New York Movies

Close-Ups #3

by Mark Asch, Little White Lies

The indispensable, illustrated pocket guide to New York movies, from Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen to Lena Dunham and Noah Baumbach.

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New York has always been one of the world’s most filmed cities, with its apartments housing tenants like Rosemary's baby and the Royal Tenenbaums, its skyscrapers scaled by the likes of King Kong and graffiti artists and its rubble-strewn streets prowled by everyone from Travis Bickle to Carrie Bradshaw.

In this illustrated pocket guide to New York and its movies, Mark Asch explores the Big Apple block by block and neighbourhood by neighbourhood, jogging past the iconic bench from Manhattan, eating at Katz’s Deli from When Harry Met Sally and mooching around the Coney Island boardwalk like one of The Warriors. Retracing the steps of countless iconic actors, cinematographers and directors, he draws up a unique cinematic map of The City That Never Sleeps.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, New York

151 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2018

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Go for the masterful tour of the featured films and their New York neighborhoods, stay for brilliantly clever phrases like "a candid of Bob's bare Balabuns." Full of expert insight, shrewd comments on the ever-changing NYC landscape, and a pleasure to read.

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this whole thing on public transit like the toronto transplant I am

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s pretty all right, I suppose, but I don’t really get what the purpose was. The book consists of a compilation of films set in New York and distributes them into different areas, but never really shows any noteworthy connections between the movies or a theoretical background behind it. It was still nice to read a couple of funfacts that I didn’t know about some of my favourite films, though.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t really get what this book was going for. As an exploration of New York it has nothing really to say. I’m not from there and have never been so I know the geography doesn’t make sense to me anyway, but I feel like there’s nothing on this for a New Yorker either. And in terms of the films it talks about it doesn’t really have anything to say about them either. The films I had already watched I gleaned no extra insight and the films I hadn’t I didn’t really understand the passages on. The writing style is clunky and hard to follow, especially when talking about both films and locations I knew nothing about.

[David Macpherson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good, breezy overview of movies made in New York. Some of the choices were good, others were not too interesting. I couldn't figure out what the author liked and what he featured more than others. I didn't feel like I got his tastes too well. It was good and I discovered some interesting flicks to put on my "To Watch List"

[Jack Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book made for a sunny afternoon session. Whilst most younger readers like myself won't have seen all the offerings detailed here, there is plenty you will have watched. There is plenty interesting points/themes to take in, not to mention a desire to watch the ones you've not recognised or have surely heard of but never get round to. Food for thought !

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of the three In the close ups series so far, this feels like the weakest. The only thing linking the movies is location and when reading I feel like it is all over the place. With the other two books there were many more thems and links and overall flow.
Learned about some new films, but over all just not as structured.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A briskly entertaining, sharply written tour through New York via an expertly curated selection of some of the most notable movies shot there. Highly recommended.

[Jason Roland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting as much emphasis on the avant-garde and weird New York movies. If that's your thing, you'll enjoy it.

[Danny Abbott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is so sad, the way this guy's just using unnecessary words to make himself feel smarter or something idk literally didn't understand half what he was blabbering on abt

[Marta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting book that goes in depth in some of the movies based in NY, it's in a chronological order.