Little Manhattan (2005)

Remembering my own youth, growing up and discovering girls for the first time, I was able to relive some of those moments, some funny, some agonizing, all right on.

Josh Hutcheson and Charlie Ray both did an outstanding job portraying the (sometimes) pain of growing up -- the sweaty palms, the horror of not knowing what to say, or saying it and being afraid of sounding so stupid. Oh, the lost opportunities! At least, I never got cooties.

What a great performance by Miss Ray in her screen debut. She can do more with a smile and a raised eyebrow than most actresses can do with a thousand pages of script. Hope she keeps brightening up the world.

This film was recommended to me by a conservative organization that promotes traditional family values and decency. It is worth a look.

Fmovies: If you live in the City, and you like romantic comedies, this is for you. Sure its simple minded, predictable, and a bit schmoltzy, but it is really great.

First, you get a full and accurate tour of the City: Central Park, Upper West Side, the Village, its all in there, with proper continuity in the story (i.e. characters don't hyperspace around town to make the shots work).

Second, you get a great "first love" story. The lead character "Gabe" provides an amazing narrative of his experience with "Rosemary". It has the exploratory vantage point of youth coupled with the insightful perspective of adulthood.

And did I mention that you get Full Frontal New York City? Yeah, the City that is a city is basically an excellent supporting character in the movie, gently providing background and balance to the story.

Again, it won't be winning any awards anytime soon, but it will put a smile on your face.

"Little Manhattan" is like a junior version of "Annie Hall" or a Manhattan take on "A Little Romance," which introduced Diane Lane in Paris.

It is a funny, delightful fable of boys and girls interacting with the opposite sex and working and divorcing parents that is a refreshing diversion from the jaundice of New York kids in "The Squid and the Whale." It is an original and marvelous conceit to try and get inside the head of a boy during that summer in the city when the scales are lifted on the perception of girls as givers of cooties to givers of complicated joy.

While married couple, and ex-New Yorkers, writer Jennifer Flackett and director Marc Levin formerly worked on "Wonder Years," and borrow several of those techniques, the bit too wise and nostalgic voice-over narration seems to be coming contemporaneously from the sympathetic Josh Hutcherson as almost 11 year old "Gabe." The object of his attention, Charlie Ray's very self-possessed "Rosemary," seems straight out of "Mad Hot Ballroom," which featured real life kids of the same age discussing similar issues as these kids do about the maturity levels of boys and girls. Such touches as the diverse karate class (the sitcom Ashton Kutscher comparison to the orange belt interloper is very funny) to schoolyard bully keep the film grounded in a kid's experiences, though the visual references to "The Graduate" and "Rebel Without A Cause" are a bit precious even for know-it-all kids.

The affectionate sense of a neighborhood being a kid's whole world is captured literally and through animated graphics diagramming the Upper West Side. This is not much changed from the neighborhood of another Natalie Wood film, her little girl in "Miracle on 34th Street," just with a bit more racial diversity. It's very natural that these folks bump into people they know while shopping at the Fairway specialty supermarket, and there's nice costume touches of worn, local T-shirts from Fordham Law and the American Museum of Natural History. I'm not sure non-New Yorkers will appreciate how Broadway can divide their perceptions such that kids can describe themselves as being Riverside Park kind of people vs. Central Park, but the production design well establishes the comparisons with a hyper-scheduled family, "they must be really committed to public education," who live in a duplex overlooking the latter park with a full-time nanny and treat their daughter to a classic New York experience of a performance at the Cafe Carlyle. (I remember my sons coming home with accounts of similar descriptions of classmate's apartments in comparison with our crowded digs.)

There's lots of "Ally McBeal"-type fantasy/over-active imagination elements, from funny uses of the very NYC streetscape like concert posters and theater marquees, so I had to chalk a bit up to similar fantasy that even sophisticated, "New Yorker"-reading, West End Avenue parents distracted by divorce, at least not as much as the oblivious mother in "E.T.", would let a fifth grader have the run of nine square blocks on his razor scooter (I didn't let my kids going to school in Manhattan loose until into 7th grade). It is shown realistically, and very amusingly, how lost they get on their first, unauthorized trip to the wilds of Christopher Street in Greenwich Village (even his dad feels that's way too far away to live), which reca

Little Manhattan fmovies. It's simple, it's cute, it's unpretentious, and it's pretty much blood-free. It tells a sweet story about innocence and romance which is applicable to all of us despite using 11 year-old kids (Josh Hutcherson, a "veteran" and Charlie Rose, a newcomer) as its main players...This film will remind many of you of "The Wonder Years", which of course isn't a bad thing (Wouldn't you say that was GREAT television??). There is a nice parallel in the story in that while the main character is falling in love, his own parents are falling out of it and headed for the splits.

Mark Levin (Wimbledon, and yes...The Wonder Years) turns in another solid effort and shows he is anything but complacent - He gets great work out of his actors and the cinematography makes Manhattan a sparkling place for all. The story is key in a film with no action, violence, or thrills and thankfully, the story here strikes a chord with just about everyone! See it now before it becomes a XMAS blockbuster!

In Manhattan, the 10 ¾ years old Gabe (Josh Hutcherson) finds his first love when he meets his former kindergarten mate, the eleven years old Rosemary (Charlie Ray), in his karate classes. Confused with his new feelings and with the divorce process of his beloved parents, Leslie (Cynthia Nixon) and Adam (Bradley Whitford), he experiences the delightful unknown sensation of being in love for the first time.

When my friends from the best rental in Rio de Janeiro recommended this movie, I was quite reluctant to buy it. Fortunately I listened to their advice and saw this great little gem. The sensitive director Mark Levin has captured many adorable scenes and sequence of this lovely and charming central pair in delightful situations. Further, orphans of "Sex & the City" like me have the chance to see Cynthia Nixon (Miranda) and Willie Garson (Stanford Blatch) again. I would like to thank you, Cris and my dearest friends of Imaginario, for your recommendation. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O ABC do Amor" ("The ABC of Love")

This is one of the cutest movies I've ever seen in my life! The movie is light-hearted and incredibly sweet. It tells the story of an adorable 10-year-old boy named Gabe whose parents are divorcing, but under New York law they must remain living together until the divorce is final. (This creates a small problem, as you can probably imagine.) Gabe becomes infatuated with Rosemary, a girl in his karate class he knew as a kindergärtner. They begin to practice karate together and Gabe's like for her blooms into love. I won't spoil anything but Josh Hutcherson is SO sweet narrating the movie, which melted my heart. Charlie Ray is one of the prettiest little girls I've ever seen! It's one of my all-time favorites and a great movie to see as a family. Let me tell you now that the presence of New York City (of which I was born and raised) is the backbone of the movie, having many beautiful scenes along the river and in Central Park. That's almost as good as Gabe's imaginations of karate gurus- you'll have to see it to know what I mean!