Watch Crossing Delancey For Free

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Minor quibble I know... But if Bubbie has such horrifying aches and pains that she can't even rub a spit of isopropyl alcohol on her knees that sounds pretty bad. However, you see her practically running with great strength down the streets and wait for it....the STEPS!!! Not even coming close to clutching a handrail and full of vigor. I guess those alcohol rubs work? At least if you want to make this old lady a super kvetcher (sp?) then add it to other aspects. She could handle her Snopps perdy dang well imho.I remember being fairly snobbish when looking for a mate but this potential match owned an artisanal market which is quite prestigious and those pseudo intellectuals were a complete bore. What was she thinking when Goober read his inane poetry to her, complete moron!I agree with most reviewers that Jewish folks were portrayed in a horrible light. The obnoxious matchmaker with her table manners and public belching were deplorable. The pickle man was divine comparatively.I did enjoy the NYC street scenes that are most likely way part of the past as well as the closeness of friends, neighbors, and family members. Most endearing was when Bubbie hands over FIVE HUNDIES to Izzy. That had to have hurt back then. Izzy goes and buys a gorgeous dress to impress versus invest, what kind of Jew is she????High recommend for those who want to see the Lower East Side back in the day and for fans of brisks (sp?) and nursing mothers. Otherwise it is slow, boring, lacking of smart dialogue. The ending might be sweet but not rewarding or surprising.

On one level, "Crossing Delancey" is a fun, heartwarming romantic comedy; on another, it has an agenda that is as pushy as any over-the-top matchmaker. Ironically, for a movie that undoubtedly shares much of its audience with those who loved "Fiddler On the Roof," it tries to undo the social revolution that drove "Fiddler's" plot; "Delancey" suggests that a Jewish woman might be better off relying on matchmakers and familial authority figures than actively choosing her own spouse, a job she only seems to mess up when it is entrusted to her. And while she's at it, maybe she should rethink her life in the non-Jewish world and come back home. You've come a long way, baby, but what did it get you? For the record, I believe women are best off finding their own mates, and preferably from a set that is larger than two. But what I find most troublesome in this movie is not so much the implied counterargument as the fact that it is made poorly. I can imagine a movie where a woman rejects her background, is miserable alone, encounters repeated disappointment in the Gentile world, and finally returns to her grandmother's milieu to find true fulfillment, romantic and otherwise. It might be done as propaganda; it might be done as a persuasive, touching story. But "Crossing Delancey" doesn't make a serious effort to do it at all. Izzy never really rejects her background in the first place, never comes across as particularly lonely or unhappy, and only undergoes a single unpleasant romantic failure. Then, when she does surrender to the man who has been preselected for her, the movie fails to make a convincing case that she will truly be happy. Sam is pleased with how things work out. Izzy's grandmother is ecstatic. It is almost as if the romance is between those two characters, and Izzy is simply the one who, through her sacrifice, allows the match between them to be consummated.It's a pity, because the movie does raise some interesting questions before it rushes to extinguish them. There is a rich potential in the premise of a woman unfairly dismissing a suitor due to how he has been thrown at her, perhaps due even to a small amount of snobbery, only to gradually discover his merits and discover that they are good for each other after all. There are certainly possibilities in the idea of a woman being romanced by a man with what she thinks is an aesthetic sensibility, only to recognize that he exploits people and the artistic impulse alike. It would be interesting to see a character seriously wrestle with which components of the literary world she values and which she decides are simply based on vanity, and the extent to which she reconciles her ongoing involvement in that landscape with her attachment to a man who doesn't fit particularly well into it. There are even interesting minor notes that are never satisfactorily explored: how do a woman who has essentially used her friend as a means to flee from a potential relationship, and a man who has taken the bait, reconcile their behavior and their future friendship with her when they push her out of the picture again? But as this is not a movie designed for a sequel, we are not meant to explore those questions further.According to its tag line, "Crossing Delancey" is "a funny movie about getting serious." If only its makers had been more serious about exploring the questions it raised, this could have been a better film.

The thing I liked most about this movie was the writing. There are parts in the film that are exceptional, such as when the guy tells Isabelle (the protagonist) a story about a friend and his hat. The story he tells is simple, but says so much about his character. I liked the conflict with Isabelle, as she decides whether she likes him or not, despite all his shortcomings (he works in a pickle store, he isn't an author).You can understand why she would be interested in "the author" over him, seeing that she works in a bookstore.What I didn't like about the film is that the two lead characters aren't stand-out performances. Especially the pickle guy, he says his lines in an amateur fashion.If you like this movie (and it is good), then I recommend "Moonstruck".

I've been watching a lot of romantic comedies lately, and they all have their conceits. This one is by nature dated, as the lower east side of Manhattan's old Jewish community has largely been displaced by gentrification. I lived in NYC in the 1980s, and it was fun seeing film of communities that have largely been lost since then.That said, while I liked this film, it felt like a take on Hello! Dolly or the like. It was a well-acted, charming romantic comedy with a predictable plot. Girl goes after guy-out-of-her-class, while rejecting perfectly nice guy in her class. Upper class guy comes after her for shallow reasons, and she realizes the value of blue collar guy. The movie or the plot never really made clear why the self-confident and satisfied mid-thirties woman would abandon her lifestyle for the "old-school" guy, especially when the writer "wanted her" albeit for the wrong reasons. In a way, it reeked of the "desperation" that men tried to put on 30-something women in the late 1980s, where any "nice" guy was better than none, and a pretty 34-year-old woman with a career should be happy to end up with the "pickle guy," no matter what her other options might hold. This, even though the writer and director were women.I probably would have rated it a 6.5 if that was an option, as it's a decent flick, for acting, writing and dialogue, and because of the charm of the pre-gentrification NYC settings. But it's certainly dated, almost as if it were out of the 1950s rather than the late-1980s.