Radio Days (1987)

RADIO DAYS is Woody Allen's charming, nostalgic, very funny love letter to growing up in 1940s Brooklyn during the golden age of radio. The setting is the close-knit working-class neighborhood of Rockaway, New York, where a warm, crazy, sprawling Jewish family lives, sharing their happiness as well as their disappointments. The youngest member of the family, Joe (Seth Green, of television's BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER), dreams of the glamour and excitement of Manhattan conjured up by the radio programs he and his family listen raptly to each night. Presented in a tapestry of interlocking vignettes, RADIO DAYS weaves tales of everyday family life with glimpses of the glittering--and not so glittering--world of established and aspiring radio celebrities. Allen makes the radio the film's central figure, taking its place as communicator to the world, existing almost as another member of the family. Allen and director of photography Carlo DiPalma capture the look and feel of the time marvelously, and the music is a joy to listen to. The result is a comic, bittersweet, kaleidoscopic look at a long-gone New York that is one of writer-director Woody Allen's most fully realized--and most enjoyable--films.