I’m a Carrie.
So of course, I sat with my eyes and ears open as the final episode of Sex and the City aired this past Sunday. And the most lasting lesson that I took from the show is that there is only one Big Apple. What did everyone’s favorite fashionista say when she finally found herself in the arms of Mr. Big, in Paris, the city of love? Take me home, I miss New York. People make fun of New Yorkers for acting like “the city” is the center of the universe. Is it really the best city in the world?
Absofuckinglutely.
And here are the movies that prove it.
Annie Hall
Woody Allen does it better than anyone else when it comes to old New York. No one films the cityscape quite like he can, with that special New York neuroticism that others just don’t get. Billed as a nervous comedy, Annie Hall is Allen at his best and remains one of the most brilliant romantic comedies of all time. It’s the love story of neurotic Upper West Side Jewish comedian Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) and ditzy, nightclub singer Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). Their relationship is shot through classic New York city street scenes and their final break up has Annie leaving Alvy for L.A. to live with a musician played by Paul Simon. Says Alvy, “I don’t want to live in a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn at a red light.” La-Dee-Dah, Lah-Dee-Dah.
When Harry Met Sally
Directed by Rob Reiner, When Harry Met Sally takes a look at whether or not men and women can really be friends without sex getting in the way. The answer is, apparently, no. Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) meet in New York years after driving together from Chicago University and befriend each other, eventually falling in love. The film features walks in Central Park in the fall, a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and of course, everyone’s favorite orgasm scene, which was shot in the middle of a packed Katz’s Deli on the Lower East Side. I’ll have what she’s having.
The Muppets Take Manhattan
No one knows better than Kermit and friends that New York City is where its at. This time, the muppets try and conquer Broadway. I ask you, have the muppets been to your town? I certainly don’t see them making pilgrimages to New Jersey.
Igby Goes Down
Igby Goes Down was lauded as the closest film has come to imitating J. D. Salinger. The movie, released in 2002, stars Kieran Culkin (Macaulay’s younger brother) as a Holden Caulfield-esque New York City private school crackhead surrounded by damaged, over-indulgent relatives on the Upper East Side. The film roams from Madison Avenue to below 14th Street and the Hamptons, chronicling Igby and his pot-smoking, adulterous relatives and friends. And what’s a Manhattan film without snobby, infantile cynics and spoiled private school kids?
Archived article by Logan Bromer