I walked over to Cobble Hill Cinemas last night to watch Hearts Beat Loud. It’s the same movie theater I’ve been going to since I was a toddler and I’ve passed it thousands of times so I couldn’t help but point and laugh when Cobble Hill Cinemas appeared in the film. It felt like every scene showed a different place I know from the neighborhood.
I stopped by some of the places where scenes were shot including Baked, Sunny’s Bar, and Bene Coopersmith’s Record Shop to ask people in the area about the film.
While many people hadn’t heard about the film, some became interested after hearing that it was filmed locally, including Sue Scarlett-Montgomery.
“It’s local so I definitely want to check it out,” said Scarlett-Montgomery. Others, including construction workers, couples, and parents with their kids, all said they wanted to see the film because they lived in Red Hook.
Others were excited that Nick Offerman, who had spent time in Red Hook in the past, was one of its stars. Offerman came into Red Hook to work on building a canoe. He stopped by Sunny’s bar, where some of the film was shot, to talk to Tone Balzano Johanson, who owns the bar. She is the widow of Sunny Balzano, who founded the bar.
“Back at the scene of the crime,” said Offerman when he greeted Balzano.
Johansen declined to comment on the bar, film, and Offerman.
In the film, Offerman plays a single father who owns a record shop, and has to close down his record shop and deal with his daughter leaving for college. He seemed like a typical dad, who wanted to have fun and spend time with his daughter, which made his character very relatable.
I grew up Cobble Hill and I’m interning in Red Hook so I pass Red Hook’s actual record store every day. I stopped by to talk to Bene Coopersmith.
Bene didn’t really want to talk about the movie, so I spent some time browsing. There was a friendly, relaxed vibe with music playing in the background, and unlike the shop in the film, there was a crowd of people browsing through records. Our Record Shop is a very community oriented place.
“The atmosphere helped make the record shop successful,” said artist Scott Pfaffman, the building’s owner, who added that he felt the real story was the success of the actual record shop, not the one in the film. The record shop opened three years ago and the lease was just renewed according to Pfaffman.
“There have been a lot of places that have closed here,” said Pfaffman. “The record shop is successful because of Bene’s hard work. Period.”
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