Andre Opening

Recently, I watched "My Dinner with Andre" for the first time. It begins in the most promising way. The camera follows Wallace Shawn as he walks downtown, along Canal Street past the old electronics and junk shops, past vanished Pearl Paint.



He gets on the grubby old subway and heads uptown, all while voice-over narrating the daily challenges of the actor's life--no work, no money, just a mailbox full of bills and a lot of errands involving stationery and xerox shops.

Then he gets to the actual dinner with Andre and it's a different movie (the restaurant scene was filmed on a set in Richmond, Virginia), which is fine, but I found myself wishing the whole thing was more like the opening, which you can watch right here:




P.S. Here's what Pearl Paint looks like today--the sign has been completely removed:

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