‘Still NYC': Life in New York, Seen Through Pics of Doorways, Cabs, Pedestrians and … Starbucks?
'Still NYC,' a short film about New York City by Ynon Lan, is the result of hundreds (thousands?) of photographs Lan took throughout the five boroughs on a recent trip. Mostly Manhattan, from the looks of it — not a ton of yellow cabs to be found in the Bronx — though Brooklyn and Queens do have their share of gorgeous brownstones with photogenic front doors.
Just like in most movies, the streets tend to be rain-slicked. If you never lived in New York, you must think it rains here all the time, like we're some kind of Seattle or London. (It rains a lot in those places, right? We've never actually left the city. Too scary out there.) We get that rain-slicked pavement looks better on film, but the amount of rain we receive in NYC doesn't quite match up with most filmmakers' depictions. No big deal, really, just a thought.
We also dug the easygoing, cool-school music playing throughout. Reminds us a bit of the classic score to a classic New York movie: Taxi Driver. Fortunately 'Still NYC' doesn't climax with a chilling bloodbath. (That would have been a very strange twist here.)
Just one beef, though: Starbucks? Really? There are hundreds (thousands?) of genuine New York City coffee shops sprinkled all over town that we think would've been much more deserving of commemoration here.
But even with that small complaint, 'Still NYC' is a sweet love letter to the town we love, one we hope you'll visit sometime soon.