As tough and romantic as the city he loved

"Would American filmmakers please return to America? We know the tax breaks that come with shooting abroad, the international market is where it’s at in terms of box office, the Europeans have the hottest film festivals, but still: she’s feeling a little ignored, your homeland, as a setting, a symbol, a source of myth. John Ford filmed so many movies in Monument Valley they renamed it John Ford country. Between them, Woody Allen, Scorsese and Spike Lee cut up New York so finely you could organize your dating life around their movies:—

“How about we meet in front of that Cathedral on Mulberry street. You know, the one where Harvey Keitel and Robert Di Niro have their heart to heart in Mean Streets”  

“And De Niro lies down on the gravestone?”  

“You got it.”  

“Okay. Where do you want to eat?” 

 “I don’t know…. maybe that Pizzeria on Bleecker?”  

“The one where Mariel Hemingway told Woody Allen she was leaving to go study in London?”   

“That’s the one.”   

“See you there at 8.”

 What do you kids think we all did before Google?"  

— from my review of Blue Jasmine for Departures