Movies that made you love cities (for the first time, or even more)

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Crawford

As a lover of grit, I need to watch Paris 1960's-70's era films. Polanski's The Tenant is pretty good for mid-70's Paris.

Yeah, I love that film, because of the setting and the intensity of the acting.

[isaidso]

Juno made me want to visit Vancouver. I know it wasn't set there but it's hard to see it as somewhere else when you know what you're looking at.

[suburbanite]

It's stereotypical Mark Wahlberg-y Hollywood through and through, but Four Brothers is another for Detroit. I think a decent portion was filmed in Hamilton, but the climactic final standoff scene takes place in the middle of a frozen Lake St. Clair.

[Centropolis]

Since st. louis was brought up...two films that were nearly 100% filmed here that i feel really covered some ground were White Palace (1990) and Up in the Air (2009). Up in the Air wasn't 100% set in St. Louis (a lot of it was though) but St. Louis stood in for Wisconsin and Chicago when it wasn't a St. Louis setting.

Gone Girl (2014) was all set and filmed in Missouri, including St. Louis (and lots of St. Louis film industry support that i had friends in...which left town when the state cut support for it), and I think they did a good job capturing a sort of aura of the area.

[mrnyc]

lots of movies made in cleveland, here is a list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_shot_in_Cleveland

people go on about the deer hunter, a christmas story and the avengers, but my favorites for clevelandy-ness and city grittiness are: antwone fisher, welcome to collinwood, american splendor and telling lies in america.

however, my very favorite remains double dragon because cle homeboy robert patrick is in it, cleveland is a stand in for future apocalyptic los angeles of all things and there are some pretty cool scenes like skate punks in tower city and stuff like that. es bueno queso!

[niwell]

Not exactly city movies per se, but there are a number of interesting post-war Japanese films that manage to show the country during a very interesting time of transition in that country's cities. You can see brand new slapdash buildings next to rubble persisting, then a transition to extreme heavy industry or glitzy neon. Kurosawa did a number of them (there's a criterion box set) but even later movies like Vengeance is Mine by Shohei Inamura (1979) very much show a country in transition.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by niwell

Not exactly city movies per se, but there are a number of interesting post-war Japanese films that manage to show the country during a very interesting time of transition in that country's cities. You can see brand new slapdash buildings next to rubble persisting, then a transition to extreme heavy industry or glitzy neon. Kurosawa did a number of them (there's a criterion box set) but even later movies like Vengeance is Mine by Shohei Inamura (1979) very much show a country in transition.

yeah the world of japanese cinema! very much so. ozu is another. he's japan's frank capra. he uses interiors, but there are always a few scenes outside to break it up.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

yeah the world of japanese cinema! very much so. ozu is another. he's japan's frank capra. he uses interiors, but there are always a few scenes outside to break it up.

I love, love, love Ozu's films. Even his silents (he goes that far back).

Teshigahara is a good director too. Many people talk about "Woman in the Dunes," but I really love "The Face of Another."

[turnleft]

http://www.the-filmreel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/lost_trans_002.jpg

Lost in translation. Japan!

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by turnleft

http://www.the-filmreel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/lost_trans_002.jpg

Lost in translation. Japan!

ha yeah. if you didnt love tokyo after that, you never will. its the real star of the movie.

[mrnyc]

there are so many of these movies and shows, but one i saw something about recently reminded me that it really made me interested london when i last saw it back in college days.

if you can find it its its called up the junction from 1968. with a manfred mann soundtrack. its about a rich girl who goes slumming. a cool movie dealing with the rigid british class struggle that has really great shots of a much grittier 60s era london. check out the opening

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062426/?ref_=fn_al_nm_5a

https://youtu.be/8rrUiJRQVIE

[muppet]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

A great time capsule of post-WWII Paris is "The Red Balloon." It's a French short film that was made in the 1950s, but it shows a neighborhood that apparently has been mostly torn down. The film notably won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and to date, is the only short film to do so.

I saw it in class, in elementary school in the late 1970s; talking to other Gen-Xers like myself, apparently a lot of kids my age saw this movie in elementary school. There's hardly any dialogue in the film, so any kid can watch it without having to read subtitles.

I had only seen it once in elementary school, and then I saw it again a few years ago, and the ending moved me almost to tears. Funny how because of life experiences and whatnot (I was going through post-grief when I saw it again), a movie can be interpreted a lot differently when you watch it as a middle-aged person as opposed to a 4th grader.

The scenes of the city are so gray and run-down, that the bright red balloon really stands out.

If you're quarantining at home and are with your kids, I think it'd be great to watch together as a family.

Here is the whole film:
• Video Link

Thankyou for this, just watched it. You should look into making a trip there some time. Menilmontant is an ex-industrial working class district of Paris still, but with still the alleyways and cobblestone streets. Though now highrise too, it's very hip.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Great thread! Nice to remember all those good movies and cities they showcase.

As no one mentioned, Pittsburgh, one of my favourite North American city. Flashdance, Stigmata and a Bruce Willis movie from the early 90’s whose name I forgot, a bad one, but with very nice shots of Pittsburgh. TV series are also generous with the city, but that’s for another thread.

Flashdance was very avant garde when it comes to new urban trends, featuring the main character living in an abandoned warehouse.

Pittsburgh is so seedy in Flashdance. I love it. That's one of my favorite pop culture time capsules. As a reoccurring theme 1980s Chicago set the bar for what I expect a city to be like. John Hughes, the Blues Brothers, While you were sleeping (silence!!), Candyman! I guess that's the 90s.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Side note, but one of our esteemed forumers/photographers (Rob, who passed away back in 2011 or 2012) had a great roll of photos he shared from when he was in Pittsburgh in 1985 that captured that same kind of grit evident in Flashdance

[tdawg]

Setting his controversy aside, it was Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan” that made me fall in love with New York City way before moving here.

[hauntedheadnc]

Batman Returns was one of the first movies to really ignite in me a love for monumental statuary, Art Deco architecture, and any city where you might find a concentration of either. If Gotham Plaza were a real place, Instagram would be blanketed with **GP Selfie Y'aaaaaaall!!**

[jigglysquishy]

Chungking Express is a love letter to 90s Hong Kong. Visually gorgeous and shows off the real grit in Tsim Sha Tsui.



La Samourai takes place all over 60s Paris and includes a finale centred around the subway

[mrnyc]

^ good call -- chungking express is one of my very favorite movies and absolutely made me fall in for hk.

another very similarly super stylish movie like that which did the exact same for me is don't look now for venice.

[davee930]

I first became obsessed with NYC when I watched the original 1933 King Kong movie when I was about 9 or 10 years old.

[kool maudit]