Laura DuBois, John Snyder, director Jack Bryan and PD
Over the weekend, my pal Jack Bryan, a fellow native New Yorker and Buckley boy, screened his dark, gripping indie-noir The Living. I’ve seen the film a few times (it’s that good) and the theater was packed with fans and friends and fabulous people like his sister, Alexis Bryan Morgan, and her husband, writer, Spencer Morgan. “Since I was about 12 years old, I’ve dreamed of looking up at a New York marquee and seeing my movie playing there,” Jack told me outside the theater on 12th Street. “It was one of my ‘someday’ fantasies that carried me through high school and college. Given how few films in our budget range make it to theaters anywhere, the response in general has been truly surreal. It makes you feel simultaneously proud, humble, ambitious, and accountable. It’s what I imagine if feels like to get a hit from your first swing at bat in the majors.”
Apres-movie, everyone walked to No. 8 for the after-party which was sponsored by Blackmagic Design and Blue Chair Bay Rum. The New York Observer sex columnist Jasmine Lobe arrived with fashion plate Kate Krone, who wore a vintage Margiela dress with detachable arms. Tabitha Simmons danced upstairs to Nirvana and musician John MacCallum of the band The Henry Millers sat in a front booth on the main floor near producer Laura DuBois and John Snyder.
NYC nightlife plays a big role in Bryan’s next film, Private Kingdom, which starts shooting all over the city next fall. Racing from over-the-top, decadent nightclubs to secret brothels to outlaw Brooklyn parties, Private Kingdom will look nothing like the stark terrain of The Living. “I’m not interested in making the same movie over and over again,” Jack said. “If The Living is a blues song, Private Kingdom is Ragtime. It’s going to be wild.”
The Living is playing through Thursday at Cinema Village.
