New York Movies
 

Having been in NYC a lot over the years, I'm on withdraw now since things are locked down. Selecting movies to watch, I realized that the huge number of New York movies are a genre of their own, with sub-genres like wealth, culture, urban decay, crime, art, sophistication, mean streets, monsters in the sewers, etc. The city is so enveloping that it's like a universe unto itself and a metaphor for urbanism. We all have stereotypes that coincide with one or more of those sub-genres.

For me, last night, it was a recent DVD purchase, a bad horror movie that's a cult classic, C.H.U.D. This flick has it all in the way of 80's urban decay, burnt out cops, perpetually wet streets with steaming manhole covers, corrupt politicians, flophouses and vagrants covered with dirt. And...it has cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers who reach up from those steaming manholes and pull pedestrians down into CHUD hell.

So...what is your all time favorite or most recent of the many versions of life in the Big Apple?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJckCjZ8Tdw

Re: New York Movies
 

take a wild guess

Re: New York Movies
 

Dog Day Afternoon

C.H.U.D! Such a great horror film!

Re: New York Movies
 

Annie Hall and Taxi Driver (and basically Joker)

I'm thinking that it's NOT the high life version of the city if Snake is around.

Re: New York Movies
 

I might have to watch the first Ghostbusters movie tonight.

The French Connection (1971), Taxi Driver (1976), Manhattan (1979).

When Harry Met Sally (1989)
West Side Story (1961)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Re: New York Movies
 

Almost any movie by Woody Allen. Oh, wait a minute no one watches those anymore;)

Yeah, but they were pretty good when they were still OK and Woody was OK.

Re: New York Movies
 

King Kong (all versions)
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
Godzilla 1998
Cloverfield (2008)

I'm sensing a trend here. ;)

West Side Story
The Lords of Flatbush
The Wanderers
The Warriors
The Gangs of New York

Another trend.

Re: New York Movies
 

A movie that could only be set in New York, My Dinner With Andre, in which two guys sit in a restaurant have dinner and talk a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUgq_MhDyeY

Re: New York Movies
 

The Panic in Needle Park
John and Mary
Serpico
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Hannah & Her Sisters

So many movies in NYC ...

Re: New York Movies
 

Another favorite was the 2008 Me and Orson Welles, in which a young, idealistic aspiring actor tries out for a production of Orson Welles' famous version of Julius Caesar, set at the legendary Mercury Theater in 1937. It's really a terrific "little" movie, like a moment in time when the kid falls in love with an ambitious actress, gets jilted and works with the bombastic Welles, a moment he will never forget. Christian Mackay does about as much scenery chewing as a human can do and does a great job of conjuring up the egotistic Welles, who is never at a loss to tell anybody what a genius he is. It's a totally likable movie. Most of it was filmed offshore, but some establishing shots are backdated sepia-tinted versions of New York. At the time it was proclaimed as the best movie ever about being in the theater.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVm7t1udP-g

Re: New York Movies
 

One of the immortals - King Kong in the Big Apple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbrikL8IjXM

Always got a kick out of The Simpsons take on that film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V91Y7MRw7eo

Re: New York Movies
 

Here I go again. It's Network, 1979. The concept is completely dated since electronic media has become so ubiquitous that the old-school network news is hardly noticed now, but (a big but), the outrageousness of this movie and it's contempt for the media have never been outdone. It's the origin story of electronic media, reality TV, 24X7 news and everything that makes today's media insane. And...everybody has heard Howard Beale proclaim that he's as mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore, the mad prophet of the airways. It's set in New York and where else could it be. Nowhere else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cSGvqQHpjs

Three gritty street movies that bring out the darker, exploitative side of late 70's/80's NY:
The Driller Killer - Early Abel Ferrara movie (a luminary of New York cinema), and an early video nasty.
Combat Shock - Early Troma movie, before they honed their intentional schlock style (and it's much better for it). I wrote a review.
Street Trash - gooey, very dark comic exploitation. One of my favorites. :)

... and a mention for The Brother from Another Planet. Far less morbid than the prior three, but has a good street atmosphere.

CHUD is another old favorite of mine. If you liked it, you should watch it with the sardonic DVD commentary and like it even more.:)

I'll have to check for that. So far, I've mainly been entranced with steaming manholes, glowing eyes and Kim Greist's attempt to wrest the Scream Queen title from Jamie Lee Curtis.

I'd be interested in commentary about just WHY blood spurted out of the drain when Kim was showering since there were no CHUDs inside bathroom plumbing.

Don’t forget this gritty one from the 80’s

My next late-night acquisition. There can never be too much cheesy 80's horror and, if it's set in New York, that's even better, TRIBECA even betterer.

In addition to those already mentioned...

Marty
Do The Right Thing
Crooklyn
Fresh
Night on Earth (NY segment)
Times Square
Old Enough
After Hours
Smithereens
The Addiction

Interesting list, especially Marty. I have a vague recollection of being talked into seeing it somewhere when I was a kid, told that it was a great movie but it was completely lost on me. It's on Amazon Prime....might try it again in adulthood.

Re: New York Movies
 

Right now - watching Alfred Hitchcock's The Rear Window, in which a news photog, idled with a broken leg, notices strange and possibly sinister goings on in the apartment across the courtyard from his. It was a fictional story based on an actual building at 125 W. Christopher Street in the West Village. The filming was done in a duplicate set built on a back lot in Hollywood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m01YktiEZCw

Re: New York Movies
 

Let’s not forget The Seven Year Itch & The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Gotta love The Muppets Take Manhattan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1SV7I2lw2g

Gotta love almost anything with The Muppets in it.

It's an older thread, but check out THIS ONE HERE. Last updated in 2014, but lots of good NYC flicks and filmmakers discussed.

If you grooved to the low budget horror NYC depicted in C.H,U.D. check out some of Larry Cohen's work, specifically I'd recommend God Told Me To (1976) and Q – The Winged Serpent (1982), both of which surely helped inspire Douglas Cheek and company with their Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGL9Si2loco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCE3xpqBNdM

I do remember a bleary, late night viewing of Q. As things turn out, the "star" of that flick, Micheal Moriarty, is guy I've seen live a number of times in theatrical performances in Baltimore, as in real plays by playwrights with academic reputations. I think the guy who narrated the trailer for Q is also the trailer voice for CHUD.

As for God Told Me To, that one looks like a candidate for another bleary, late night session.

Re: New York Movies
 

Re: New York Movies
 

how can anyone forget these classics:
Black rain
State of Grace
Die Hard with a vengeance
Sea of love

*high five*

Literally the post I came in here to write.

God Told Me To in particular has a bonkers plot progression that simply must be seen to be believed.

Damn. My cheap DVD copy doesn't have any commentary. I wanted to check on that.

Re: New York Movies
 

Men in Black - Extraterrestrials are being hidden by the government in New York, where nobody will notice them among all the other aliens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYUd7AOw_lk

Leon (1994)
Forgot this was set in New York until I watched it again last night.

Oh yeah....Jean Reno and a very young Natalie Portman. I think I watched part of it quite a while ago.

I strongly recommend you track down the full movie. I've done a short review on my thread under movie review section.

Re: New York Movies
 

A recent one - Uncut Gems - in which Adam Sandler goes dark, as a gambling-addicted jeweler who makes a seriously bad bet, and you know this isn't going to come to a good end. This is the gritty version of New York, full of gangsters and mean streets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTfJp2Ts9X8