THE FUSE

Once upon a time in the Lower East Side… a writer-director frustrated with the Hollywood waiting game started shooting a scrappy indie film in his neighborhood. The story revolved around a seen-it-all narrator who talked like he stepped out of a dimestore paperback (“That summer in the city started like every other — right after winter”) and had a fondness for the good ol’ days. Back then, the character’s band 3-Legged Dog was all the rage, and he walked those city streets like a conquering hero. Now, he’s just another manic-depressive schnook trying not to get kicked out of his pad, restocking jukeboxes in bars and hanging out with local characters like his upstairs neighbor, an ex-pat who he calls the Brooklyn Canuck: “Her heart was still in Canada, but her voice belonged in jail.”