Great Movies, Great Cities?

Great Movies, Great Cities?
by Jeff Lewis

Often after I see a movie set in Los Angeles that prominently displays landmarks and cultures, I mull over the list of quality movies that use LA as a backdrop and try to figure out what is the best LA movie. I haven't yet come up with a conclusive answer, or even established a set of criteria, just that an LA movie has to evoke the hard-to-quantifiy pan-cultural LA-ness that isn't represented in LA stereotypes. Crash—which I haven't seen—sounds like it attempts to capture this. At his best, Steve Martin is a good bet, with LA Story, Grand Canyon, Parenthood, Shop Girl and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid all representing the area admirably.

I decided to expand my question to the other major US cities. New York transfers magnificently to film, and many film makers have a love affair with the city, so nearly every movie set it the city shows it off. Chicago has its fair share of Chicago movies, but after that the list drops off precipitously (though Philadelphia fares well).

Here are the twenty largest cities in the US, with my tentative picks for Best in City. This list provided a few surprises, most notably that Boston, Seattle, Washington DC and Denver are numbers 23-26, all smaller than El Paso, and that Fresno is larger than the major league cities of Miami, Cincinatti, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Anaheim, Sacremento, Oakland, Atlanta, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Tampa, or tiny little Buffalo and Orlando.

New York

There are so many New York movies that I fear this list merely scratches the surface and that I'm leaving out some of the classics. I've decided to group them into three types: the gritty, the boardroom and the New Yorkers.

The Gritty

My pick for the top gritty New York movie is Serpico, because the grainy quality of the film, its noisiness and its tenseness make me feel like I'm in New York (although I've only spent a week there, so I'm not the best judge). Even when Serpico is spending a great deal of screen time feeding his cockatoo, I think, Yes, that's how New York cops fighting corruption would feed their cockatoos. Other gritty movies that could easily top the list are, in order of how I think they evoke New York: Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, French Connection, Godfather II, Goodfellas, Godfather I.

I am missing many, for sure, and would like to place Ghostbusters on top of this list, but I think it exaggerates the number of ghosts in the city. For futuristic movies that involve simians, I'd go with either Planet of the Apes or 12 Monkeys.

The Boardroom

If I wasn't bothered by both Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen, I might include Wall Street. The same goes for Melanie Griffith and Working Girl. Instead, for represenations of the white collar world, I'm going with His Girl Friday, Sabrina, The Apartment and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

The New Yorkers

Though it barely has a female presence, I'm choosing another Sidney Lumet film, 12 Angry Men, with Do The Right Thing and Annie Hall also in the conversation. Others meriting consideration: When Harry Met Sally, Rear Window and The Thin Man.

Los Angeles

A preponderance of the highly regarded LA movies are noir or noirish: Chinatown, Double Indemity, Blade Runner, Sunset Boulevard, LA Confidential, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Player and Pulp Fiction. For portrayals of youth, there's Rebel Without a Cause, Stand and Deliver, Boyz N Da Hood, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Graduate. Though perhaps not better than any of the above-mentioned movies—and perhaps I'd change my mind if I were to see them again (it's been a while)—I'm going with LA Story and The Big Lebowski for appreciating the sillier aspects of Los Angeles rather than ridiculing them.

Chicago

While New York and Los Angeles have had thousands of movies shot on location, Chicago is merely in the hundreds, but they include a few favorites: The Fugitive and The Blues Brothers, along with My Bodyguard and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Houston

For its size, Houston is very underrepresented, since I could only come up with five respectable films: Tin Cup, Terms of Endearment, Apollo 13 (and I suppose other space movies if you count sound stage shots of ground control), Reality Bites and Rushmore. Since Apollo 13 is not really about Houston, I pick Rushmore.

Philadelphia

Philadelphia doesn't get many movies, but it's had quality: Rocky, Trading Places and, of course, Philadelphia. The Sixth Sense and portions of Witness also were shot in Philly. The Philadelphia Story is one of my favorite movies, but I don't think it takes place in Philadelphia.

Phoenix

After Philadelphia, it is tough to scratch of a list of "city movies." I could only come up with two worthy of consideration for Phoenix: Psycho and Jerry Maguire. The Phoenix family has a better body of work.

San Diego

Traffic shows a good cross section of San Diego and Tijuana and therefore is my choice, though a strong case could be made for Top Gun if you are feeling nostalgic for the eighties.

San Antonio

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is the winner here. Also of note: Uh, Selena?

Dallas

This is a toss-up between two movies I haven't seen: Born on the 4th of July and JFK.

San Jose

San Jose loses out to the more photogenic parts of the Bay Area, so I had to scrap just to get this meager list: What Dreams May Come, Birdy (I think) and a small part of Terminator 2. I really dislike the first and the last doesn't really count, so I guess it's Birdy.

Detroit

This is a race between a not-horrible Jennifer Lopez movie (Out of Sight), a movie that some really like, but has Christian Slater (True Romance) and a documentary that I've heard is good, but haven't seen (Roger & Me). This is a decision I am unable to make.

Indianapolis

Forget Paris with Billy Crystal is the only movie I can come up with.

Jacksonville

The Creature from the Black Lagoon vs. the new Manchurian Candidate.

San Francisco

Finally a batch of decent movies from a second-tier city (don't let the San Franciscolinos know I said that). My pick is Vertigo because it shows off the city. Maltese Falcon is my favorite, and Dirty Harry deserves praise for being perhaps the only place you can see what Kezar Stadium used to look like. Mrs. Doubtfire deserves credit for displaying the Painted Ladies.

Columbus

Again, Traffic, which has a few external scenes in Columbus.

Austin

The options are quirky: Office Space or Dazed and Confused. Until I see Dazed and Confused, I choose Office Space, in particular because of its excellent use of flair.

Memphis

2005 added Walk the Line and Hustle & Flow to the list of good Memphis movies. Others include The Client, Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train and portions of Silence of the Lambs. Though I haven't seen it, I pick Mystery Train because I feel sorry for Jarmusch, who I don't think has won any major awards in the US.

Baltimore

Diner, or pick your favorite John Waters movie.

Fort Worth

This exercise has devolved into obscurity. The top Forth Worth movies are... U2: Rattle & Hum and Metallica: Cunning Stunts. I guess Fort Worth is still waiting for its masterpiece.

Charlotte

Charlotte doesn't have a decent choice (Days of Thunder!!!!!) so I will end with perhaps my favorite City Movie: Washington DC's All The President's Men, which is one of those movies that I can watch over and over, even though...spoiler alert...I already know that they catch that Nixon bastard.

Jeff can be reached at jeff@babblog.com.