Thursday, October 18, 2007

sometime in NYC

Gangs of New York (2002)

Leonardo Di Caprio and Cameron Diaz limp off-scene in 1864 NYC, against a backdrop looking across the East River to the aftermath of the Draft Riots.

Munich (2005)

Eric Bana walks off-scene in mid-1970s NYC, looking across the East River to the recently completed Twin Towers.

AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Jude Law and Haley Joel Osment fly-in to a submerged late-21st Century NYC, with the century-old Twin Towers looming large.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Awfully expensive joint but, what a joint!

Been there three times and would go again tomorrow....as long as the government or someone else paid.

I'd damn near trade a testicle to be ensconced in the Algonquin on West 44th. Over the raod and down half a block to Jimmy's Corner

18/10/07 1:57 PM  
Blogger Caz said...

Oooh, aah.

I'm ashamed to say that I saw "Munich", but didn't *register* the Twin Towers, which, of course, had to be there.

Good film too, better than I expected.

Bana did a great job with his role, I thought.

19/10/07 10:31 PM  
Blogger Jacob A. Stam said...

On Monday I told a mate at work that I'd hired that film, Munich, not having seen it yet. He opined that it was crap.

I'd almost resolved to take it back unseen, but had an RDO and thought I'd have a look anyway.

Yeah, it's not at all a bad film - surprisingly, considering it's a Spielberg effort. I discussed it with my workmate, who was surprised at my more positive appraisal.

And yes, he missed the Twin Towers too, but that's not a huge oversight for those unfamiliar with the NYC skyline (which includes myself, never having been there). The missus reckons my eye for detail is somewhat wanting, but sometimes I surprise both her and myself.

The almost understated appearance of those towers in the closing moments of the film produced for me one of those heart-stopping cinematic moments.

After two and a half hours of wrestling with the weighty matters of terror, justice, vengeance, murder and mayhem, that scene confronts the viewer with a premonitory flashback (if you will) of the madness that would follow years hence.

19/10/07 10:57 PM  
Blogger Jacob A. Stam said...

Oh, and yeah, Bana is bloody fantastic!

19/10/07 11:02 PM  

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