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Crossing Delancey

Huh — this looks so odd. It’s a 4K bluray from Criterion, and it looks very… I mean, there’s no scratches or anything, so it’s been restored a lot. But was it originally filmed on 16mm or something? Or even video? No, that’s not possible, but it just looks very… Not exactly lo fi, but there’s chromatic aberrations.

But not in a bad way. Just unexpected for a movie from the 80s.

Heh heh that’s a cute meet cute. Starts with him negging her.

X-Men!

Another meet cute!

Those are short chairs.

The Scarf To End All Scarves!

This is kinda my favourite genre: New York movies.

I wonder whether the director was inspired by Chantal Akerman — the way some of these shots are framed are very Akermanish. But on the other hand, when you’re filming in a Manhattan apartment, perhaps this is what happens naturally.

Computer: Enhance.

See? That’s just odd! It doesn’t look like a normal out-of-focus/too small detail — it looks like it’s been through an algorithm. Is Criterion upscaling things now instead of scanning film in 4K!?

Well, that’s a weird way of phrasing it — “4K restoration was created from” instead of “scanned from”. Is that the way it’s normally phrased? Could be!

Nice headboard.

I’m really enjoying this movie… but I find parts of it a bit confusing. I mean, the Peter Riegert character seems nice and goodlooking and all, so the Amy Irving character is supposed to choose him over that asshole of a writer — which I’m all aboard on, of course! But here’s my problem: The Peter Riegert character seems like such a blank canvas. He doesn’t really have much character beyond being nice?

NOOOO!!!!

Heh heh heh

OK, now they gave him character! I retract all my objections!

As opposed to most movies I’ve watched lately, I didn’t buy this because Hazel Flagg recommended it — I’d already bought it. But the reason I watched it today is this recommendation yesterday.

It’s really a very, very sweet movie. I like how they cast a smarmy not very good looking guy as the author (and had her neg her immediately), and cast someone much better looking as the nice guy. Very unusual.

It putters along in a very satisfactory way, without any annoying detours into drama or unnecessary backstory — a lesser director would have expanded this into a twenty minute longer movie.

And all those shots of 80s Manhattan is just catnip to me, so I can’t really give this a different rating than this:

Crossing Delancey. Joan Micklin Silver. 1988.

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