Ed Burns's 'Love Letter'

Director Ed Burns first, who first hit it big with “The Brothers McMullen,” his family-financed flick shot in and around his childhood haunts in Long Island’s Valley Stream, calls his most recent film “a love letter to the suburbs.” Specifically, “The Groomsmen” which played at the Tribeca Film Festival this week, is a paean to those beachy South Shore neighborhoods where he spent summers—“the kind of place where you cross the street into your best friend's house.” Burns tells Newsday. “It's more of a family than a neighborhood."

The new movie, which Burns wrote, directed and appears in, also stars Jay Mohr, who hails from Verona, across the river in northern New Jersey. Mohr’s character, he says in an interview, was a familiar suburban type. “I just knew who he was. You don't get to do that very often, play someone that you've actually met in the flesh. You can put your imagination on hold for a while, and just imitate someone you grew up with. A review of "The Groomsmen" appears here.