Tag Archives: Manhattan

Oct 14 2020
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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, United States

Gangs of New York (2002) will never fail to piss me off.

This movie had so much potential; during its production I was sincerely anticipating the greatest motion picture event … ever. Upon first viewing I desperately wanted to love it but couldn’t help but make a mental note of everything about the shitter which vexed me. There was something seriously wrong with this movie.

It is pointlessly and relentlessly weird, depicting 1860s New York as something out of a comic book. I’m sure the experience of living in what was by all accounts a cesspit approximating a cartoon strip at times, but it simply can’t have been as baroque as the ludicrous fancy dress show on display in GONY.

The movie has this irritating tendency for revelling in micro details about stuff that has zilch to do with the overall narrative, as if it’s half history lesson and half entertainment. I see no reason for the Manhattan draft riots to be treated with such gravity. This is the only Scorsese film in which he appears overwhelmed by the material, which I find completely baffling as it’s about New York, crime, and religion, his cinema oeuvre.

Weirdly (again), it is bereft of energy. It feels like a painful Baz Luhrmann film, the cinematography and editing just jarring – insert bonkers Speedy Gonzales shot here, a rapid cut there. Even the voice-over is draining. And it ends with a U2 song and a shot of the Twin Towers. Is this MTV?

And why even insert Cameron Diaz in this? Her ‘accent’ (or whatever) is diabolical, as is Leo’s. The latter appears way out of his depth, evidently awed by the full-method Daniel Day-Lewis. I must also confess that I think it’s the great Day-Lewis’ worst ever performance. He’s just comedy, nothing else; I can’t take him seriously any time he gets … serious.

Sadly, I keep giving the film a chance every few years. The only parellel I can think of is when you open the fridge expecting a different result from when you opened it 30 minutes prior.

Shite.

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Dec 20 2017
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Cinema, Film, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

The Central Park Bird Lady.

In every park in every city there’s an initially creepy but ultimately benevolent bird lady with a heart of pure gold. Please pass on a turtle dove (and some shampoo) to your resident hobo this Christmas.

N.B. The Bird Lady – her life story up until meeting Kevin McCallister – really should have been a movie prequel.

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Oct 29 2016
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Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

New York – Twin Cities.

The Big Apple is venerated as the most filmed city in movies, a hustle-bustle urban jungle of possibilities, both magical and harrowing.

It seems there aren’t films made *about* New York City very much anymore; they merely take place there, the protagonists unaffected by the milieu. Perhaps it’s a post 9/11 reluctance to confront the contentious ‘symbolism’ that the city continues to offer. Only Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002) confronts NYC in its role as ‘snapshot city’, and attempts to deconstruct its myths and contradictions.

My first trip to New York in 1997.
Taken in 2000 on a $10 camera.

New York is represented in two modes of cinema – it’s a decrepit urban hell or a serene cloud to naval gaze on – guzzle down coffees, discuss Dialectical Materialism, be ‘arty’. The dichotomy is illustrated in two films made three years apart, Taxi Driver (1976) and Manhattan (1979).

Taxi Driver (1976).

If ever the topography of a city mirrored a protagonist’s crumbling psyche it’s Taxi Driver (1976). Travis Bickle here represents purgatory, New York a steaming cesspool of ‘animals’ and ‘filth’. The city is an ill-thought-out maze, a cruel, shallow, uncaring conurbation from gutter to canopy. An utter dump, it’s where people lose their minds.

taxi_driver_gods_lonely_man

Manhattan (1979).

This movie is paradise. I’d love to live like one of these characters. A bloke in it willingly quits his job because he can. He doesn’t worry over council tax or credit card debt or rent or any of that trivial shite – he just spends the remainder of the movie see-sawing between a neurotic journalist and a 17-year-old high school student. The city here black and white, lit up in fireworks and George Gershwin. There is no crime, there are no social problems. There are only parties and conversations. NYC is a lucid dream.

Photography By Brian Hamill

A film-maker from different backgrounds and experiences will of course develop his own vision of metropolis as distinct from another’s, but this city is ridiculous in its contrasting representations to the extent that one wonders if it’s the same place subjected to the camera. The theme goes beyond a depiction of class divide – its wholly disparate districts captured on celluloid – and channels two states of mind. New York is *the* kaleidoscopic dwelling.

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