Fun City Cinema

We thought it would be fun to do a nice, light Christmas episode, focusing on one of the many beloved Gotham holiday movies. Just take it easy for an episode, right? Kinda phone it in?

So we settled on Chris Columbus and John Hughes’ 1992 smash "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" – and ended up talking about Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, “Broken Windows,” the Central Park Five, and 9/11, along with the film’s total geographical inconsistency and the spectacular tonal failure of its violence.

Our guests are “Close-Ups: New York Movies” author Mark Asch, Pitchfork senior editor Jillian Mapes, “You’re Wrong About” co-host Sarah Marshall, and freelance film writer Anya Stanley. Happy holidays!

When the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center fell on September 11, 2001, New York City was changed forever: its skyline, its people, its mood. And its films were changed as well – some more immediately than others, as filmmakers struggled to determine how to deal with the now ghostly presence of the towers in films completed but not released before 9/11.

Some films edited them out, some digitally removed them. But Brooklyn’s own Spike Lee went the opposite direction, adding the tragedy into his film “25th Hour,” which was slated to shoot in the city that fall and winter. In doing so, he ended up crafting what we now consider the definitive post-9/11 New York movie.

We’ll hear archival audio of Lee and star Edward Norton explaining that decision and that process, and we’ll break down the film that resulted, with the help of film critics Roxana Hadadi, Keith Phipps, and Scott Tobias, as well as filmmaker Jennifer Westfeldt (“Kissing Jessica Stein”).

Content warning: From 3:36 to 7:41, you will hear audio of news reports from 9/11.

The 1974 Charles Bronson vehicle Death Wish is far from the best New York movie of the era – but it may be the most influential. Its story of a mild-mannered upper-class Manhattan resident who responds to the rising crime rates by taking the law into his own hands, hitting the streets and taking out muggers and criminals of various types (but mostly black, brown, and poor) hit a nerve in the city, and across the country.

Its influence was reflected not only in movies – where it beget a series of sequels, imitators, remakes, and rip-offs – but in the culture, where its noble image of the one-man justice squad often resulted in messier outcomes than onscreen. And it altered the lives of several of its participants, including star Bronson (who found himself typecast for the rest of his career) and Brian Garfield, author of the book that inspired it, who spent the rest of his life crusading against the film adaptation’s mangled message.

We’ll explore all of that and more in this two-part episode. Our guests for part two are New Yorker staff writer Jelani Cobb, film historians and pop culture critics LaToya Ferguson, Matt Prigge, and Paul Talbot, and filmmaker (and Death Wish 3 co-star) Alex Winter.

Our first episode drops this week, so we wanted to give you a taste of what’s to come. “Fight the Power” tells the story of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing,” now considered not only a classic of modern cinema, but a clarion call to social justice, frequently connected with current acts of racist violence.

But “Do the Right Thing” is inspired by specific historical events in New York City in the years before its release – and a general atmosphere of racial tension and police brutality, much of it empowered by the casual racism of Mayor Ed Koch.

For more information check out our website - funcitycinema.com.

Thanks for listening!

New York City is one of the most important and recognizable locations in motion pictures – like a character itself, as countless films and filmmakers have tiresomely insisted. And though first American films were shot in New York at the end of the 19th century, the industry moved West in the 1910s and rarely came back.

And when, thanks the Herculean efforts of city government, filmmakers finally brought their cameras back to Gotham in the mid-1960s, they did so just in time to capture a city in crisis, a cesspool of crime, decay, and conflict.

So the movies that were shot in New York in those years aren’t just telling their stories. They’re telling the city’s story – and one that’s still being told.