One of my all time favorites.

A Masterpiece!

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

My main objection to this film is that I just cannot accept Woody Allen as a desirable lover. I think he's ugly and that the character he portrays is highly unsympathetic. However, this doesn't seem to worry most people who have seen the film and thoroughly enjoyed it. The boys seem to feel that if Woody Allen can make it with the girls, there's hope for them too, and the girls seem to argue that Woody is such a mental giant and such a celebrity it would be an honor to be seen in his company!Once you accept the romantic scenes as perfectly natural and even desirable, and once you accept the Woody Allen character as the sympathetic hero he obviously wants you to accept him as, then the whole film falls into place and you laugh at all the jokes and you become emotionally involved in all the situations and you identify with the hero in his battles against the other characters and against the city itself. Identification completed, the Gershwin music, the skilfully framed, large screen, black and white photography, and the playing by all the other members of the cast (particularly Michael Murphy, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep and Mariel Hemingway) is then meshed by writer/director Allen into a very satisfying and entertaining whole. But I just cannot accept Woody Allen that way. I like him the way he was in "Bananas" and "A Walk with Love and Death" or even "Play It Again Sam" — the perennial fall guy!

I love Manhattan. Seriously, this is far better than Annie Hall (okay, not everyone may agree) and it's a movie I can watch regularly. Sure, some are critical of it being in black and white, but that gives it the necessary charm to be a classic. Manhattan is timeless.If you're a devotee of Fast and the Furious, then this movie isn't for you so please move on.The way Woody Allen explores the interweaving relationships is revealing and even entertaining. The Gershwin soundtrack gives it the necessary sweeping emotional landscape. For those who like Manhattan, you have to see Manhattan Murder Mystery, you won't be disappointed.

Very witty Woody Allen style movie. Enjoyed it very much. BUT................It was totally unnecessary to have this quirky 42 year old man dating a 17 year old. BTW..Mariel Hemingway was the weakest performer in the movie and the "love" connection was not believable. BUT......why not make her 21 or 22 and finishing college, NOT HIGH SCHOOL !!! You would still have Woody feeling guilty about the age difference, while not coming off as a near child molester !!!Completely disregarding his later relationship with his step-daughter, this one thing pretty much ruined a humorous, witty, if off beat story of several neurotic, warped people. Dating a 17 year old makes Woody a very unsympathetic character.....otherwise, the movie is an 8 out of 10)

Midnight In Paris takes its opening from Manhattan, and both are loving odes to great cities, but here additionally we have the smooth jazz saxophone of Gershin, and the voice-over of a certain neurotic trying to find the perfect opening lines to his book. There are some truths and some lies. The biggest truth is Isaac's love for the city, something that even passing time cannot erode - he intends to immortalise it in Willis' stunning black and white photography that captures a distant past, a nostalgic version of the skyscrapers, the ferries, the butcheries, the snowy parks, and of course the iconic shot of the Queensboro Bridge twinkling and silhouetting what seems to be a lovestruck pair. And then he is exaggerating in some instances; he maintains that he and will still have the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat even in his 70s, and remarks if there is anyone that he models himself after it is god. However when it comes time to break up with the 17 year-old Tracy, he subtly deflects the doe-eyed interrogation of love into an act for her own good - now he is 42, miserable, and his hair is falling out. He is self-righteous, but not on the same level of pretentiousness as Yale or Mary, who pride themselves in their 'Academy of Overrated' and disparage great artists from all areas. Watch how they and Isaac spar - well not spar, they laugh and snicker, while Isaac adamantly refuses their every suggestion. But one line from his ex-wife's memoir of their disastrous marriage seems to suggest he is not so different (and the group laugh out loud at this reading, but as ElMaruecan82 points out, Tracy would never have done so, and I agree); as much as he seems to despise these pseudo-intellectual New Yorkers, he chases eagerly after one and only succeeds in doing so on account of being one himself. He is disillusioned with his successful comedy show, so he quits without really thinking just how much of a downgrade he will have to suffer in his lifestyle - what is more important, his integrity, or the colour of his tap water? He complains at length about it, and in the next scene the cameras tracks him as he walks over to hand a crystal clear glass of water to Mary, but we already knew that it was her. He adjusts his personality depending on who he is trying to woo. He is also hypocritical. Watch how two grown men argue and bicker over a grown women like she is a toy. Yale spits out that he saw her first. Isaac is clearly bitter about being cheated on despite doing the same to Tracy. Yale childishly retaliates later and lies to his wife, solely pushing the blame on his dear friend. Earlier, they unexpectedly bump into Mary's ex-husband, and Isaac is pushed swiftly out of the frame, but it matters not, because Wallace Shawn as Jeremiah is his spitting image, middle-aged, balding, short (it's even suggested he used to be overweight). Isaac marvels that a man that looks like that could ever be a dominating, devastating sexual partner - but of course, he's assigned these roles to himself.Mariel Hemingway is Tracy, the 17 year old girlfriend, and hers is perhaps the best performance of them of all, quiet, assured, straight faced. It is a testament to her ability that I find myself with troubling thoughts, never once wondering about her attraction to the older Isaac, but questioning over and over how he managed to get her. This is the mindset of Isaac, who manages to convince himself and her that she is youthful beyond her pretty face, that she is inexperienced and precocious, that she has many lovers ahead, and that she does not yet know what love is. In short, that she is uncorrupted. Watch his little sly smile as Tracy answers "I go to high school", clearly out of her element, and he loves this about her. He is babying her, but indulging in it at the same time. Willis frames the two close yet far apart in the stylish apartment, distant, as he once again lectures her on how to approach this relationship that seems a dying cause. She makes a joke about how little he thinks of her knowledge of the arts, and we cut away before he can respond, but we know it is a dismissive one. They take a horse drawn carriage through the glittering nightime skyline, and Isaac dubs the experience corny, saying he's done it all before as a kid, but deep down he treasures this little memory, and thinks himself lucky to be able to do it again with such a beautiful girl. He finally comes to his senses in the final scene. Once again we start with a voice-over, which quickly turns into something more immediate and genuine - he is not attempting to wittily open his biography, but quietly recording himself musing over life's wonders. Music (most of all Gershin, who serenades throughout), cinema, good food, and then he fixates on Tracy's face. He runs her down, perhaps one of the first instances of this romantic comedy type confession. But here, although it is sincere (the most he has been the entire movie), it is also selfish, and he is sabotaging all his previous arguments and insistence on her naivety and youthfulness and boundless opportunities, but if he can have her again, it does not matter. He pleads for her to not get corrupted, while she insists it is just a few months. Who is the kid here?