I'm in a New York state of Cinema

A lot of the films ( though not all) that've presumably filmed (and set) in New York have actually been filmed in Toronto and elsewhere, from what I understand, however.

I've seen Basquiat several years ago and walked around SoHo and East Village this past June with my girlfriend. The film captures the art of the area. I saw so much great graiffeti artwood walking around the city and got some good pictures of it as well. I think that film also does a good job at capturing the pretentiousness of the area, the people, culture, and $8 pints of Blvd. Wheat. Maybe I'm just used to the $4 pints here in Iowa or even the $5 pints in Chi-town. But when your rent is high I guess you have to charge a lot.

We did go to some interesting bars in the neighborhoods though and actually did manage to find one where the drinks were reasonably priced. I forget the name of it though.

For those of you that have been to New York City and have seen Superfly, you'll notice that all of the trash on the street during the junkie chase is definitely realistic. The only place in New York City I didn't see trash everywhere was Lower Manhattan around Wall Street. Even Midtown was a mess. Coney Island was Hell. Go there for some fun.

Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver are very true to the city's impersonal and isolating nature. I felt very isolated there and cramped. For those that haven't been there you'll be surprised by how small the city feels because it's so condense on such a small area of land. Manhattan Island is half the size of Des Moines, IA with nine times the population. Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver seem to show the impersonal, cannibalistic nature of the city. Just try to ride the subway and look someone in the eye or say hello. It's difficult whereas I can talk to people on the CTA.

Breakfast at Tiffany's and Manhattan depict a New York City that doesn't really exist where strangers talk to each other and become friends and everything is nice and clean. Great idea but it's not the reality I saw from a vistor's point of view.

Another movie I almost forgot to mention is West Side Story because of all the Puerto Ricans. We stayed at Rockaway Blvd. and Linden in Queens which is 75 percent Peurto Rican. It's by the aquaduct and JFK.

New York City definitely has a culture of its own. Very interesting city and lots of places to explore, but it's too dense and challenging to drive through.

__________________
"A candy colored clown!"
Member since Fall 2002
Top 100 Films, clicky below

http://www.movieforums.com/community...ad.php?t=26201

the only time that there is so much trash on the street is usually over a long holiday period or if there is a sanitation worker strike (and there have been a few of those over the years)

breakfast at tiffany's and manhattan were filmed a few years ago (only a few) and i wouldn't say the streets are immaculate (you can't eat off them) but i wouldn't do it in any other city either...and you'd be surprised how many strangers you can meet standing around on line waiting for half price tickets or just asking for directions or if you've lost something...nyc can be a very friendly town if you do it right...i have found that that people in nyc are very friendly and helpful...nyc definitely does have a culture of its own...i don't live in the city per se, but i have grown up going into the city (we do the xmas decorations every year) and i'm proud and happy to be a new yorker...

I'm sure each person have their own stories; good and bad. I did have someone give me directions and afterwards he asked for some money.

I imagine your story is different if you have connections or know people that live there. New York City is the only city I've been to outside of the Midwest, so many my expectations are too high. I've been to Kansas City, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Omaha, Nashville (maybe considered the South?), and St. Louis and all of those cities were cleaner than NYC from what I saw.

What part of NYC do you visit and put up xmas decorations in?

I think the things I like least about it are the city's density and the fact that it's very landlocked with a street system that doesn't run North/South and East/West.

I love how Chicago has lots of good urban planning to clear up the traffic problems. For example on Lake Shore Drive there are no trucks permitted which makes for excellent travel. I drove there in rush hour which was very dense but the traffic was smooth and moved quickly.

I hate how in Manhattan when you drive around the streets you often are stopped behind a truck unloaded stuff in the middle of the day. It gets annoying.

I do remember walking into Tiffany's and approaching a young lady who worked there...

I said I was looking for something for my girlfriend but had a budget restriction of $10. She looked at me funny.

i don't have too many connections in nyc apart from my husband who works there...i'm talking strangers who i've met and asked directions from ..never had a problem...

i will agree nyc is a pain to drive around and i wouldn't do it myself, but while visiting london those roundabouts drove me nuts and we weren't driving...

i don't put up any xmas decorations..there are several...tree in rockefeller plaza, lord and taylor's windows along with macy's...

and you can't go into tiffany's with a budget restriction of 10 bucks...but i don't know what store (except for the dollar stores) where you can get something for that price...

the cities i've been to are chicago, dc, boston, charleston, sc, palm beach, delray beach, miami, littleton, nh, philadelphia (where the streets are just as dirty) portland, maine, london, toronto, quebec and montreal...the traffic is terrible especially in boston and many of the cities in florida...

i've also interacted with people in many of the above places and i still find that new yorkers on the whole tend to be more willing to help out than any other i've come across...

The Visitor has some nice, authentic New York City moments.

I just saw Arthur again and I had forgotten that it was in NYC (it's been a long time since I had seen it). Love the scene when he first meets Liza. Anyway...I remembered about this thread and thought I'd bump it up.

"When you get caught between the Moon and New York City....

Sea of Love always gave me a good NY vibe

__________________
Under-the-radar Movie Awesomeness.
http://earlsmoviepicks.blogspot.com/

There are great many movies set in New York City or about the city itself.
There are more movies shot in or about New York City then perhaps any other city in the world. I'm looking for those in which the city itself becomes a character in the movie, acknowledged or not, so you cannot imagine the movie being shot anywhere else - not just a stand-in for any big city.

There are a number of directors who love New York such as:
Sidney Lumet
Martin Scorsese
Woody Allen
Spike Lee

I'll nominate one of the first great NYC movies:

The Naked City by Jules Dassin (1948)

__________________
You have to think like a hero merely to behave like a decent human being.

Citizen Kane
How To Marry a Millionaire
Rear Window
Sabrina
All About Eve
Guys and Dolls
Breakfast at Tiffany's
West Side Story
Thoroughly Modern Millie
The Godfather
Annie Hall
Manhattan
Goodfellas

anything by abel ferrara

Bumping this because someone was asking about NYC cinema in the questions forum.

I will add...


Lee, 1989

__________________

I've never been there, but I imagine that Dope Sick Love is a much more realistic depiction of the city than that episode of the odd couple where Oscar and Felix are arrested for scalping.

Yeah, this is my favorite Scorsese, one of my favorite movies, and definitely a favorite New York movie.

"one poor shlub's desperate attempt to get out of SoHo one weird night without being killed," -

That's ironic, given the millions people pay today to get into SOHO.

Probably my favorite New York movie is Ghostbusters, the first one. I've been in New York a lot and, at least to an outsider, it's a fun and clean place to be, if you can afford it. I can easily imagine people cheering for a huge marshmallow man. At least in Manhattan and nearby parts of Brooklyn, the old 70's-80's depiction of a well of crime and vice, is just not true anymore. What it is, is a habitat of 5 million dollar condos. Ghostbusters hits enough locations that look real and harkens back to an imagined time when the area was not so gentrified, but was still gritty and fun without having alleys full of junkies and thugs, so it's the New York I like to think about, the one where people have accents like the one Annie Potts did, in spite of her Nashville roots.

1. The Warriors
2. Breakfast at Tiffany's
3. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
4. Blast of Silence
5. Saturday Night Fever
6. Do The Right Thing
7. Taxi Driver
8. Three Days of the Condor
9. Die Hard with a Vengeance
10. The Godfather I/II
11. On the Waterfront
12. Home Alone II
13. King Of New York
14. Serpico
15. GoodFellas
16. The Naked City
17. Ghostbusters
18. The Seven-Ups
19. Paid in Full
20. Network
21. Uncut Gems
22. Coming To America
23. Dog Day Afternoon
24. Wall Street ‘87
25. Clockers
26. Nighthawks
27. Carlito’s Way
28. Bad (music video)
29. Crocodile Dundee
30. Men in Black
31. Tootsie
32. The Walk
33. Super Fly ‘72
34. 25th Hour
35. New Jack City
36. Across 110th Street
37. After Hours
38. Midnight Cowboy
39. Quick Change
40. The Freshman
41. Good Time
42. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
43. Kids
44. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
45. Joker
46. Dressed to Kill
47. West Side Story
48. Leon
49. Escape Form New York
50. Kramer vs Kramer

__________________
Letterboxd
Entertainment log

A favorite is The Rear Window - It's supposedly set in Greenwich Village, although the movie was actually set on a movie lot where they built the alley from the title. One of my extended work junkets in the city was in a tiny hotel on a street just like that, W. 11th Street in the Village. It's fairly middle class and unremarkable in the movie, but those townhouses and apartments go for a good many millions now. A news photog couldn't afford it today. It's also a hot summer with open windows in the movie, but everybody has air conditioning today. Without the hot summer-open window thing, the whole plot doesn't work. Like Ghostbusters, it's a fun New York movie that is enjoyable because it has that bygone days feel. And, by the way, those were the bygone days we refer to, not the big money days in the Village today. I guess you'd need to move to The Bronx today.

Isn't "Alice In The Streets" all in NYC?

__________________
https://www.youtube.com/c/LoyalOpposition