Lucky Days Are Here Again

The independent feature Lucky Days had its New York premiere on Saturday afternoon at the Coney Island Film Festival. The auditorium was packed and amongst the audience was many of the film’s stars including Angelica Page Torn, Rip Torn, Luke Zarzecki, Federico Castelluccio, Marilyn Sokol, Tom Wolfe, and Gail Gerber (pictured below with Angelica Torn) who all came on stage to field questions from the audience afterwards.



Lucky Days is an entertaining comedy-drama slice of life beautifully filmed on location in Coney Island capturing the essence of the area as we know it now before real estate developers move in soon to change the landscape. Angelica Page Torn, who wrote the screenplay and co-directed with her brother Tony Torn, gives a tour-de-force performance as Virginia a sad thirtysomething woman trapped living with her needy mother (the hysterical Sokol) and drug-addled stripper sister (Tina Benko) with four daughters while hoping to finally receive an engagement ring after 18 years from her Italian boyfriend Vincent (Castelluccio who is excellent as the bullying goomba). But a fortuitous encounter with her childhood sweetheart (the charming Zarzecki), who wants to see his brother (Will Patton) a patient in the psyche ward where Virginia works, opens her eyes to discover the secreted truths about her pathetic family and the abusive two-timing Vincent during the last summer weekend in Coney Island.

Also in the cast are Anne Jackson miscast as Vincent’s disapproving mother, Tom Wolfe as one of the many Coney Island denizens who help hide Vincent’s cheating ways from Virginia, Gail Gerber delightful as a crazy patient infatuated with Patton, and Rip Torn in a cameo as Vincent’s put-upon father.

After the successful screening, some of the cast with friends strolled along the misty boardwalk heading to Tatiana Restaurant in Brighton Beach for a Russian dinner and to celebrate the excellent reaction the film received from the audience. For more information about Lucky Days, click here.

Pictured below: Gail Gerber with yours truly; and Rip Torn with Tom Wolfe.







All photos are by Ernie DeLia.