https://www.artsy.net/artist/andy-warhol

FILM 1584: THE DROP

TRIVIA: Last film appearance of James Gandolfini, he died one month after shooting had wrapped.

The film is based on the short story "Animal Rescue" by Dennis Lehane, from the collection Boston Noir.

The film is set in Brooklyn, New York and with American characters, but 3 of the 4 main actors are Europeans. Tom Hardy is British, Noomi Rapace is Swedish and Matthias Schoenaerts is Belgian. James Gandolfini is the only American among them.

Saint Rocco, whose statue in the church gives Bob the inspiration for his puppy's name, is a 14th century Italian Saint and is the patron saint of dogs. Part of the legend surrounding this Saint is of a dog who brought him food while he lay sick with the plague.

Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace went to a rescue center to prepare for their roles. Hardy did adopt a dog, a female pit-bull puppy, and took it to the set.

Sorry, I haven’t been posting recently; I’ve been on holiday for two weeks.  For my, wait for it.. 30^th birthday present, my parents paid for me to go to New York. And then off on a cruise to Boston and Portland in America, and St. Johns and Halifax in Canada.

BOOK 151: MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN: JONATHAN LETHEM

This book is a detective story set in Brooklyn and published in 1999. Lethem's protagonist, Lionel Essrog, has Tourette syndrome, a disorder marked by involuntary tics. Essrog works, along with Tony, Danny and Gilbert, who call themselves the Minna Men, for Frank Minna—a small-time neighborhood owner of a "seedy and makeshift" detective agency—who is stabbed to death.