Steven Piperno's closing song

This song rolls over the credits to our film. I threw together a little slideshow to go along with it.

Scene from the Movie - Driving Contest

Chelsea Handler of Livingston

On E!'s Chelsea Lately:

How New Jersey is viewed by America . . .

 . . . AND why I think the most underrated reasons people specify they are from SOUTH or CENTRAL or WEST Jersey is because of these:

I'm getting some North Jersey friends on this for some defense.

Have a good time down the shore this weekend!

Review: Real Housewives of New Jersey . . .

To find out more about the housewives, click here.

Civil War related divides . . .

New Jersey was once divided into East Jersey and West Jersey, as I have discussed here before. That eventually evolved into North and South Jersey. But in the early years of our republic, this divide was quite apparent when it came to slavery.

Taken from http://www.westjersey.org:

1) The slavery rates were much lower in South Jersey during the first three generations of the life of the nation (1790 to 1860). At the beginning of this period 92.6% of New Jersey's slaves were in the northern counties. By 1840 it was over 99%.

2) The 1860 popular vote for Lincoln in the Southern Counties as a whole was 55%, but was only 45% in the Northern Counties.

So although some people like to take the Mason Dixon Line and extend it across South Jersey, this early divide was really a kind-of-reverse Mason-Dixon Line.

Why was this? Too complicated, I would recommending further reading the linked westjersey.org site to get the answer.

But there will always be "Central" people trying to dispute that history. It all reminded me of the below clip, which inspired this post:

The above video takes about 4 seconds to begin playing.
The full above episode can be found at: http://www.hulu.com

Next screening: Hoboken Film Festival

We are very happy to announce that New Jersey: the Movie has been accepted to the 2009 Hoboken International Film Festival.  Details to come soon.

Totally off the radar, but of interest, an article that I read this morning has to do with the town of Baarle-Nassau/ Baarle-Hertog.  It lies within the boundaries of the Netherlands, but because of a history dating back to feudal customs of the Middle Ages, the borders of Belgium and the Netherlands zig-zag through the area.  It makes New Jersey's divide pale in comparison!  Many of the borders even go through houses and bedrooms!  Click on the picture to read the article.

The above video takes about 5 seconds before playing.

The School District Economic Factor Divide

New Jersey divides all of its municipalities that have public schools into, "New Jersey District Factor Groups."   The most wealthy towns get classified as: J, I, GH & FG and I have taken the top 4 and colored them GREEN.  The rest are categorized as DE, CD, B & A  and I have taken the bottom 4 and colored them RED.

I included sending districts into the elementary district bracket that the area is in cooperation with.  These factors change quite often, but I'm sure that I'm pretty accurate as of 2009.  

BTW - I went to middle & high school in a RED district. . . but do you see what I see?

Fred Armisen - time to ante up

In comedy, there are always safe bets.  Sometimes a comedian tries new material, and it bombs. For instance, talking about someone's race or a "too soon" joke may be risky.   But cracking on New Jersey?  It's an old forumla that continues to work well for Saturday Night Live:

I have written about these instances before. Read instance 1 and instance 2.  

It seems to me that the "safe comedic bet" continues to be the North Jersey Gateway Region Italian-American.  

Similar to how West Virginia gets stereotyped for being full of rednecks, New Jersey gets busted on for being mafiosos and guidos, not to mention some of the physical attributes like the turnpike and its environs. And in New Jersey: the Movie, we try to show that New Jersey is NOT just the opening scene of the Sopranos! 

However, I have friends that do embrace this stereotype.  They went to a high school packed with guidos and say simply, "That was MY New Jersey."  And they're damn proud Tony Soprano wandered around here. 

But for many New Jerseyans, that New Jersey is as foreign as Armisen's hometown on Long Island.

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Why is this relevant?  Well, The Real Housewives of New Jersey is going to be premiering on Bravo next month.  And with surnames like: Guidice, Laurita, & Manzo  - it will further cement this New Jersey stereotype to North America:

What is strange is that all the other housewives series were named after the county (Orange County) or the city (Atlanta, New York City).  

So why does Bravo lump a state together for the first time?  Why is ALL of New Jersey in the title when the series maybe should be called, "The Real Housewives of Bergen County?" 

Nothing against Bergen County, but even Bruce Willis and Jon Stewart acknowledged its uniqueness.  

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I think we need an apology for all of this.  Not so far as, Be Nice to New Jersey week; but something else.

Here is my proposition:

I have no doubt that Fred Armisen is the brains behind these writings on SNL.   He grew up somewhat locally and appeared in all 3 of the linked SNL skits above.  And I'm pretty sure you will see NJ parodied again on SNL  . . . once the housewives show hits the airwaves (and no doubt Armisen will be involved).  

So, I want Fred Armisen to ante up.  I would like to see him do some sort of apology to New Jersey on SNL.  For a state that has (rightly or wrongly) provided him with this bounty of jokes, it is the least he could do . . . seriously, Fred.

NJTM wins another award!

Thanks to all of you who drove down to Asbury Park for the Garden State Film Festival. Our film won the "Home Grown Award" for Short Documentary - Honorable Mention. You can see the list of winners here. Being that there were NO other Honorable Mentions awarded, we believe that we captured the fan vote.  So a special thanks to all of you!

"Central Jersey" Deleted scenes

Actually, one of these clips made the final cut, but that was it: