New York, I Love You

Release date: October 16, 2009
Director: Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Randall Balsmeyer, Allen Hughes, Shunji Iwai, Wen Jiang, Shekhar Kapur, Joshua Marston, Mira Nair, Natalie Portman, Brett Ratner
Screenplay by: Fatih Akin, Olivier Lécot, Hall Powell, Israel Horovitz, James C. Strouse, Alexandra Cassavetes, Stephen Winter, Shunji Iwai, Israel Horovitz, Hu Hong, Yao Meng, Anthony Minghella, Joshua Marston, Suketu Mehta, Natalie Portman, Jeff Nathanson
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Andy Garcia, Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, Christina Ricci, Maggie Q, Ethan Hawke, Anton Yelchin, James Caan, Olivia Thirlby, Blake Lively, Drea de Matteo, Julie Christie, John Hurt, Shia LaBeouf, Qi Shu, Chris Cooper, Robin Wright, Eva Amurri, Cloris Leachman

Following the steps of Paris Je t’Aime, here comes the second installment of what seems to be a series of a cities anthologies by the hand of various directors around the world.

New York seems to be a city very easy to love. It’s got loads of people from a variety of cultural backgrounds, there’s a prolific theater scene, there’s modern art, street art, independent films, food from around the world and all sorts of stuff, so it should make an interesting theme for New York, I Love You. However, the producers decided not to let its directors’ visions go too far from the visual of the film.

The Result? A very homogenized and sort of boring look at such a vibrant city, turning a wonderful short collection idea into a charmless piece.

Unlike Paris, New York shows its shorts as one (sort of) seamless piece that overlaps characters, so it seems it’s one film by one writer and one director with a very messy story structure, instead of a group of writers and directors with different visions of the place. Not one piece stands out too much from the other, so it’s no wonder you begin blurring the lines between the characters and their stories, and in the end just put the whole film in the back of your mind.

If I had to highlight individual shorts, I feel like Joshua Marston’s segment with Cloris Leachman was the most charming. Also… is NYC only Manhattan?

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

amy

YAM Magazine editor, photographer, blogger, translator and part-time web designer. Film junkie, music junkie… and lately series (a.k.a. TV) junkie.

1 Response

  1. April 20, 2011

    […] Cinema Cafe has a write up of the event and talks briefly about Vampire (teasing), as well as Shunji’s work on New York I Love You. […]

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