Ode to 'Manhattan'

Yesterday sure was a great day. It reminded me of being a little kid in Detroit watching the news to see if school was going to be canceled on account of snow. You see, late on Monday I had placed a call to a co-worker who "owed" me a day off. She's very responsible so I knew when I didn't hear right back from her that she must have been out for the night and would be calling me on Tuesday. Would she relieve me of my work duties so Michael and I could go to the revival of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" down at the Film Forum? It was just before lunch that I got the call -- and sure enough, I was a free man!!!

As regular readers know, Woody Allen is my favorite director. Sure he hasn't made many decent movies in over a decade, but with a half-dozen films from the '70s and '80s that I consider all-time faves to his credit, Woody's still No. 1 in my book. "Manhattan" -- along with reruns of "Family Affair" and later "Desperately Seeking Susan" -- will always be special to me though because seeing it was one of the defining moments in my childhood that made me long to live in New York City. Filmed in glorious black and white and set to the lush music of George Gershwin, Woody Allen's 1979 masterpiece about a divorced New Yorker dating a high-schooler (the adorable Mariel Hemingway, who deservedly got an Oscar nomination but lost out to her "Manhattan" co-star Meryl Streep, for "Kramer vs. Kramer") who ends up falling for the mistress (Diane Keaton, playing neurotic -- again -- but in a way that is so not Annie Hall) of his best friend, was more than a tribute to Manhattan, it truly starred Manhattan. (Although he shuns these things, Allen and his writing partner Marshall Brickman were nominated for Oscars too for best screenplay written directly for the screen.)

I was only 11 when "Manhattan" was released, and although my family did see a Woody Allen film or two (at the drive-in!) long before then, I never got to see this one on the big screen and always dreamed about what it would be like. (I did, however, have the pleasure of seeing a double feature of "Play It Again, Sam" and "Casablanca" with my brothers back in Tempe.) Ironically, it turned out that the screens at the Film Forum are almost smaller than many people's televisions (it is an art house, after all!), but my "big screen" TV is 16 inches, so even this moderately big screen experience was a sheer delight. For all the talk of the rise of home theater and sagging box offices receipts, the fact that I would take a day off and pay 12 bucks to see a movie I own just to see it on the "big" screen explains why I'm no fan of movie rentals -- and certainly would never want new releases to come out directly on-demand or to download. I know going to the movies has its drawbacks (namely fellow patrons), but for me, you couldn't pay me to see a movie at home that I could see on the big screen. There's no comparison -- and I hope there are enough other people who feel this way so that cinema experience never dies the way the record store has. It would truly be a shame.