"The film, which was unavailable for years due to licensing complications, but is finally streamable as of this summer, captured the Shopsin clan and their world of pre-gentrified, very-early-2000s Greenwich Village. Many neighbors were restaurant regulars or at least cared about Shopsin's and the social fabric of their community (and not pissing off Kenny) in a way that contrasts sharply with the neighborhood's cleaned-up corporate landscape today."
"When ThinkFilm went insolvent a few years later, "Flies" fell into a state of license limbo. "There was no way to get the film out into the world," Mahurin said. "I'd get letters from people, 'My house burned down and this was my favorite film' and 'My son-of-a-b---- boyfriend took my copy and there's none left. Do you have any?' It was killing me.""
From 2002 to 2003, director Matt Mahurin filmed chef Kenny Shopsin during the final days at his original Bedford Street eatery and the family's move a few hundred feet to Carmine Street. The movie captures Kenny, his wife Eve, and their five children amid pre-gentrified, early-2000s Greenwich Village life, including regulars and neighborhood social dynamics. Kenny is shown berating customers, inventing inspired dishes without regard for health-department standards, and delivering cynical kitchen sermons. ThinkFilm licensed the movie to Netflix in 2004; ThinkFilm later went insolvent, placing the film in license limbo. Rights reverted to Mahurin, who began a 2021 restoration partnership with Oscilloscope, enabling a rerelease and renewed streamability.
Read at Gothamist
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