This past week will go down in history as one of the most awful in recent memory - campus and work-place shootings, an exploding death toll in a misbegotten war, a lying attorney general, an out of control celebrity - oy vey! as we say here. Madone. However, on a more pleasant note, this week also brings us the 30th anniversary of Woody Allen's masterwork "Annie Hall" -- winner of the 1977 Academy Award for Best Picture and an-all time classic.
It's the ultimate New York movie, and a flick that helps us appreciate the perpetual madness of relationships. Why do we keep entering into them when we know we are just setting ourselves up for heartbreak And what is it about the city that's so enduringly romantic? Woody doesn't give us any answers, and he doesn't claim to understand why. Instead, the brilliance of the movie is its appreciation of a part of human nature that we will never understand but will always keep trying to. "Annie Hall" is truly timeless, a movie that makes us love being in love.
Of course, the New York of 2007 is a much different place than that of 1977. We are no longer, as Diane Keaton said in the movie, "a dying city", but instead a thriving metropolis. Crime is way down and real estate prices are way up. We've gone from Democratic unionists Mayors to Republican billionaire Mayors. People are no longer fleeing New York but arriving in their millions. Much has improved but also some things have been lost. We've gone from rent-controlled apartments, mom-and-pop stores, and automats to Starbucks and Duane Reads on every corner and "Got Milk?" ad campaigns in the subways.
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