New York Stories | | Cast : | Woody Allen | | Director : | Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen | | Studio : | Buena Vista Home Vid | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned | | Released Date : | March 10, 1989 | | DVD Released Date : | April 08, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 06, 2005 | | Summary | Its gets progressevly more boring until it dies. | Content
 | This movie starts off blazing hot and ends up ice cold. Martin does a great job with Nick Nolte as an artist in "life lessons" and i thought after this story that i was in for a real treat of a film but after watching Ford Coppolas somthing Zoe i began to tire and by the end of Woody Allens snoozefest i was bored stiff. My advice is to watch the first 30 minutes and then turn this one off. The first 30 minutes is GREAT film followed but very average film and ending with truley awful film. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 08, 2004 | | Summary | They are all good, but... | Content
| I cast my vote Woody's way. I just love the interaction between the over-the-top characters, wonderfully portrayed by Allen, Julie Kavner, and yes, Mia is good too -- can't always say that... The real gem here is one of the final performances by Mae Questel, who once upon a time played "Betty Boop." Soon after this performance she began to decline due to Alzheimers. This is the zany, neurotic fun that made Allen's early comedies my favorite part of his opus. Once upon a time when I was a teacher, I used "Oedipus Wrecks" with my students as a "visual short story." I had them write the ending of the story before they saw it. We had great fun with it. Second I'd vote for Coppola's "Life Without Zoe" based, again, on the performances, especially Heather McComb's debut. She hasn't done much of note since, but I really enjoyed her here. Scorsese's "Life Lessons" felt flat to me, despite Nolte and Arquette, both of whom I usually really like. It seemed talky and more like some of Allen's later work. There is a germ of a good idea here -- sexual obsession versus art and getting on with one's life, but I felt the film just didn't deliver. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 05, 2004 | | Summary | Scorsese Over All! | Content
| I didn't think much of the Woody Allen segment (although he's one of my favorite filmmakers) and I hated the Coppola piece but I'm still giving this one 5 stars because of "Life Lessons" which in the first of three short films in this collection. No other movie that I can think of better illustrates the creative thought processes of the artist (Nick Nolte) or their sense of lonely isolation. He cannot live without women and even hilariously tells his young assistant, and I quote from memory, "I don't know anything about love? I was married and divorced four times before you were even born!" Nolte is tortured by his desires and his isolation but even lust will not allow him to compromise his artistic integrity. When Arquette pleads with him concerning whether she has any talent or not, Nolte refuses to lie to appease her. Instead he elects not to answer her question which infuriates her even more. Although he is downtrodden throughout much of the film the ending is a happy one. I own the VHS and have seen the 40 minutes of "Life Lessons" at least seven times over the years. I highly recommend it. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 11, 2004 | | Summary | 2/3 of a good film | Content
| There are two-thirds of a good movie in this movie, as New York's three most famous directors each contributed a short film about an aspect of New York life. The opening short, "Life Lessons" by Martin Scorsese and starring Nick Nolte and Roseann Arquette is a unforgiving look at the competitive, abusive, almost cannibalistic world of a megalomaniacal painter. I read somewhere that this short is flawed because Nolte's character doesn't change. That is not a flaw; that's the point. The ego of a successful artist, according to Scorsese, will not soften, will not learn what a conscience is, will not admit that there are other artists in his/her world. Even when the artist recognizes talent in someone else, it is quickly dismissed. The ego lords over all. The final short film, "Oedipus Wrecks" by Woody Allen is typical comic genius. The plot is simple. Woody takes his overbearing mother to a magic show, and the magician makes her disappear. Completely disappear. The magician himself doesn't know how he did it. When mom appears as an apparition in the clouds, and speaks to the entire population of Gotham about her son, the laughs are endless. In between these two films is one directed by Francis Ford Coppola. I can't tell you what it's about. I have yet to sit through more than ten minutes of it. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 22, 2003 | | Summary | I skipped everything but Life Lessons. | Content
| But that is an absolutely amazing film. I lived in that world for a very long time, and then got out. The film is dead ON in its presentation of the art world during that era, but what struck me most was the absolute dispassionate fairness with which the two main characters, a famous painter and his young "assistant," are presented.
Here are two people using each other, and at the same time dazzled by each other, each in a completely different way. We are given just a glimpse of the tenderness they must have shared early in their relationship when the dazzlement would have been enough to make them believe that what they felt was love.
The same story could have been told about any of the other NYC worlds where people tend to love mostly their own ambitions and only secondarily the idea of someone else. You get the feeling, watching Nolte, that he's on to himself, but doesn't have a choice. As really none of us does, when it comes to being what we are, and whom we love. |
|
Picture 01 (20)
