Somewhere in the City (1998)

Wacky neighbors. Harebrained schemes. Loud ethnic types. Self-obsession. Criss-crossed love lives. Outrageous homosexuals. Put them all together and set it in New York City and you've got any one of dozens of wanna-be sophisticated sitcoms, right? Well, in the case of Somewhere in the City (1998), you'd actually be wrong as this warm (but merciless), deftly executed study of the lives that intertwine in a contemporary Gotham tenement building from writer-director Ramin Niami is a comic gem that cuts deep as it makes you laugh hard with characters and situations so off-the-wall that they can only ring true.