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Film Studies
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Film critics Dana Stevens of Slate and Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman join us each week in October to talk about films. This week: movies set in New York, from Michael Clayton to American Gangster. What's your all-time favorite New York movie?
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Pick any Woody Allen movie and that would be my favorite NYC movie. No one can do it better.
New York city is being turned into Stamford, CT. For shame.
"Desk Set," Tracey & Hepburn, Walter Lang director, 1957. Loved her apartment and the scene on the roof of the Newsweek building.
"Vanilla Sky" with Tom Cruise
the wrong man - hitchcock
King Kong.
When Harry Met Sally
the wrong man-hitchcock
Muppets Take Manhattan!
The French Connection
The Sweet Smell of Success - best NYC movie ever!
"My Dinner With Andre" has some great NY moments
Ok, not in the last ten years...but, The Fisher King...if only for the dancing scene in Grand Central Station. Beautiful!
How to kill a movie: Title it something that means nothing to anybody.
You know, like, "Michael Clayton."
25th Hour...i love how accurately it portrays post 9/11 NYC with all its' beauty and flaws. It's so clearly made by a New Yorker.
After Hours
the warriors (1979)
The Warriors. It's older than 10 years, but great NYC street scenes from Bronx to Riverside Park to Coney.
How about "Jacob's Ladder" with a young, paranoid Tim Robbins? Dirty subways, graffiti, small, crowded apartments that actually look affordable....
No NYC landmarks, just the feel of solitary, grungy New York.
Plus a great movie.
"Kids" is a modern classic.
The Royal Tennenbaums might be the best New York movie about the over privileged.
The Squid and the Whale also.
25th Hour was a perfect take on New York immediately following the WTC attacks. I loved seeing my New York that I remember so well portrayed in such a honest and difficult light.
I'd have to say Martin Scorsese's After Hours.
The Devil's Advocate. A great picture of that new corporate life New York has become. :-)
my all time favorite NYC movie is "Naked City" because it is gritty, without pretense and shot in black and white. "French Connection" gives the best total NYC quality, you really feel as if you are there in the movie.
i think the siege is a terrific, and extremely prescient, recent NYC movie
fyi i watched a scene of amrican gangster being filmed at the tombs in chinatown earlier this year, in the middle of a hectic saturday. amazing!
though they never actually call it New York, I think that "the Royal Tenebaums" is certainly one of the best New York movies of the last decade.
Dog Day Afternoon, and The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. I grew up in and around the city and I like these movies because Pelham 1-2-3, in particular, captures the undercurrent of dread that existed a while ago.
The Muppets Take Manhattan - After seeing the movie as a child I dreamed of moving to New York.
Within the last 10 years? Well, how about a recent re-release: Cruising, the Friedkin/Pacino cop thriller. You want a 70's-era "gritty" New York? Here it is in spades. Well, 1980, I guess.
For a NYC film of the last ten years, I'd have to say Spike Lee's "25th Hour." His portrayal of a wounded, raw post-9/11 city is a rich backdrop to a great film.
A strange film, Addiction, by NYC's own Abel Ferrara, starring Lili Taylor and Christopher Walken -- dark and mysterious and, well, a bit pretensious, like NYC.
Also, Party Girl, with Parker Posey as the original hipster librarian.
The French Connection!
and as a nod to the outer boroughs:
the squid and the whale
Coming to America
Favorite--boring insofar as the critics have already called Scorcese the poet of the streets--Mean Streets.
summer of sam
From the last 10 years
American Psycho (movie not book) is a comedy of manners for the new Manhattan era.
Godspell has some great shots of New York in the early 70s, including a dance scene set atop the nearly finished WTC.
The best, most accurate of NYC in the 70s is THE TAKING OF THE PELHAM 1-2-3
squid and the whale written and directed by a New Yorker
Big! Can't beat the FAO Schwartz scene, not to mention Coney Island.
In America. Poignantly real side of immigrant families in New York.
Spike Lee's "25th Hour"
How about "Saturday Night Fever" - no really! Without all the hoopla, the story was very New York and very well done.
Also, "The Pope of Greewich Village".
Favorite NYC movies: "The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3," "Across 110th St."
"requim for a dream" i'm a brighton beach boy.
Also: "Kids", "As Good as it Gets", "Someone Like You" and "American Psycho"
Ghostbusters. Without falling into the trap of Echt grit, this fantasy sci fi comedy manages to evoke an abiding sense of the city.
Summer of Sam (sorry, it's more than 10 years ago) but captures the boroughs so well...
best post 9/11 movie:
25th hour
Serendipity!
"ghost" for the marcy ave section of the burg, back when it was holywood-ese for scary nyc
"BEAT STREET"
"The WARRIORS"
"WILD STYLE"
"JUICE"
"FRESH"
"Juice"
"CARLITO'S WAY"
"DO THE RIGHT THING"
Mean Streets.
oh, and Mean Streets... gosh, i'm getting too old.
Maybe "Pi"
as well
Squid & The Whale was a great non manhattan movie I think... and i used to live in Park Slope when I watched it.
Muppets Take Manhattan, When Harry Met Sally, Little Manhattan (shows the UWS i know and love)
I’d have to say my favorite cinematic depiction of NYC is in “A Boy Named Charlie Brown”. The scene where Snoopy iceskates by himself in a desolate Rockerfeller center makes me want to cry. The colors are washed out by the darkness. It’s sweet and romantic and desolate. It’s like the quiet of NYC in the very wee hours of the morning…
Sweet Smell of Success
(I might have said Dog Day Afternoon, but it's being talked about now)
Best NYC car chase... "The Seven Ups"
my favorite ny movie from the last ten years is "As Good As it Gets". A great study on the interactions between people from different social classes as they coexist in nyc (artist, waitress, rich writers).
Igby Goes Down
Moonstruck, all the Woody Allen movies set in New York and Kissing Jessica Stein.
My Cuusin Vinny...so New York even though set in the South
"Husbands" by Cassavetes
Carlito's Way (1993)- when NYC is flimed correctly it becomes a character too.
How about: The sweet smell of success.
seriously, don't sleep on "the siege." with its anti arab-american sentiment and jihadi terrorism, it's almost scary to watch it now
midnight cowboy. dog day afternoon.
The Naked City
Oh yes, also, "WHEN HARRY MET SALLY"!!! One of my all time favorites!!!
Best Films:
Do The Right Thing - Spike Lee
I'm Not Rappaport
Last Ten Years:
Inside Man - Spike Lee for the details, architectural and Cultural such as the Albanian in the crowd and the Gargoil in the intro.
Roayl Tennenbaums - Wes Anderson
All NYC with out any direct connection to NYC.
Do the Right Thing
Coffee and Cigarettes
Desperately Seeking Susan
Downtown 81
Taxi Driver, Saturday Night Fever, Do the Right Thing
The Conversation
An Unmarried Woman with Jill Clayburgh, Alan Bates, and Michael Murphy
Do The Right Thing
very new york, very real
Big!
Metropolitan.
How about "Moonstruck"
Mutual Appreciation by Andrew Bujalski
don't forget "wild style".
Do The Right Thing (and some other Spike Lee joints)
The Warriors was a grsat intro to NYC. I saw it 20 years before I moved here. It is a take on the run from Marathon to the sea..a gang trying to make it to the beach. Yaphet Kotto was fabulous!
OOPS! not new york
By no means the greatest, but a nod to the "Raphsody in Blue" segment from Fantasia 2000
BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET
Sweet smell of success
Breakin- movie on break dancing
The Taking Of Pelham 123, Hannah and Her Sisters
Husbands, Serpico and more recently Do the Right Thing!!!!
"Do The Right Thing" juxtaposed with "You've Got Mail"
Favorite NYC movie-- La Ciudad. Beautiful neo-realist film made by David Riker in 1998, four black-&-white short stories of immmigrants living in the city. Fiction that's full of truth:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0168589/
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0412214
Definitely, The Taking of Pelham 123
Elf
PAID IN FULL, the Harlem gangster film.
too obvious?
manhattan: the opening credits alone.
NEW JACK CITY
Frankie and Johnny
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