This Week in the Voice: The Endless Bummer of Staten Island

All the way out on the south shore of Staten Island lies a quiet, tucked-away community called the Cedar Grove Beach Club, a "poor man's Bermuda" for the few Staten Islanders who knew about it and summered there. That's all over now, as the city's Parks Department plans to turn the 200-acre property into a public space. For this week's cover story, the Village Voice's Elizabeth Dwoskin reports on The Endless Bummer of Staten Island's Cedar Grove.

Elsewhere this week, in News, we're seeing other ends coming:

• Try, for example, September 11 as something once immune to unabashed politicization from New Yorkers and abroad. That's not the case anymore, notes Voice columnist Tom Robbins, as he sees Ground Zero Mosque Haters Go Dutch.
• Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto watches Joaquin Phoenix's "rapper" shtick lose its magic, Amy Ryan lose her obscurity from the big screen, and more, as he dishes Gossip About Steve Carell, Joaquin Phoenix, and Katie Holmes.

This week in Music, some things never change:

• Chuck Eddy covers all of former Marine-turned-Country-Singer Jamey Johnson's sprawling, two-disc, 25-track Guitar Song, which casts a pretty wide net itself.
• Every year, football season shows up, and in its wake, fantasy football. What does this have to do with drunkrock legends The Walkmen's new album? Joshua Love explains.
• Brandon Flowers, frontman of The Killers, finally made and released his inevitable solo-frontman album. How'd it go? Ryan Dombal talks to Flowers about just that.
• Indie bands reuniting: It happens, except when it doesn't, as is the case of Superchunk, who never actually broke up in the first place. Jessica Hopper breaks down why you can't call it a comeback.

In Food this week, we're finding some new beginnings:

• For example, food from Yemen hasn't exactly gone wide in New York City besides some bare-bones operations. Imagine Voice food critic Robert Sietsema's reaction when he found out a new Yemeni restaurant, Bab al Yemen, had opened up in Bay Ridge: He went and reviewed it.
• Meanwhile, Voice food critic Sarah DiGregorio finds the Asian snacking trend popping up again in Union Square with Hawkers and Bai Cha on Ninth Avenue, but might not see it finding new life.

In Film, we're finding people doing old things in new ways:

• Can you find love on Facebook? One documentary filmmaker tried to find out, and didn't get at all what he was expecting. Karina Longworth reviews the mysterious Catfish
• Occasionally, book adaptations go well, and even get the endorsement of the author themselves. It's true. Legendary Voice film critic J. Hoberman finds out if -- even with author Kazuo Ishiguro's endorsement -- the Mark Romanek/Alex Garland adaptation of Ishiguro's highly-regarded Never Let Me Go.
• Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone always served as solid evidence that Ben Affleck might be better behind the screen than on it. Like Hunting this week's star-studded Beantown caper flick The Town finds him doing both again. How'd it go? Nick Pinkerton visited and found out.
• Over the years, the Village Voice hasn't exactly been kind to John Hughes. Do we feel bad? Actually, yeah. We do. Rob Nelson, on behalf of us, would like to say: The Voice Apologizes to John Hughes.
• Also this week in Film, Dan Kois sees the stage-to-film adaptation of Jack Goes Boating as Theater of the Superb, Michael Atkinson weighs in on just how essential the restored Lionel Rogosin's 1957 On the Bowery is; Melissa Anderson takes a bite out of D.A. Pennebaker's and Chris Hegedus' bake-off doc Kings of Pastry; Melissa Anderson also gives Easy A an Easy F; Michael Atkinson falls for Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo, and finally, J. Hoberman warms up to C.W. Winter and Anders Edstrom's The Anchorage.

All that, plus more Music, Art, Theater, Film, Books, Dance, Restaurants, Michael Musto, Free Will Astrology, and Dan Savage. And then some.

[fkamer@villagevoice.com]