fave 1980s NYC movies

So, like any average 20-something female in Brooklyn, I punctuated my dinner tonight by watching a TiVOed episode of the AMAZING 1990s animated series, "The Critic." If you haven't seen it, you really haven't lived.

Anyway the show's hysterical mockery of mainstream cinema and Hollywood figures, combined with its impeccably New York-ish humor got me thinking about my favorite '80s movies based in New York City. As far back as I can remember, the city that lay 45 minutes from my childhood home seemed dark, dirty, and monolithic - truly in line with what E.B. White would call the "symbolic city." After spending about a quarter of my life here (and my entire adult life, for that matter), I see things quite differently then I did as a lil' baybay in the 'burbs. I'm sure it has an equal amount to do with the way my adult brain perceives reality, as well as the extraordinary ways in which New York has changed in the past 20 years.

But damn, those movies still fill me with the nostalgia and misinterpretations of what I thought NYC meant, and what it meant to live here.

What are some of your favorite New York movies from your childhood? I'm starting the list below, but please feel free to add any suggestions in. There are tons and tons to choose from, but I'm limiting mine to the ones that hit theaters before I turned 7. And honestly, at age 5 I wasn't watching Gordon Gekko ruin lives or Paul Hackett get covered in plaster, so they don't neccessarily have to be kids' films, just movies that made the monolithic impression on you.

some faves:

1. GHOSTBUSTERS

2. WORKING GIRL

3. BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED

4. COMING TO AMERICA

5. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY

6. WALL STREET

7. AFTER HOURS

8. COCKTAIL

9. FATAL ATTRACTION

10. DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN