Manhattan

Dir: Woody Allen, 1979, bw (9.0*)

Best Picture (BAA)

Perhaps more drama than comedy, this is one of Woody's great three New York Films, the others being Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters.

Allen, a writer, is involved with a high schooler, Oscar-nominated Mariel Hemingway, while going through a nasty divorce, ex Meryl Streep (Oscar nomination) is writing an autobiography of how he turned her lesbian! (terrific stuff). Meanwhile, he falls for married friend Michael Murphy's new mistress, Diane Keaton. This film delicately balances all this without resorting to his normal comic foibles (running from creatures, being attacked by bric-a-brac). Lovingly shot in black and white around famous New York locales, it also appropriately uses the music of George Gershwin instead of his normal ragtime or dixieland or whatever the heck he plays, and this fits better; one of his best.