The rest of my favorite NYC movies of all time! Until the next one comes out...
Why do I go on in listing the rest of my favorite movies taking place in NYC? Because I love New York. I don't know why any would ever want to leave. I was having dinner with a friend last night and I advocated having NYC secede and becoming its own city-state. He agreed with me that unlike most other cities in the world, it can boast the best in the fields of art, literature, science, and finance. And it's not even the capital of a state or a country. But there is New York City, the economic engine of the United States. There are billions of dollars that come into NYC from the Feds, I admit, and without the money, the city would pretty much crash. But what a dream it would be...a nation of almost 9 million people controlling our own destiny. Could we be the new Florence, Milan, Athens?
Okay, here's the rest of the list...
6. Escape from New York - although nothing was ever filmed in NYC. Most of the actual sets were created in St. Louis and filmed in a real-life burned out neighborhood there. Scary, huh? But John Carpenter did create a great mood with Manhattan surrounded by a wall of concrete and the bridges mined to dissuade escape attempts. Infinitely better than Escape from L.A. because L.A. is just so uncool (not to mentioned a recycled plot, poor characters, and awful FX).
7. When Harry met Sally - the older I get, the less I like Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, which is funny because when I first saw the movie, I really enjoyed it and all of their other movies. But his voice grates on me now and she grows less appealing for some unknown reason. But I love their walks through Central Park, the Upper West Side, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
8. Hannah and Her Sisters - another Woody Allen movie. My favorite scene is the one in which Michael Caine and Barbara Hershey walk through Soho as they look for her favorite bookstore. Today, the warehouses that occupied the neighborhood in that scene are still there, but they're being inhabited by restaurants, bistros, chic hotels and gourmet markets.
9. Copland - Sylvester Stallone plays a small town sheriff across the Hudson River in New Jersey in a place where NYC's corrupt cops live. He has a perfect view of the city and watches with envy the cops who come home over the GWB but is pitied by them because of a hearing defect that disqualifies him from joining the NYPD. However, he goes head to head with them when he learns of a plot by the dirty cops to kill off one of their own and brings in the latter straight into NYPD HQ, a great scene and one that takes place just steps away from my old high school. Ah, good times...
10. Fame - a sort-of musical that takes place in the old High School of Performing Arts (now LaGuardia High School) populated with all the cool kids I wished I known growing up. Best scene? The entire high school with its dark walls, wooden stairs and cramped cafeteria. It was old and it smelled its age. And it looked so beautiful on film.
Okay, here's the rest of the list...
6. Escape from New York - although nothing was ever filmed in NYC. Most of the actual sets were created in St. Louis and filmed in a real-life burned out neighborhood there. Scary, huh? But John Carpenter did create a great mood with Manhattan surrounded by a wall of concrete and the bridges mined to dissuade escape attempts. Infinitely better than Escape from L.A. because L.A. is just so uncool (not to mentioned a recycled plot, poor characters, and awful FX).
7. When Harry met Sally - the older I get, the less I like Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, which is funny because when I first saw the movie, I really enjoyed it and all of their other movies. But his voice grates on me now and she grows less appealing for some unknown reason. But I love their walks through Central Park, the Upper West Side, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
8. Hannah and Her Sisters - another Woody Allen movie. My favorite scene is the one in which Michael Caine and Barbara Hershey walk through Soho as they look for her favorite bookstore. Today, the warehouses that occupied the neighborhood in that scene are still there, but they're being inhabited by restaurants, bistros, chic hotels and gourmet markets.
9. Copland - Sylvester Stallone plays a small town sheriff across the Hudson River in New Jersey in a place where NYC's corrupt cops live. He has a perfect view of the city and watches with envy the cops who come home over the GWB but is pitied by them because of a hearing defect that disqualifies him from joining the NYPD. However, he goes head to head with them when he learns of a plot by the dirty cops to kill off one of their own and brings in the latter straight into NYPD HQ, a great scene and one that takes place just steps away from my old high school. Ah, good times...
10. Fame - a sort-of musical that takes place in the old High School of Performing Arts (now LaGuardia High School) populated with all the cool kids I wished I known growing up. Best scene? The entire high school with its dark walls, wooden stairs and cramped cafeteria. It was old and it smelled its age. And it looked so beautiful on film.
posted by Alan at 12:39 PM
1 Comments:
I thought Escape from New York would have rated higher on your list but it is a definitve NYC-based film.
But you forgot another classic NYC-based action film. Of course I am speaking of Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. With wonderfully filmed sequences at the Wonder Wheel in Coney Island and at the Statue of LIberty during its renovation, surely you can bump Copland in favor of Remo
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