Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper said it perfectly in their review of Woody Allen's latest: "His New York looks like nobody else's New York," Roeper said; "I'd like to live there sometime," Ebert added.

And so would I. Only in Woody Allen's New York do you plink out a tune on a piano that's just sitting on the sidewalk, thus attracting the attention of a handsome, musically inclined stranger who joins you for a duet and then asks you out. Only in Woody Allen's New York do a struggling actor and his shopping-addicted wife live in a pristine, cavernous loft. Only in Woody Allen's New York do people host staffed dinner parties for 30 to fix up two friends.

Not that this place is entirely fictional.

The dinner-table debate that gives "Melinda and Melinda" its structure is set at Pastis, a restaurant on the same block as my office. Allen's choice is easy to understand — Pastis is synonymous with good living. The bistro serves delicious French comfort food at not-outrageous prices in a manner that floods diners with well-being. The table layout is cozy but not cramped; the background noise is loud enough to make you feel like you're in the middle of something, but not deafening; the lighting is flattering without being too dark to read the menu.

The effect is sort of like Christmas morning, or the wake of one glass of champagne: Everything's rosy.

Even Pastis' empty terrace inspires longing. This past week as I've walked by I've imagined it full of people with little dogs and big sunglasses, people smoking cigarettes and drinking wine, people who can afford — in every sense of the word — to take a leisurely, liquid lunch.

I walk by, and I want. Desire for this brand of Good Life creeps up all around New York, and few places more than here at Pastis Corner. It's no coincidence that it's the movie-and-photo-shoot epicenter of a neighborhood that is absolutely lousy with cameras. There's a modeling agency in our building, and it's a rare moment when some hopeful isn't out in the middle of the cobblestone street, taking headshots. Cast-and-crew trailers, with their impenetrable riveted steel sides and frosted windows, torture curious pedestrians weekly.

We walk around the fringes of these little cinematic ecosystems: the barricades, the caution tape, the thick electrical tables, and, at mealtimes, huge, humming mess trailers and oilcloth-covered folding tables laden with steaming foil pans, boxes of teabags, bottles of Sunny D and ketchup.

I saw people shooting every day last week. One morning it was two 20something women in skirts and springy tweed blazers laughing at a fake café table — a General Foods International Coffee ad? The next day, in the same spot, a time warp: A man with a huge telephoto lens snapped two little girls, one dark, one fair, both wearing jumpers, tights, designer sneakers, and matching plastic purses. They giggled, arms linked.

But good star sightings are hard to come by.

Or are they?

For someone who makes a living observing things, I'm embarrassingly oblivious of celebrities. According to almost anyone I've ever walked down the street with, I've blithely waltzed past Ethan Hawke, Claire Danes, Daniel Day Lewis and many, many more. One time, I full-on stared at a familiar-looking dark-haired man, trying to figure out how I knew him. When my two friends and I turned the corner, one hooted, "Pete Sampras was totally checking us out!"

It's a two-pronged problem. One, famous people don't look all that noteworthy in real life. Without cameras and crew in tow, they look more like the rest of us than they do on the screen or the page. Two, though maybe this is just me, when we're bombarded with canned footage, it's easy to forget that celebrities exist in real time at all, that they don't dwell solely in some parallel universe created for our entertainment.

When the quasi-real world of the movies is being created all around you, it's doubly bizarre. You're walking through your native habitat knowing it's being captured on film for the purpose of being presented back to you, with artistic license.

Some people think it's tragic that, thanks to technology and the time and luxury to sit around and get bored and crave escape, we can hold ourselves at such a remove from reality. I think it's only a problem if it prevents us from enjoying our lives as they really are. Barring that, I think seeing your world through someone else's lens actually can help you appreciate it more.

Case in point: Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt," which one could argue presents a Nebraska as bleak as Woody Allen's New York is idealized. But he captured something very wonderful, because no movie has ever made me laugh and cry as much, often at the same time.

My reality is certainly more like Alexander Payne's than Woody Allen's. But don't get me wrong: I'm not always the little match girl standing outside Pastis, looking in. With reservations, one of those charming, perfectly lit tables is definitely within reach.

And when I can't get a cameo in Woody's world, I can always try to finagle a burger from the catering truck.

Kelly Bare is a writer and editor in New York. She can be reached at kellybare76@yahoo.com.