MOVIES
Stephon Marbury and family pose for a photo at the red
carpet premier of A Kid From Coney Island at BAM.
Brooklyn Paper’s essential guide to the Borough of Kings March 20–26, 2020 Coney hoop dreams
By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
A new documentary depicts
the extraordinary rise of
Brooklyn-born basketball
legend Stephon Marbury, tracing
his career back to his roots as an
up-and-coming athletic phenom
at southern Brooklyn’s Abraham
Lincoln High School.
“A Kid from Coney Island”
premiered at BAM on March 6
with a star-studded lineup of
NBA players and movie stars
— from Kevin Durant to Forest
Whittaker — coming to pay
tribute to Marbury, who spent
large portions of his illustrious
career with both the Knicks and
Nets.
The documentary features interviews
with family, friends,
fellow players, and journalists
who paint a behind-the-scenes
look at Marbury’s upbringing
in the neighborhood during a
time of high street crime in the
borough.
“This brother never had an
emotional break in his life,” says
veteran sports reporter Stephen
A. Smith.
But directors Coodie Simmons
and Chike Ozah manage
to tell the story of Marbury’s ascent
out of Coney Island to the
top of NBA stardom — with all
the gritty obstacles the young
Brooklynite overcame during
his rise.
In 1998, Spike Lee directed
“He Got Game,” a movie about
a fictionalized young man who
came out of Coney Island’s Abraham
Lincoln High School to
make it to the NBA— with Lee
attributing Marbury as a large
inspiration for the film.
But Marbury would later go on
to become something of an antihero
during his Knicks years,
often feuding publicly with his
teammates and coaches, which
lead to his dwindling popularity
and earning him the title of “most
reviled athlete in New York” from
the Daily News sports desk.
By 2010, Marbury had fallen
out of the league entirely — signing
with the Shanxi Zhongyu
Brave Dragons of the Chinese
Basketball Association. He would
go on to win three championships
with the Beijing Ducks before
retiring in 2017.
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By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
An abundance of caution due to the spread
of COVID-19 has caused a massive
amount of Brooklyn events to be canceled
— so we’ve compiled a master-list
of Brooklyn-based television shows you
can watch while cooped up inside for the
immediate future.
High Maintenance
Since its premiere as a web series in
2012, “High Maintenance” has strived to
represent the “new” Brooklyn through all its
strange highs and lows, following a bicycle
riding weed dealer known as “the guy” as
he services an ensemble of stressed-out New
Yorkers. Each episode serves as a standalone
look into his clients lives, watching as
they navigate romance, artistic struggles,
and the weirdness of urban living.
High Maintenance: Available on Hulu,
Amazon Prime, and HBO Go.
High Fidelity
Zoe Kravitz takes the reins from John
Cusack in this 2020 remake of the 2000
cult classic, starring as a lovelorn record
store owner and music obsessive in Crown
Heights. Kravitz employs an effortless cool
as she floats through the life of a seemingly
successful record store owner, with
a Brooklyn apartment overflowing with
records and her two best friends in her
employ, but is unable to get over the guy
who dumped her a year ago, making for
classic romantic-comedy material with a
Brooklyn background.
High Fidelity: Available on Hulu.
All Hail Beth
For a truly local production, “All Hail
Beth” from Downtown arts organization
Bric follows a depressed Brooklynite who
wakes up one day as the Babylonian goddess
Ishtar, prompting those who had ignored
her in the past to shower with gifts
and adorations. Much of the show is filmed
on the photogenic streets of Dumbo and
the less commonly seen streets of Bay
Ridge, offering two very different views
of Brooklyn.
All Hail Beth: Available on Youtube.
She’s Gotta Have It
Spike Lee resurrected his 1986 film of
the same name with a Netflix series that
brings the same characters from Lee’s first
feature and drops them into modern-day
Brooklyn, where Fort Greene artist Nola
Darling struggles to choose between her
three lovers while maintaining a commitment
to her art. Much of the show was shot
in Lee’s hometown Fort Greene, and the
director even fooled locals into thinking a
long-shuttered park on Lafayette Avenue
was reopening when he left the gates open
after filming part of the show there.
She’s Gotta Have it: Available on Netflix.
Bored to Death
A quintessential Brooklyn series that
met its fate far too early, “Bored to Death”
follows Brooklyn author Jonathan Ames
(Jason Schwartzman) as he sets out to become
a private detective while between
books. Along with his editor (Ted Danson)
and friend (Zach Galifianakis), Ames tackles
wacky cases and navigates the world
of the literati from his apartment in the
clock tower of the Williamsburg Savings
Bank building — with a background of
Fort Greene brownstones and stroller-filled
coffee shops before they were a common
sight on the airwaves. The show was so beloved
by Brooklynites during its short time
on air that its abrupt cancellation by HBO
inspired a funeral procession of hundreds
to descend upon Boerum Hill’s Brooklyn
Inn to mourn alongside the shows creator
in 2011.
Bored to Death: Available on Amazon
Prime and HBO Go.
Wyatt Cenac’s ‘Brooklyn’
The former “Daily Show” correspondent
and stand-up comedian has Brooklyn all
over everything he does — including the
stand-up special aptly named “Brooklyn”
where the stand-up, who spent summers
growing up living with his grandmother
in Crown Heights, muses on the state of
the borough in 2014, as Kings County was
undergoing dramatic changes, touching
on gentrification, mayonnaise shops, and
the Barclays Center. Cenac also hosted
a weekly comedy series at Littlefield in
Gowanus dubbed “Night Train, which was
turned into a six-episode mini-series.
Brooklyn: Available on Netflix. Night
Train: Available on Starz.
Forgiving audience
By Amalia Arms
for Brooklyn Paper
Anything is paw-sible at the
Brooklyn Public Library!
On Saturday, children
between the ages of 5 and 12
were invited to read to Angel
the therapy dog at the library’s
Central Branch.
The program, which gives
children an opportunity to build
self-esteem while gaining confidence
in their reading skills,
has been offered monthly at the
branch since its 2018 debut.
“A therapy dog provides a relaxing,
non-judgemental audience
that allows children to feel
free to practice reading out loud,”
said one librarian.
The event usually takes place
for an hour on the first Saturday
of every month, with six 10-minute
time slots up for grabs. During
each session, a child reads
a book of their choice to Angel
with the help of the dog’s owner,
Elizabeth Campos.
Fritzi Bodenheimer, a library
spokesperson, believes the popular
program is a good way to get
children interested in reading.
“The dog is sweet and cute,
so it’s a nice way for children to
have a positive experience with
reading, which is what the library
is all about,” she said.
FEEL-GOOD
Brooklyn-based shows to stream while locked in your apartment Inside voices
Doc tracks NBA legend Marbury
Therapy dog helps kids to read
Photo by Derrick Watterson
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Luna Anderson reads to Angel the therapy dog.
Photo by By Corazon Aguirre
Phillip Caruso/Hulu
Location, location, location: (Top)
Zoë Kravitz and Simon David H. Holmes
in “High Fidelity.” (Above) Ben
Sinclair as “the guy” in High Maintenance.
Photo by Courtesy HBO
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