By JOHN T. WARD

A prominent space on White Street in Red Bank is available for rent with the planned departure of a furniture and design store.

And stay tuned for some possible changes just down the block at Clearview Cinemas, which is up for sale with the rest of the arthouse chain, according to reports.

Cablevision has put its Clearview chain of arthouse theaters on the block. (Click to enlarge)

Both properties are under the ownership umbrella of Philip J. Bowers & Company, based in Tinton Falls.

At 24 White, Space Interiors is planning to relocate to Deal, having been the sole tenant of the refurbished corner of English Plaza for 14 years, owner Briggi Brandner tells redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.

“We’re not going out of business, we’re just moving,” Brandner said. She’s already shut down a second store at Pier Village in Long Branch for consolidation at the Deal location, which she said is three times as large as the Red Bank one.

Landlord John Bowers said there’s 2,000 square feet of space with display frontage on two sides. He says Space still has a lease and will remain until he finds a new tenant or the lease runs out. Brandner said that could mean Space sticks around for months more.

Bowers wasn’t aware until we told him that the 49-theater Clearview chain was on the block, as reported recently by Variety and other publications. But he’s not worried about losing the theater as a tenant.

“It’s one of the most successful in the chain, and I would imagine whoever bought it would keep the most successful ones,” he said.

Jewels given by Michael Jackson to Elizabeth Taylor are on display in Red Bank for the next three weeks. (Click to enlarge)

By DANIELLE TEPPER

She was a silver-screen goddess with a taste for bling. He was a global pop-music phenom who, well, wore a jewel-encrusted glove as a trademark.

Now through May 13, movie and fashion fans can hold in their hands a piece of Hollywood history that connected them: Elizabeth Taylor’s iconic “monkey necklace,” a gift from her friend and fellow artist Michael Jackson.

The set has found a temporary home at Leonardo Jewelers on East Front Street in Red Bank.

The necklace and matching earrings are encrusted in diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, and filled with delightful details, as in the way the emeralds have been carved into small leaves, the clasp is a gold pineapple, and the monkeys’ faces have perfect, tiny smiles.

The exotic set was designed by Baron Enrico “Ricky” di Portanova – a jet-setter who once described the best things in life as “sun, sex and spaghetti”   – for his wife, Baroness Sandra di Portanova, Leonardo partner Michael Zeik tells redbankgreen.  After their deaths, the set was sold at auction by Christie’s, and eventually ended up with Jackson, who gave it to Taylor.

The price he paid is a mystery, but the set went for $260,000 as part of a Christie’s auction of Taylor’s jewelry in December, according to one report.

But “it’s not about that,” said Zeik. “You need to know that kind of thing if you were to try to sell it, but that’s not what we’re doing with it. This is an investment piece. The craftsmanship is beautiful and you have two national cultural characters attached to it, both of whom are now deceased. Everything about it is phenomenal.”

Customers are invited to look at, touch, photograph and even try on the baubles, said Zeik.

So how did Leonardo come to get it?

Well, it’s not exactly unprecedented, as Taylor’s jewelry seems to get around. Hamilton Jewelers on Broad Street in Red Bank late last year displayed two Taylor-owned pieces purchased by a store client at auction  from Christie’s, which had previously put her collection on tour. Earth Treasures, a jewelry store reopening next week in Eatontown, is advertising a display of “some of Elizabeth Taylor’s jewelry.”

In this case, Leonardo has partner that is “one of the largest purveyors of estate jewelry in the country,” said Zeik. “Now, when we offer estate, we’re talking about some real spectacular pieces. When we do estate, we don’t want to do it just halfway.”

“We hate the ‘sea of sameness’ you find in most stores. Everybody’s got the same bracelet, the same necklace. That’s why we got involved in estate, to set ourselves apart. We figured this would be a great way to let our customers do something they can’t do anywhere else.”

OK, we’ll bite.

The folks behind a new Ewan MacGregor film called ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen‘ are giving away free passes to first-night screenings across the U.S.

One of moviehouses at which the film will be shown is the two-screen Clearview Cinemas on White Street in Red Bank. And 50 freebies are up for grabs to redbankgreen readers.

The PG-13 film, by director Lasse Hallström, also stars Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas, and comes with this log line:

A fisheries expert is approached by a consultant to help realize a sheik’s vision of bringing the sport of fly-fishing to the desert and embarks on an upstream journey of faith and fish to prove the impossible possible.

The screening is scheduled for Thursday, March 22 at 7 p.m. To get the ducats, go here, and enter the code WOMNY6JY8. (You’ll be asked to give a name, email address and, for some reason, “ethnicity,” though you can decline to answer that one.) Limit two per customer.

Michael Zapcic with Thomas Mumme, left, during Thursday’s live ‘SModcast’ at Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. Below: Kevin Smith on the center monitor during a taping earlier this week in Red Bank. (Photo below courtesy of Robert Bruce. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Michael Zapcic had the “really surreal” experience earlier this week of walking past Madison Square Garden, glancing up at the massive Jumbotron and seeing a commercial for ‘Comic Book Men,’ a new cable show in which he appears as himself: a self-described comic book geek.

“I’m like holy crap! It’s them! It’s us!” he recalled Thursday, in the tone of an average, fedora-wearing citizen spotting a caped man flying overhead.

Life in the mini-Gotham that is Red Bank may never be the same.

Only, yeah, it will be exactly the same, because ‘Comic Book Men’ is a reality show, one focused on the daily interplay of three employees of  “possibly the world’s most famous comic book store” – Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash on Broad Street, where the show is set.

Over six episodes, four opinionated, superabsorbent sponges of superheroism – Zapcic, Ming Chen and Walt Flanagan, plus original store manager Bryan Johnson – spend a lot of time  “just arguing about stupid movie plot points, which happens every day without cameras anyway,” says Chen.

Ming Chen mans the mic. The podcasts have a prominent role in ‘Comic Book Men.’ (Click to enlarge)

The show is the brainchild of Middletown-raised filmmaker Kevin Smith, who owns the 15-year-old store and participates in each show during podcasts – known in the sprawling Smithian ‘smerchandise’ empire as ‘SModcasts’ – that bookend each episode.

The SModcasts, normally taped in the store at a poker table strewn with Surf Taco crumbs, were recorded on a specially built set elsewhere in Red Bank in recent months.

There’s also lots of interaction with customers, some of them from overseas, looking to buy and sell comic books, toys and tchotchkes.

Red Bank resident and sage “pop culturist” Robert Bruce is in it, too, offering an appraising eye for rarities: comic books, action figures, toys and more.

“His focus is on the most obscure things in the world,” says Zapcic, who apparently butts heads with Bruce in the show, as in real life.

At some point, a faux Batmobile is expected to pop up, too.

It’s basically a “character-driven show,” Zapcic said during a redbankgreen interview that doubled as a SModcast Thursday. “The producers “basically pointed the cameras at us and said, ‘be funny.’”

The Stash staffers own up to being totally amped about their debut Sunday night: Ming says he’s had trouble sleeping. But what excites him most, he said, is that the natural comedic chemistry of his colleagues Flanagan and Johnson will finally be on display for all Gothamites to enjoy.

“These two guys are so damn funny, and without even meaning to be,” said Zapcic.

“That’s the key part. They’re not trying,” Ming said.

AMC, home of ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Breaking Bad‘ and ‘The Walking Dead,’ launches the series at 10 p.m. Sunday.

For more about both the store and the show, tune into redbankgreen‘s ‘smodcast’ interview of Chen and Zapcic here. Click on ‘Smodco Morning Show #80.’

By JOHN T. WARD

Jim Carroll had just pulled his car out of his Middletown garage when a neighbor drove by, shouting in his direction, “One point twenty-one jiggawatts!”

It’s the kind of thing you get when you own a stainless steel vehicle outfitted with a nuclear reactor for power and a flux capacitor for time travel.

Carroll, a 30-year-old engineer of fire suppression systems, is – you won’t be surprised to learn – an over-the-top fan of the film, “Back to the Future.” It’s a story in which a souped-up, gull-wing DeLorean serves as a time machine, requiring 1.21 gigawatts of juice and 88 miles-per-hour of velocity to launch occupants into a different historical era.

Carroll, a lifelong township resident who discovered his favorite movie through a sequel, saved up his money and bought his DeLorean for “a decent price” – $18,000 – when he turned 17 years old.

“It was basically perfect,” he tells redbankgreen.

Now married, a homeowner and running the North Jersey-based company started by his father, Carroll decided a few months back that it was time to crank up his plain-Jane DeLorean for excursions through time.

From Video Bob, a BTTF enthusiast in Dallas who has made authorized plaster casts of the parts used on the car in the film, Carroll procured a carload of accoutrements: time circuits, a nuclear tower that resembles an oversized kitchen blender, exterior lights that snake around the car like neon pythons.

“He created this for me,” Carroll says of the collection, which is almost entirely decorative and non-functional.

That set him back another $35k, which Carroll considers a bargain. “But I didn’t get the fog machine” that spews fog through faux exhaust structures on the tail, Caroll said. He figured that was just too much.

Carroll says his is one of only nine BTTF replica cars in America, and the only one in the Northeast. It’s also street legal, and with just 130 horses under the hood, not as fast as many observers, including cops, seem to think, he said.

He plans to rent his out for use in promotions and special events, and said he’s close to a deal with a local man who wants to use it in his wedding in July. But the aim is not to recoup his costs, but just to enjoy the reactions he gets, Carroll said.

“We went to the diner yesterday, and it took us half an hour to leave the parking lot,” he said. “The best part is just seeing people’s faces. It’s like they’re kids again.”

Here’s his website.

They say that whenever someone encounters the story of George Bailey and his magical Christmas Eve for the first time, an angel gets his wings, if not a royalty check.

Following a weekend in which the Tower Players at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional presented a fully staged adaptation of this American favorite — and the Stone Church Players of Navesink performed a “radio play” version of same — Middletown Main Library takes it back to the essentials, with a free screening of the 1946 Frank Capra classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” to inaugurate a Monday Movies holiday series for December.

Also in the series: Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights (2002) December 12 and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (2003) December 19, all at 2:30pm.

Middletown Township Public Library, 55 New Monmouth Road, Middletown • 2:30pm/ FREE

Cast members of NOTHING FOR CHRISTMAS, director Sean Guess’s indie feature film that returns to Clearview Cinemas on White Street for two showings Thursday.

Stroll past Red Bank’s Clearview Cinemas, and you’d take the slickly designed, professional-looking poster for any of the many Oscar hopefuls, festival favorites and international delights that regularly play the art house.

Take a closer look, though, and you might notice that Nothing for Christmas is an offering that’s unique to the local multiplex landscape — an uber-indie, locally shot feature film that’s written, produced, directed and edited by Shore area auteur Sean Guess.

A native of Ocean Township — and, like many of the folks who’ve brought you redbankgreen, a veteran of what was once called the newspaper industry — the prolific filmmaker has made the White Street screening space his venue of choice for “world premiere” events dating back to his first completed endeavor, 2004′s Cut.

Guess sold out the house with a combination of “good press and great promotion” for that one, and subsequent efforts like At the Movies (2007) and Fans Anonymous (2008) became highly anticipated draws, far beyond what might be expected of a low-budget artist who refused to work the usual “zombies and more zombies” side of the street.

Shot in locations around coastal Monmouth County with a cast of regional actors, 2010′s Christmas presents a “delightful and heartwarming” seriocomic story of “community, friendship and the magic of the holidays” in the age of downsizing, foreclosure and crises of faith.

It’s all centered around the unlikely bond between a holiday-hating Catholic teenager (Mackenzie English) and an understanding rabbi (Stewart Schneck), and it’s on the big screen for one night only, with showtimes at 7 and 9pm. Purchase tickets ($10) by email at smguess@aol.com or at the door — and check Gary Wien’s website New Jersey Stage for an interview with Guess on his current work in progress, Asbury Park USA (a trailer for which is due to roll prior to Thursday’s screenings).

Clearview Cinemas, 35 White St., Red Bank • 7pm, 9pm/ $10

Eight-year-old Andrea John introduces herself to Mary Faith Chmiel at a meet-the-director event held at the library earlier this month. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Book-loving Red Bankers of a certain vintage may experience a bit of deja vu when visiting the public library these days: it seems the institution’s new director looks a lot like the woman who owned a long-departed downtown used bookstore, Twice Sold Tales.

That’s because, of course, the two women are one and the same: Mary Faith Chmiel.

Chmiel, 57, of Tinton Falls, returned to town after a dozen years absence, this time taking up working residence among the racks on West Front Street, her bookstore having given way to a Starbucks early in the days of the first Internet browser. She was hired as the library’s new director in October, replacing Deborah Griffin-Sadel, who departed under unexplained circumstances in January.

redbankgreen pulled Chmiel aside for a quickie interview during a meet-the-director event hosted by the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library earlier this month.

redbankgreen: When was Twice Sold Tales in Red Bank?

Chmiel: From 1983 to 1995. It started as a used bookstore, but as bookstores went away, I started to get a little into new books.

redbankgreen: From there you went into the library field?

Chmiel: Yes, I got my degree in library science from Rutgers and spent 12 years in Spotswood. But first I spent about a year and a half with three part-time library jobs: Monmouth County, Brookdale and here.

redbankgreen: What does it mean to you to be back here?

Chmiel: It means a lot. To me, it’s like coming home. It was my hometown library for 20 years when I lived in Red Bank, and it’s really fabulous to be back here.

redbankgreen: So you spent 12 years at the bookstore, 12 years in Spotswood. Does that mean you’ll be here for another 12?

Chmiel: Wouldn’t that be great? Yeah. There’s a lot to do here, there’s a lot of opportunity here, there’s a really rich and exciting community, and it would be wonderful to make our library as rich and as exciting as the rest of the community.

redbankgreen: In the 12 years or so that you’ve been in the library field, we’ve seen the ascendance of the Internet, and a lot of people are wondering, ‘What’s the point of a library?” What is the point of a library nowadays?

Chmiel: Well, I think if you look around, you’ll see that it brings together a community of people who don’t need to spend their entire lives looking at a screen. People come to us to access screens, but I think a library is also about community, it’s about sharing, it’s about your book club, it’s a place for people to get together and share whatever it is they have to share.

redbankgreen: Do you envision that the digital world will eclipse the printed world? And will libraries have a place in it?

Chmiel: I think that there will always be a place for print. I think there’s a lot to be said for digital: we have two Nooks here, we have an iPad, and I think that’s all important. But I don’t think it will necessarily supplant the printed book, no matter your age, because there’s still something about sitting with a child and a picture book and turning the page and having each page be a new surprise. It’s not quite the same on the screen.

redbankgreen: What do you see as the big challenges for this library in particular?

Chmiel: We definitely want to bring more children into the library. We have story times, we want more people bringing their children in for those. We want more young adults – YAs. And we want people to know that we’re not just books. I’m working really hard and refreshing our collection, because the collection had gotten really dated. So I want people to know that there are exciting new elements to our collection, but that we’re not just about books, either.

redbankgreen: Are you doing anything in particular to reach out to the Hispanic community?

Chmiel: That is definitely one of our goals. We have a Spanish collection, but I want to build it up a little bit more. We want to do more outreach to the Spanish-speaking community with our bilingual storytime program, which has kind of fallen by the wayside because we don’t have a bilingual member on staff right now, but that would probably be something we’d want to pursue in the future. We can also show Spanish-language movies, and that’s another thing we’d like to do as well.

redbankgreen: Is there anything on the horizon with regard to capital programs?

Chmiel: I don’t think so. We’ve moved our New Jersey collection upstairs; it’s now in a locked room. So we’ll be able to do things with the front room, which is just gorgeous. I’d really like to make that a quiet reading room that people can just go in there with their laptops or books and enjoy the quiet on either side of the fireplace. So there are some things that involve a little bit of funding, but mostly, it’s just using our own creativity.

redbankgreen: Speaking of funding, I understand you’re sitting on a big bundle of cash.

Chmiel: (Laughing) Me, personally? Wouldn’t that be wonderful.

It’s an unfounded rumor. The library does have some endowment funds, but they are not astronomical. It’s not inappropriate that we have those. They were set aside for particular things, not for the general operation of the library, which is still the municipality’s responsibility. They’re set aside for things like the children’s room, for programs. There are two other endownments and I’m not sure of their purpose, but they were not meant for the day-to-day operation. They’re meant to enhance the mission of the library.

Alec Baldwin and Michael Cumpsty (right) join Two River Theater artistic director John Dias (left) for an “unscripted and unrehearsed” UNPLUGGED fundraiser at the Bridge Avenue artspace Monday night.

By TOM CHESEK

According to Alec Baldwin, there’s a certain comfort to be found in the eight-shows-a-week Broadway grind, in that “at 8pm I know exactly where I’ll be, who I’ll be with, and what I’ll say.”

As for an admittedly “confessional” Michael Cumpsty, the British-born actor allowed that “I feel more myself when I’m playing someone else.”

The two stage veterans were in a casually confessional mood on Monday night — with several hundred eavesdroppers listening in on the unscripted and unrehearsed conversation — as Two River Theater hosted a full house for an intimate evening of scenes and stories presented under the name Baldwin. Cumpsty. Unplugged.

The one-nighter — a fundraiser for Two River Theater Company and its various educational and community outreach endeavors — was moderated by TRTC artistic director John Dias, who took the stage and introduced the guests of honor as “two extraordinary artists… these two guys are big fans of each other.”

Dias, who shares a Middletown home with Cumpsty, recalled having first seen the Tony nominated star of Broadway’s 1776, 42nd Street and Sunday in the Park with George in a production of The Heiress — and reminisced about working closely with Baldwin at NYC’s Public Theater, where the producer and star collaborated on a staging of what could only be referred to as “The Scottish Play” (the three onstage principals remained mostly mindful of the longstanding theatrical superstition regarding the name-checking of that bloody Shakespearean tragedy).

“Alec changed my world when he played Stanley,” said Dias, referring to Baldwin’s Tony-lauded turn in the 1990s revival of A Streetcar Named Desire — a topic that produced some vivid recollections from the instantly recognizable star of films, TV shows and Capital One commercials.

Appearing sans necktie or neatly combed hair, Baldwin (who previously starred in a 2009 fundraiser for the nonprofit Junior League of Monmouth County at Two River) brought his comic people skills to the fore, regaling the crowd with often hilarious anecdotes on his many Hollywood and Broadway projects, mock-dismissing questions on his political aspirations, and bringing down the house with his impressions of Al Pacino and a dead-on Tony Bennett.

While professing his love for falling-over-the-couch slapstick comedy, an initially reserved Cumpsty (“I’ve never done this before”) soon got into the rhythm of the occasion, exchanging fun stories with Baldwin on projects ranging from soap operas to Star Trek to Saturday Night Live — although Cumpsty remains “sworn to secrecy” regarding his role in the current season of Boardwalk Empire.

The guests shared some serious insights as well on the subject of stage acting, a craft about which Shakespeare specialist Cumpsty opined, “it’s brand new every time you do it — just electric.”

“It’s like hockey,” said Baldwin of the importance of learning Shakespeare, “where you have to master one skill — being a world-class skater — FIRST, before you play the game.”

“First, the play is doing YOU,” Baldwin continued. “Then there’s a chiropractic shift, and YOU are doing the play.”

Although the actors — who kept the stories and audience Q&A going long past the event’s scheduled running time — didn’t get to as many of the scene readings as were initially planned, Cumpsty (who starred in the TRTC season opener production of Much Ado About Nothing) illuminated a pair of favorite soliloquies from Hamlet, the role for which he won an Obie award, and which he called “the top of the mountain… the best role, in the best play, and very daunting.”

Revisiting the work of Tennessee Williams, Baldwin (whose most famous character speech remains this David Mamet quotable classic) presented an unusual choice — a moving monologue on death, delivered by the female character Hannah in Night of the Iguana.

The 8pm presentation, which was preceded by a VIP meet-and-greet reception in the  theater lobby, was adjourned as it approached the two hour mark by Dias — with Baldwin contributing an all-kidding-aside closing statement on the importance of supporting cultural institutions like TRTC and its branded Bridge Avenue artspace.

The Two River stage lights up again in December, for the company’s annual holiday season family show, HONK! The Musical. Take it here to reserve tix for this and other season offerings (as well as a recently added concert by Aimee Mann on January 13, 2012).

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

While Adam Sobel waits to learn if he’ll be permitted to operate his four-wheeled business in Red Bank on a regular basis, he’ll have his Cinammon Snail mobile food truck downtown for at least a couple of hours Thursday night for a down-to-earth dinner and a movie.

Along with vegan-friendly comrades Patti Siciliano of Funk & Standard, Gail Doherty and Tiffany Betts of Good Karma Café and others, Sobel is taking part in an evening focused on the health benefits of eating the un-American way: organically.

The night revolves around the indie documentary Forks Over Knives, which features T. Colin Campbell, a nutrition researcher at Cornell University who believes degenerative diseases can be prevented, and in some cases reversed, by adopting a “whole foods, plant-based diet.”

Or, as Siciliano, a converted vegan who recently opened an organic juice bar in her Broad Street business, says, “just don’t eat garbage.”

The night is one meant for awareness, as well as for exposing palates to something new, Siciliano said.

From 6 to 7 p.m., Cinnamon Snail, Good Karma and others will offer vegan tapas on White Street outside Clearview Cinemas, followed by a sold-out showing of Forks Over Knives. Siciliano wrangled Campbell into making the trip to Red Bank for a Q&A afterward, from 8:30 to 9:15.

The documentary will screen again at 9:30, and tickets are still available.

Sobel, of Chestnut Street, has temporary permission to park his food truck outside the theater to plate up his lauded vegan offerings, the first time he’s gotten a borough OK to do so. His weekly appearances at the Red Bank Farmers Market don’t require government approval because they’re on provate property, at The Galleria.

Meanwhile, discussions about allowing a mobile vendor to park in town have stalled, he said.

“The council has dragged their feet for so long about it, and I’m halfway through this season,” he said. “It seems like they shuffled things around and wasted time that I can’t do it this year. It’s just become like the community garden or other issues in this community.”

This will be the rare time Sobel and fellow health food advocates can make a push to the general public on the benefits of vegan diets.

Siciliano, who converted to veganism a few years ago, said the event is sure to be eye-opening. If you can’t catch the movie, she said, you might just give the food a shot.

“I’ve walked on both sides. I firmly believe you are what you eat,” she said. “Being proactive is key, and I think we can start by looking at ourselves in the mirror.”