine Street, no more than a storefront or two from the gen- try's grip, and paints his resistance to every variety of bourgeois etiquette as heroism—even or especially when his food prep and his fly-killing are both done by hand. As directed in aptly unfussy fashion by music- video vet Matt Mahurin, the movie itself is a curiously tasty dish, one that could leave even a vegan with a burning desire to sample Shopsin's lamb chops.
Recent Articles
More by Rob Nelson
The Bothersome Man
Surge This
Breaking out of the Iraq doc pack, No End in Sight devastates
Save Darfur?
War, slaughter, genocide—and you feel like seeing a movie?
Analog Hero for the Digital Age
With the Mac kid at his side, John McClane is back and he's just . . . too old
The Zeitgeist Made 'Em Do It
Queens splatterfest takes horror, then and now, seriously
Site Search «
Most Popular
-
Michael Jackson: The Man in Our Mirror Black America's eulogies for the King of Pop also let us resurrect his best self
-
The Queer Issue: Rachel Maddow, the New Sexy The Butch is back, with a poster girl
- An Unlikely Rescuer from the Jaws of Debt
-
The Queer Issue: The Rise of Rentboys Hustling goes legit
-
The Next Frontier of the Stem Cell Debate "Snowflake" babies, embryo "adoption," and being pre-born again
| buy, sell, trade 12,221 | musician 3,635 |
| rentals 19,079 | jobs 2,483 |
| adult entertainment 28,532 | |
| classifieds | backpage.com | Post ads for free! | |
|---|---|