The Nine Best Movies About Brooklyn

Okay, I'm going to skip all those baseball epics of the past where Ebbets Field was the scene of hope and glory--and a little insanity. The following list includes some oldies, some goodies, some independents and some box office smashes.

1. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945). This black-and-white film, based on a best-selling autobiographical novel traces an Irish immigrant family in the early 1900s through the eyes of their young daughter. A drunken father, a hard-working but somewhat harsh mother, an ambitious young girl and her lackadaisical brother are the basic characters, but the film transcends stereotypes to become a heart-tugging story. Elia Kazan directs with a loving touch. A Brooklyn of gritty tenements and laundry lines with only a single tree to signify hope is the background for this coming-of-age in America drama.

2.Saturday Night Fever ( 1977). This one stars John Travolta, the BeeGees' music, and a disco beat that had all America dancing. Everyone remembers the ballroom scene where Travolta wows the crowd with his dancing but the family sitting around the table knocking each other on the head was memorable also.

The working-class Italian family in this movie was pretty parochial, bigoted and narrow-minded. The disco ballroom is the only escape for Tony Manero and his friends. But there's a little growing up and getting out of the borough to do. The movie is best summed up by the Saturday Night Live parody: "Isn't it great to be young, stupid and live in Brooklyn!"

3.Moonstruck (1984). Oh, if only the Italian local neighborhoods were really as endearing as this one! A popular movie with lots of awards and memorable lines Oscar winning performances by Olivia Dukakis, Cher and wonderful turns by Nicholas Cage, John Mahoney (Frazier's dad) and just about everyone including the pack of dogs that the grandpa takes out every night.

I ate in the restaurant where they filmed the proposal scene (it's actually in Manhattan) but the exteriors looked authentic. Not sure of the neighborhood-Bay Ridge, maybe-because I don't know Italian neighborhoods that well. But it's a place where you know the butcher, the baker, and the local grocery-before the supermarkets came in and destroyed everything. Poetry, profundity, opera and a full moon over Brooklyn makes this one a winner.

4.The Flamingo Kid (1984). Matt Dillon in his prime and a nice heart-warming story written by Garry Marshall and Neal Marshall and directed by Garry. Set in the late 1940s early 50s. Dillon is a Brooklyn boy (Coney Island? Brighton Beach?) who takes a summer job in a nouveau ritzy beach club in Long Island.

This is an oft told story of a young man, just out of high school, looking for opportunity and the false-hero older man who supplants his father in his affection. Richard Crenna is the auto-dealer owner who is a lot richer than the hero's dad. Dillon is seduced by the money and class (there is of course, a beautiful girl involved) but a high-stakes gin rummy game puts everything in perspective.

5. Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986). Neil Simon's autobiographical play of a lower middle class family in the late 1930s made a smooth transition to the screen. Jonathan Silverman has the right nasal accent for those Simon one-liners. Some drama with the aunt and cousin who lives in the house with Mom, Dad, and brother. Fifteen-year-old Eugene Jerome has two dreams-to have sex and become a famous writer. Will Eugene become a rich, famous playwright and get to move to Manhattan-and later Hollywood? We know the answer but seeing the start of it all is really fun.

6. Radio Days (1987). Woody Allen was born and brought up in Brooklyn, but most of his films are set in Manhattan, with a few fleeting scenes of the other borough in the background. But in Radio Days, the somewhat autobiographical family lives in Brooklyn out near Coney Island. There are assorted uncles and cousins who inhabit the house and the neighborhood. Who can forget the overwrought Jewish mother (Julie Kanter) the abstracted father (Richard Tucker) and the young red-headed kid who says to his rabbi-"You have spoken well, my faithful Indian companion?" The Brooklyn family is counterbalanced by the glamorous denizens of radioland, who love, fight and live in the nightclubs of New York. Woody Allen's least dysfunctional family and a pleasant film to watch. Set in the early 1940s when radio was king.

7. Do the Right Thing (1989). A hot, sweltering day in Bed-Stuy (the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn that holds the largest section of African Americans in the whole city). Brownstones, this time, but the neighborhood is treeless, waterless, with inhabitants roiling with resentment. A hard-nosed Italian pizza-parlor owner, a semi-revolutionary black kid, an opened fire hydrant that drenches a passing car and soon all hell has broken loose. Spike Lee directed and also plays a delivery boy in the high-caliber ensemble cast. Still Spike's best film. "Fight the Power" is the constant beat. Here, a section of Brooklyn is simply the microcosm for the whole racial situation in the United States.

8. The Object of My Affection (1998). Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd share an apartment in Prospect Park West. He's gay, she's pregnant, and the neighborhood is early yuppy. Not just another romantic comedy-this one has depth. Read my review at: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1607490/brooklyn_on_my_mind_a_review_of_the.html?cat=40

9. The Squid and the Whale (2005). Gentrified Park Slope is the locale. The year is 1986; the family is civilized, literate and about to be broken up by infidelity and professional jealousy. Mom, Dad and two sons (teenager and a 10-year-old) live in a brownstone to die for. Noah Baumbach's script (sort of autobiographical) follows the family of a college professor/author and his up-and-coming writer wife neither of whom have first-rate parenting skills. They break up and each son picks one parent although the court has the parents officially sharing custody. Lots of back and forth across Prospect Park. The pain and problems of shared custody really come to life here, as each son acts out his anger at the breakup in different ways. Funny and sad at the same time. And it's nice to see Brooklyn as a quality place to live, not just a borough to leave when the time is right.