Images from Able Danger above were all shot in Brooklyn in the area known as Victorian Flatbush aka Ditmas Park aka Prospect Park South aka Beverley Square West. — And all serve as major filming locations for Able Danger. From the top, Vox Pop Cafe & Bookstore on Courtelyou Road, The Farm on Adderly on Courtelyou, the crime scene at the Albemarle Road dead end at the train tracks, Club 773 (Lounge) before the remodel, Vox Pop interior, lovely house on Marlborough & Church and finally the Ft. Hamilton Subway station, ok so that’s in Kensington. These are but a few of the many Victorian Flatbush appearances in our little post modern film noir. Flatbush is, indeed, one of the main characters in the movie.

“Surprisingly entertaining zero-budget film noir
that effectively mixes pseudo-Hitchcockian theatrics with a hefty dose
of contemporary lefty paranoia.”
NEW YORK MAGAZINE
*Critics Pick*
Sara Cardace
http://nymag.com/listings/movie/able-danger/

“Krik uses flashes of dark comedy, an affection for the film noir genre
and the perfect eyebrow-half-cocked attitude towards his subject matter
to create a fast-paced and entertaining story… With its
black-and-white cinematography and visual imagination (the film mixes in
color dream sequences and text-overwritten surveillance footage)…
Krik’s low-fi riff on the conspiracy thriller has a charm all its own”
Scott Macaulay
FILMMAKER MAGAZINE
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2008/02/rotterdam-able-danger.php

“Knocks along with the steady heartbeat pace of a thriller and is
painted in the languid, low-contrast shadows of a noir. Well Made Film.”
Michele Orange
VILLAGE VOICE
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-09-10/film/able-danger/

“Able Danger is a slick debut feature…. An update of The Parallax
View… A cinematic x-ray of paranoid mindset… In the long shadow of
noir pastiche, complete with a femme-fatale turn by Elina Löwensohn”
FILM COMMENT MAGAZINE

“NOIR ON ACID. A paranoid fantasy of geek superheroics. Like-minded
theorists may ascend from their basements to rally.”
Jeannette Catsoulis
NY TIMES
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/movies/11able.html

“Without question, Able Danger is an incredible film that mind-bendingly
combines dark comedy, drama, and intrigue into a neo-noir pastiche
that is all it’s own.

And while the story itself is engaging in it’s ability to interweave
contemporary plot lines with factual data and tried-and-true moments
of chicanery, Able Danger is so well shot that all that good stuff has to
take a back seat. Produced on an indie film budget, writer/director/editor\
Paul Krik seamlessly blends palettes between panoramic vistas of
New York City, claustrophobic moments of up-close intensity, and
heart-beating bike vs. Suburban chases that would make any one
of your hipster conspiracy-theorist friends proud.”
LAist
Fairley Elliot
http://laist.com/2008/10/16/laist_movie_review_able_danger.php

“Krik references film noir, rustling up some heavies and hardboiled
patter here and there. Ironically, the connection is intriguing, given
the wartime stew of anxieties that originally fostered the movies that
came to be known as noir; Krik¹s two main riffstones come from either
end of the lineage, The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Kiss Me Deadly
(1955).”
Nicolas Rapoid
THE L MAGAZINE
http://thelmagazine.com/print.cfm?content_id=4462

“Mildly surreal, mostly black-and-white homage to film noir, set in the
built-in ironic enclave of hipster Brooklyn. Able Danger is a smart and
all-too-conceivable conspiracy thriller that raises serious questions in
less-than-serious ways. Do we really think we know the entire truth
behind 9/11? If so, the movie shows a bridge it might want to sell
youŠ”
Frank Lovece
THE FILM JOURNAL
http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/reviews/article_display.jsp?vnu_conte
nt_id=1003849095

“Paul Krik¹s low-budget indie thriller Able Danger is nicely shot in
tinted b&w hi-def video, slickly mixed, scored and edited almost to the
point of being indistinguishable from this or that Bruckheimer TV show.
And Krik is a keen film student: Many of the film¹s images recall
Welles, Lang, Fuller, Mann, Kubrick, Frankenheimer­ you name it.”
Steven Boone
SPOUT
http://blog.spout.com/2008/09/12/911-conspiracy-movie-for-hi/

“Shot in a high contrast black-and-white that milks maximum atmospheric
effect out of its wide, busy compositions and chiaroscuro lighting…”
Brandon Harris
HAMMER TO NAIL
http://www.hammertonail.com/?p=363

“Shot in black and white and reminiscent of classic ’30s noir films,
Able Danger tracks a Brooklyn bookstore owner (based on the owner of Vox
Pop) and a European femme fatal over bridges and on bikes in the
dangerous search for 9/11 truth.”
Robyn Hillman-Harrigan
FLAVORPILL
http://flavorpill.com/newyork/events/2008/9/11/abel-danger

GAWKER
‘Impressive’
Stu VanAirsdale
http://gawker.com/5161790/its-ok-to-like-things

“Paul Krik’s 9/11-noir Able Danger is a nifty, paranoiac piece of work, a kind
of Maltese Falcon meets JFK rendered in startling monochrome that defies
the far more complicated scenario faced by its protagonist: Adam Nee
plays a Brooklyn bookshop staffer and renowned conspiracy theorist
chipping away at the German connection to the 9/11 terrorists. A mysterious
femme fatale (Elina Löwensohn) drops in from nowhere, exposing the writer
and his colleagues to secret agents, counteragents and all the deadly
cloak-and-dagger mischief they imply. Krik’s deft chemistry of density,
humor and style are all the more admirable for the microbudget that
enabled them; even if you don’t understand a lick of it (and we can’t
say we’ve quite caught up ourselves), we think you’ll appreciate the
opportunity to give it a try.”
DEFAMER
Stu VanAirsdale
http://defamer.gawker.com/5072327/porno-livens-up-weak-halloween-party-at-the-multiplex
“Since film noir’s shadowy dread reflected a genuine post-World War II
existential unease, it makes some sense that a movie about post-9/11
conspiracy theorists would boast a faux-noir style [and] Löwensohn’s
deadpan retro allure brings chiaroscuro authenticity”
LA TIMES
Robert Abele
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/31/entertainment/et-capsules31

As to origins, Wiki sez,

The 39 Steps (1935),^[34] is often considered one of the best films from his early period. This film was also one of the first to introduce the concept of the “Macguffin“, a plot device around which a whole story seems to revolve, but ultimately has nothing to do with the true meaning or ending of the story. In The 39 Steps,^[34] the Macguffin is a stolen set of design plans. (Hitchcock told French director François Truffaut: “There are two men sitting in a train going to Scotland and one man says to the other, ‘Excuse me, sir, but what is that strange parcel you have on the luggage rack above you?’ ‘Oh,’ says the other, ‘that’s a Macguffin.’ ‘Well,’ says the first man, ‘what’s a Macguffin?’ The other answers, ‘It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.’ ‘But,’ says the first man, ‘there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands.’ ‘Well,’ says the other, ‘then that’s no Macguffin.’”)^[35]

Ok so Hitchcock meant I guess that the Macguffin ended up being irrelevant to the story, hence the silly name. These days, however the Macguffin has come to mean THE thing that drives the story, but also turns out to be really important in and of itself –and that’s how I mean it. So I guess I’m more in the George Lucas camp. But it’s really not enough that it just drive the story; A good Mcguffin has to have something mysterious, something aspirational, something metaphysical, something mind-blowing. It’s the thing that everyone wants, but oh my Lord what’s going to happen once it’s gotten! The story is defined by the not having, the not seeing, the anticipation. I’m not film theorist or historian, just a person who loves movies and appreciates metaphysical plot devices. I guess strictly speaking, there is a difference between the Unexposed contents plot device and the MacGuffin, but Able Danger blurs the distinction and is stylistically referential to both, so you’ll have to excuse me when I conflate the two terms. For me, the coollest Macguffin’s are…

Repo Man’s alien the trunk;

Pulp Fiction’s glowing suitcase

And, of course, the Maltese Falcon

Thus, the challenge for me was how to make a real object that could really exist that we could touch and feel and see, with authentic Heideggerian Dasein -like the Maltese Falcon (if it were really real -because we can easily imagine that there could be a Maltese Falcon in the real world), and give it metaphysical mind blowing importance like the glowing suitcase in Pulp Fiction or the glowing trunk in Repo Man. What if there was one real tangible Rosetta Stone like object for the modern age that could redefine everything?

As every Neocon will tell you, “We live in a post 9/11 world.” It’s like the difference between BC and AD. There is one thing, one event that lives in the minds of mankind more than any other that defines our time. Given this as our context, the ultimate Macguffin would be the thing that could flip that script. If we redefine how we understand the event, then, and only then, can we redefine our era.

So, what if there was a smoking gun that proved the identities and methods of the true architects of 9/11 ? I mean what do I know? But why would Cheney and Rumsfeld force the Able Danger program to destroy 2.5 terrabytes of data except to hide something incriminating? Able Danger makes the leap into fiction in supposing not only that the real Able Danger data still exists, but that the data could serve as the irrefutable proof of a Zeitgeist manufactured by the neocon media oligarchy. I won’t bore you with the details of conspiracy theories here. This blog section is about Macguffins and Thrillers! If you want to find out about Able Danger get started. The truth is out there. You should probably start with PNAC.

http://gawker.com/5161790/its-ok-to-like-things

so what if the list is alphabetical?