NOT TO BE MISSED SPECIAL COMING ATTRACTION: New Jersey International Film Festival at Rutgers University: Screening of Joe Basile’s first  film, “WEST END”  Voorhees Hall, Rutgers, New Brunswick, Friday June 6^th 2014 7 PM   By Calvin Schwartz      

To me, in my journalistic world here in central Jersey, I’m always looking for those events and happenings that have the power and magnetism to extricate me from my worn and tattered sedentary part metal sofa and to partake of life in the fullest. When those events materialize, I’m thrilled to report and promulgate them.  Going to a film festival at our State University of New Jersey, Rutgers, in the summer time to see Jersey film maker Joe Basile’s first film, about people and places right here at the Jersey shore is akin to extricative nirvana.

Nirvana I said. I’m thrilled about this event.  You should be too.  Get yourself on campus. Make a day of it.  Get to the Zimmerli Art Musuem, a short walk away from Voorhees. Have lunch or dinner before the movie. New Brunswick has dozens of college town ambiance restaurants and watering places. More nirvana for me; I met Joe Basile last year at the Garden State Film Festival. We talked for an hour; precious time.  I walked away thinking I had just been back to the future and spent the past hour with a young Sylvester Stallone. Joe is dynamic, dedicated, electrified and imbued with a passion for film making and storytelling.  I saw ‘West End’ that day; a riveting, exceptionally and surprisingly well done, wonderfully crafted story of a ‘special’ Jersey (mob) family but with a unique imaginative twist. I love creativity in plot; ‘West End’ delivered. I also love adrenaline stimulation; ‘West End’ delivered that too.  See you on campus on June 6^th.     Calvin Schwartz   5-19-14  1:11pm

For more information:   http://www.westendthemovie.com/

FILM FESTIVAL INFO:  http://www.njfilmfest.com/screening.html#info

FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE:  https://www.facebook.com/events/697700243623605/

STORY LINE:

“WEST END is HAMLET revisited, Jersey style.

It’s been over ten years since Vic Trevi has been home, back to the Jersey Shore. Vic ran away to escape the embarrassment of being a Trevi. It’s not an ideal place to grow up when your mobster father is convicted of racketeering and sent to jail and your name is smeared all over the news.

After his father was sent to jail, Vic’s father’s brother JOHN raised him like his own. Uncle John put Vic through college, through law school – no questions asked. Vic left and never looked back.

Vic returns to Jersey days after his father has been murdered, a mob hit. As much as home seems the same, things have changed. Uncle John now rules the family that once belonged to his father. Vic’s best friend, ANGELO “BUDDY” BUCCELLATO, is married to Vic’s high school sweetheart, LAUREN McKINN. The one thing that hasn’t changed, Vic’s strained relationship with his mother, MARY.

Now, standing on the boardwalk of Seaside Heights, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean, Vic wonders if coming home was the right choice.

There are so many questions that still haunt Vic about his father and family. Will he be able to forgive his mother? Will he reestablish the bond with his Uncle John that was formed after his father went to jail? More importantly – will he find any clues to his father’s murder?

Vic needs to find out the truth about his family before his family finds the truth out about him. Vic is an undercover FBI agent positioned to go against the people he calls family. He’s caught between the age-old struggle between duty to the law and duty to the people he calls family.

As Vic digs deeper, he unearths secrets about his father, mother, uncle, and friends that will change all of their lives forever.”

SCHEDULE FOR JUNE 6TH!!!!!!!!!!

Friday-June 6-Voorhees Hall #105-7PM $10; $9; $8

Free Food courtesy of Jimmy Johns will be given out prior to this screening of the New Jersey Film Festival!

Coney Island Dreams – Andrew Serban (New York, New York)
Maggie is a troubled young immigrant who is at the end of her rope. Desperate to return to her native Ireland, she meets with a mysterious and vaguely sinister older man named Enzo, who offers to pay her plane fare in exchange for one last job: she must lure a young man to a deserted Coney Island street. . . 2014; 24 min. With an introduction and Q+A session by Director Andrew Serban! 

West End – Joe Basile (Los Angeles, California) 

Returning home to the Jersey Shore, after years of absence, Vic Trevi is an undercover FBI agent positioned to go against the people he calls family. Long ashamed of their mafia ties, he now must find the killer who murdered his father. Caught between the age-old struggle of duty to the law versus duty to family, he embarks on an increasingly desperate search to find the truth before his family finds the truth about him. 2013; 86 min. With an introduction and Q+A session by Director Joe Basile!