Diner

Paris, j'etaime, an intriguing little film in which 21 directors offer romantic cinematic snippets set in the city on the Seine, opens today at the Charles Theatre. What a great idea for a film, giving people who love a city the chance to commit that passion to film. Which led me to wonder, why shouldn't Baltimore be afforded the same sort of treatment? A bunch of creative people love this city very, very much. What if a dozen of the city's biggest boosters were offered the chance to direct 10-minute cinematic snapshots of Baltimore as they see it?

Most of us think of Kevin Bacon as that famous movie actor, the all-American guy with some 60 films to his credit, serious titles such as Mystic River, Apollo 13, A Few Good Men and JFK. Or as the fulcrum of the ubiquitous "six degrees" theory that anyone can be associated with anyone else within a half-dozen connections. And, we're well aware of his famous actress wife, Kyra Sedgwick, who is earning high praise and high ratings on TV with The Closer. If you go The Bacon Brothers play at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at West Shore Park on Light Street between Conway and Lee streets, in the Inner Harbor.

One of the more unusual restaurants in Baltimore is Tamber's, a '50s-style diner that improbably serves Indian food alongside the burgers and milkshakes. The combination must work, because Tamber's has been sending out this mixed cultural message for more than 15 years. Tamber's was already a local landmark, known as Tamber's Nifty Fifties Diner, when it was acquired by Petro Kumar in 1991. Kumar kept the name, but soon began adding vindaloos, biryanis and other Indian dishes to the menu.

If you could pick up Baltimore and give it a good shake late on a Saturday night, a lot of the odd pieces would wind up at the Papermoon Diner in Remington. Since 1994, when Un Kim and her partner opened the Papermoon, it has become one of the city's most popular after-hours hangouts. They turned this old coffeehouse in the 200 block of W. 29th St. into a child's playhouse where things seem a bit off-kilter. Ceilings are purple. Walls are green. Dozens of action figures, dolls and model planes line the interior.

The manager of Valentino's -- a popular Northeast Baltimore diner -- was shot in the mouth early yesterday, minutes after he told a group of unruly and possibly intoxicated customers to leave the 24-hour restaurant, Baltimore police reported."

THE FAMOUS Hilltop Diner is now Discount Liquors. Directly across Reisterstown Road, the Crest movie theater, with its winding staircase leading to a fancy balcony, is a pawn shop with a check-cashing operation next door. The drug store on the corner has become a liquor store, and the old Mandel-Ballow Delicatessen is a beauty supply center.And now, I see in my morning newspaper, the man at the heart of so much of this, Paul Stamas, is gone, at 76, of complications from a stroke.In those Ike and Mamie years when the Hilltop Diner seemed the center of the universe to that first wave migrating from the inner city out to Northwest Baltimore, creating their first meeting places out in middle class suburbia, Stamas owned the Hilltop Diner.

PHILADELPHIA -- The first mystery we have to crack is the parking garage.We have been circling 20 minutes beneath the Franklin Institute, looking in vain for a parking space. We deduce, elementarily, that the lot would have been marked "full" if there were no spaces available.It could be a labyrinth, says Sujata Massey, her imagination automatically drawn to the possibilities of boxwood mazes in English countrysides, where one might stumble on a poisoned vicar or two.Is it possible we're going in circles, asks Laura Lippman, who is beginning to feel distinctly queasy.

The hometown went Hollywood for the opening of the Maryland Film Festival. About 600 cinephiles swarmed to the historic Senator Theatre to see local-boy-done-really-good Barry Levinson present his documentary in progress, "Diner Guys."The audience included local filmmakers John Waters, Steve Yeager, Dan Rosen, Paul Zinder and Elizabeth Holder; film festival founder Jed Dietz; festival consultant Gabriel Wardell; Dr. Sylvan Feldman and Dr. Larry Becker, two of the "Diner Guys"; casting director Pat Moran; CBS-TV reporter Vicki Mabrey; Dr. Lovell Smith, an assistant professor at Loyola College; performance artist David Sawyer; Mike Styer, Maryland Film Office director.

It's a cold, bleak mid-December in Northern Ireland, and after repeated 12-hour days on the set, Barry Levinson is a tad weary. The man who turned wannabes like Kevin Bacon into stars, who coaxes turns from DeNiro and Sharon Stone, may not hanker for cell-phone chit-chat on his bumpy ride back to the hotel, but the chortling director is eager to talk about the one and only actor who has appeared in every single one of his 15 films."

While many career opportunities in the area are related to the high-technology arena, Un Kim has found continuing success in a more traditional field -- the restaurant industry.Kim emigrated from Korea in the mid-1970s and began her career soon after by taking over a failing carryout in downtown Baltimore. After rejuvenating and selling that business, she did the same with a cafe across from the University of Maryland hospital.Her latest business, the Papermoon Diner, which opened in 1994, reflects not only years of experience but also the creativity that is part of any successful start-up company.

At a time when most stories seem to be about how badly restaurants are doing in this economy or, worst-case scenario, about their closing, there is good news. Jaime Luna, the chef/owner of one of the area's most popular Mexican restaurants, Mari Luna Mexican Grill, has opened a second restaurant, Mari Luna Latin Grille (1010 Reisterstown Road, 410-653-5151) in Pikesville. Yes, the new place's name has an "e" on the end of "grill," maybe to reflect the fact that this restaurant is not fancier exactly, but less casual and more ambitious.

One-time Diner guy Kevin Bacon will be joining the cast of My One and Only, the Renee Zellweger movie being shot in and around Baltimore through July. Bacon has been a favorite of area movie fans since playing rich joker Fenwick in Barry Levinson's 1982 ode to passing from adolescence to adulthood in late-'50s Baltimore. He's been cast as Dan Devereaux, the first husband of Zellweger's character. The actor, a native of Philadelphia, will arrive in Baltimore next week to begin filming, My One and Only producer Aaron Ryder said.

Howard "Chip" Silverman, one of the original "diner guys" who chronicled life and coming of age in 1950s and 1960s Northwest Baltimore and later became director of the state Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration, died Thursday evening of melanoma at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. He was 65. Dr. Silverman, an addictions clinician and behavioral health consultant, had lived at Harper House condominiums in Cross Keys since 2003. From 1970 to 1975, he coached Morgan State's lacrosse team, which gained national recognition during his tenure.

Jeff Plaine has been writing a true story about meeting up with his high school sweetheart after 10 years, a love story script long in search of an ending. What to do? Plaine sat in a Parkville diner awaiting his breakfast yesterday, New Year's Day. A day, perhaps, for a resolution. "Usually I think about it, but I didn't this year," said Plaine, 41. But as he got to thinking, his courage grew as he sat at the counter of the Bel-Loc Diner. "I've been working on a script for a year and a half," he said.

True or false? At a formal dinner, the napkin is always to the diner's left - specifically, to the left of the fork or forks. Everyone knows that the answer to this important etiquette question is: "True, usually. More or less. It depends." Recently, I was at a formal dinner, and I confidently took the napkin to my left, only to discover I had stolen the napkin of the person on my left, because this time the napkins had been cleverly set up in the coffee cups to the right. Aha! The "napkin in the beverage vessel" negates the widely recognized "napkin on the left" rule, because drinks are always placed to the diner's right.

Anna M. Spoonire, a veteran waitress who during her nearly 30-year career at the Bel-Loc Diner dispensed plenty of good cheer while filling customers' coffee cups and delivering meals, died of cancer Sunday at her Glen Burnie home. She was 70. In a 2003 interview with The Sun, Mrs. Spoonire, whose waitressing career spanned 45 years, explained her recipe for success. "You really have to like people in this job. And I like people," Mrs. Spoonire told a reporter. "But it really helps to develop a sense of humor because you see all kinds, from the people out at night after clubbing to the grouches at 6 a.m.," added Mrs. Spoonire, who always dressed in a fresh, starched white uniform, which she wore with a comfortable pair of white soft-soled shoes.

INSIDE TODAY WHAT THEY'RE SAYING TODAY'S SUN COLUMNISTS Reflections on the birth of "Oriole Magic" and fire deaths that might have been prevented by smoke detectors. Maryland baltimoresun.com/rodricks CDs sparked a revolution Twenty-five years ago this month, the first compact disk rolled off a German production line, paving the way for a generation of devices. Business baltimoresun.com/himowitz OTHER VOICES David Steele on the Orioles -- Sports Karen Nitkin on Silver Moon Diner -- Live!

Seafood fried diavolo? Scanning the chef's specials at the shiny new Silver Moon Diner on Pulaski Highway in Middle River, I got a chuckle out of that one. Of course, the menu writer meant fra diavolo, not that the calamari, clams, shrimp and scallops in this pasta dish would be fried. I was less amused by our waitress' double-take when we ordered spanakopita. She clearly had never heard the word before and asked to see it on the menu so she could figure out how to spell it. Like many diners, the Silver Moon has a distinctly Greek sensibility, and a section of the sprawling menu is devoted to "Hellenic treasures" such as gyros, moussaka and yes, spanakopita.

If you could pick up Baltimore and give it a good shake late on a Saturday night, a lot of the odd pieces would wind up at the Papermoon Diner in Remington. Since 1994, when Un Kim and her partner opened the Papermoon, it has become one of the city's most popular after-hours hangouts. They turned this old coffeehouse in the 200 block of W. 29th St. into a child's playhouse where things seem a bit off-kilter. Ceilings are purple. Walls are green. Dozens of action figures, dolls and model planes line the interior.

Most of us think of Kevin Bacon as that famous movie actor, the all-American guy with some 60 films to his credit, serious titles such as Mystic River, Apollo 13, A Few Good Men and JFK. Or as the fulcrum of the ubiquitous "six degrees" theory that anyone can be associated with anyone else within a half-dozen connections. And, we're well aware of his famous actress wife, Kyra Sedgwick, who is earning high praise and high ratings on TV with The Closer. If you go The Bacon Brothers play at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at West Shore Park on Light Street between Conway and Lee streets, in the Inner Harbor.