Amarcord in Brooklyn – Woody Allen’s nostalgic, near-plotless love letter to his childhood uses the influence of radio programming as a clothesline to hang his stories. Most are about his family, some are about the radio stars themselves. I’ve seen this movie six hundred times (can Woody’s nostalgia for his youth make me nostalgic for my youth?!?) and it keeps getting better. It is smart, funny, warm, wonderfully shot and it has Wallace Shawn in it. The late 60’s/early 70’s may have been Woody at his funniest, and the late 70’s may have been Woody at his hippest – but his string of work in the 80’s, I feel, is Woody at his best.
