Lights, camera, walkin' here: It's time to pick the best NYC movie of the 21st Century
The movies all tell different stories, but when you think about it, New York City is another character in each one of them.
It's March Madness, and you may notice that for the next couple of days, many of your friends are turning their low-level alcoholism into an opportunity to watch 12 hours of college basketball. Here at The New York Groove we're not above such practices (Let's go Red Storm!) but we also recognize you don't come here to get your NCAA analysis. However we know you do come here to think about New York City culture, and so as a follow-up to last year's Bangers Bracket which whittled 64 21st-century songs about New York down to one very depressed champion (LCD Soundsystem's "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down") we are returning this year's bracket: NYC(inema)2K, which will determine once and for all what the best New York City film of the 21st century is.
Not that a quarter century is ever boring around here, but the last 26 years have seen some seismic changes. September 11 and the city's recovery, Mike Bloomberg's vision of the city as "luxury product" and Occupy Wall Street, gentrification and new art scenes spreading out from Manhattan, the highs of the city's excesses and the fraud revelations of the Great Recession, and that pandemic that we don't really talk about.
The physical landscape of the city is barely recognizable when looking at the movies set early in the century compared to how things look now: bike lanes and pedestrian plazas and Citi Bike stations popping up through the years to mark the movement of time, familiar storefronts swapping out tenants and even the city skyline itself welcoming more ostentatious skyscrapers.
The bracket touches on all of that and more. There's millennial malaise (Frances Ha, Tiny Furniture, Fort Tilden), the financial crisis and its discontents (Hustlers, The Other Guys, Margin Call), period pieces (Inside Llewyn Davis and A Most Violent Year), Spike Lee joints (Inside Man, 25th Hour), sex and dating (Sleeping With Other People and Sex and the City The Movie), superheroes and cyclists (Spider-Man and Premium Rush), Jews and WASPS (Shiva Baby and Igby Goes Down), two types of flailing Ben Stiller (While We're Young and A Night At The Museum) and immigrant stories (Brooklyn, The Imperialists Are Still Alive, Problemista). The movies all tell different stories, but when you think about it, New York City is another character in each one of them.
We think the range we've picked here does a good job of presenting the picture that New York showed to the world and to itself since the year 2000, though it'll be up to you to figure out which of the movies made the biggest impression. We're absolutely indebted to Yasmina Tawil's NYC2000s film series at BAM last year and have included a few of the same picks she made in our attempt to capture the mood of the city for the last 26 years.
And speaking of BAM, they're chipping in a big prize for participants in our bracket this year: two voters will receive an "Unlimited MetroCard" pass that entitles the holders (and a guest) to see every film in the upcoming Hoyt-Schermerhorn: Stand Clear of the Closing Doors film series, which kicks off April 9. Stay tuned to each round of voting to find out how enter.
Don't see the bracket down there? Well it's simple, the toll to vote is subscribing to our newsletter. We think you'll like it.
You don't have to navigate the whole bracket, just click "start voting" and you'll get escorted to the polls.
