Woody Allen’s humour is missing

New York, I love you

In many, many ways, I preferred Paris je t’aime. First of all, it was much less of an actor-fest but had some actually good directors who made nice pictures. And second, Paris je t’aime had some stories which were actually touching and whose stories were plain brilliant. Those were stories about love where you could actually feel something like love, where New York I love you is either funny or kitsch. Even the one I liked the most had its fault (that the dialogue was a little off), but the biggest mistake of the whole movie is that it did not end in a remotely powerful way as Paris je t’aime did. Especially since it had absolutely nothing to do with New York.

“Paris je t’aime” had 3 segments that I found absolutely brilliant and “New York I love you” had 2 that I would recommend. That is all, and the latter definitely fails.

The ones I liked:

(4) Yvan Attal – Ethan Hawke just as annoying and yet funny as ever
These pick-up lines were a lot of fun. I can’t believe Ethan Hawke but then again I have a feeling that no other actor could pull this off. Chris Cooper’s scene with Maggie Q. is love and brought a grin onto my face though. And the last part… oh my, I watched it a second time with the knowledge of its somewhat amusing end; it seems like the dialogue doesn’t work and suddenly feels fake. But even then, this segment wins by having a French director and by using a Radiohead song as ending.

(9) Fatih Akin – Shu Qi and the old painter
I like the close up shots of Shu Qi’s face very much, they looked very nice and the mise en scène of her huge mouth is lovely. The story was also surprisingly nice, with a simple, unpretentious approach. It just had one silly detail I really disliked: How the heck can it take so long to cut tree leaves? XD

(3) Shunji Iwai – Orlando Bloom as anime soundtrack composer.
Somehow I liked this reading Dostoevsky theme – light-hearted, slightly amusing, Orlando Bloom being less silly than usual – why not?

(5) Brett Ratner – Wheelchair girl in Central Park.
The idea is quite funny and so politically incorrect. But I liked it. And oh my God, Serena is in it! XD

(1) Jiang Wen – Hayden Christensen as a thief
It took me awhile to understand the beginning of the story; in fact, I had to go back to it, but still I would say that I enjoyed Jiang Wen’s directing for some reason. The story itself was nothing too special, but not all too bad either.

The ones I disliked:

(8) Natalie Portman – Black guy, white child
Woah, Natalie Portman’s directing debut. I wish she would restrain herself to acting in movies.

(10) Joshua Marston – A young and an old couple quarreling
I guess New York is not like Paris – for the Paris compilation, you mostly show romantic beginnings, with (I think) only one exception and even that one was very romantic. New York, I love you shows much more ‘older’ couples who have been together for a longer time, and I wish it would have used this potential some more. This is the guy who did “Maria Full of Grace”, how?

(7) Shekhar Kapur – Some horrible-looking high class hotel room and a sick server
The music, please! Ahhhh! How can they abuse such lovely opera sounds? I didn’t know the actors, although they weren’t bad; the setting looked horribly stuffy, the characters unlikeable. At least the film made some sort of attempt of dialogue about New York, but even that came off as horribly pretentious. Also where is the point of those mirror shots?

(6) Allen Hughes – Thinking and talking about sex
I have yet to see such a predictable short story ever in my life – shallow and predictable, and to top that, the directing is extremely cliché too. And the overly dramatic music! Ugh.

(2) Mira Nair – Natalie Portman without hair
Natalie Portman’s weird jewishness pisses me off. She takes it so seriously somehow? Perhaps I’m just too used to the likes of Billy Wilder and the Coen Brothers and Woody Allen that I am unable to appreciate. Nevertheless, this segment was annoying.

Also they are planning Shanghai I love you and Jerusalem I love you. How much can you milk a bad franchise like this? The cities they picked are also weird… I would have expected so many others to come first: Tokyo, London, Rome, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Seoul, Hongkong, San Francisco etc. etc.