whither josh hartnett?

Brooklyn Judge’s Influences Include Obscure Bruce Willis Movies

Arthur Schack is a Brooklyn judge who is making something of a name for himself by telling big banks that file improper foreclosures against homeowners in the outer boroughs to stick it. He’s a colorful character, today’s Times attests, a former high-school teacher whose judgments reference classics like William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, as well as more obscure works. Take this passage from a Deutsche Bank case from 2008:

The court wonders if the instant foreclosure action is a corporate ‘Kansas City Shuffle,’ a complex confidence game, ” he reads. “In the 2006 film Lucky Number Slevin, Mr. Goodkat, a hit man played by Bruce Willis, explains: ‘A Kansas City Shuffle is when everybody looks right, you go left.’ ”


The banks, naturally, are not impressed with the judge’s oratorical flourishes or his wide-ranging DVD collection. “They probably curse at me,” he tells the paper. But we suspect from here on out that he will always have a friend in Lucky co-star Josh Hartnett, who’s just happy someone saw that movie and is probably wondering at this very moment if the dude also happened to catch his work in Wicker Park and Forty Days and Forty Nights.

A ‘Little Judge’ Who Rejects Foreclosures, Brooklyn Style [NYT]



The banks, naturally, are not impressed with the judge’s oratorical flourishes or his wide-ranging DVD collection. “They probably curse at me,” he tells the paper. But we suspect from here on out that he will always have a friend in Lucky co-star Josh Hartnett, who’s just happy someone saw that movie and is probably wondering at this very moment if the dude also happened to catch his work in Wicker Park and Forty Days and Forty Nights.

A ‘Little Judge’ Who Rejects Foreclosures, Brooklyn Style [NYT]

Brooklyn Judge’s Influences Include Obscure Bruce Willis Movies