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I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Best movie ever!

Blistering performances.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Good idea but uneven execution.The concept: three of the greatest movie directors the world has known, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, are each given a 35-40 minute segment to make a mini-movie set in New York. The three segments are not connected in any way. The result is New York Stories.The movie starts with Scorsese's segment, titled "Life Lessons". A famous artist, Lionel Dobie (played by Nick Nolte), is in love with the artist he is mentoring, Paulette (played by Rosanna Arquette). However, the feeling is not mutual...Coppola's segment, "Life without Zoe", involves a young girl, Zoe (played by Heather McComb) and her privileged-yet-parentless life.Woody Allen's segment, "Oedipus Wrecks", completes the movie. A NY lawyer, Sheldon Mills (played by Woody Allen), is constantly being embarrassed by his aging mother. Then one evening he takes her to a magic show and things take a turn for the bizarre...The Scorsese contribution was interesting, with a nice twist at the end. Did seem to in circles occasionally, and didn't move forward at any great pace, but the interactions between the characters was engaging.Coppola's segment was easily the worst of the three. Silly and pointless. It feels like it was made for kids, which, if it was, is starkly out of place with the clearly adult-orientated Scorsese and Allen portions. And even kids will probably find it silly and boring...Woody Allen's piece was the pick of the bunch. It displays Allen's sublimely clever, dry wit plus adds a large dollop of the ridiculous. Very funny at times with a twist that is quite bizarre. Nice- bizarre, though it does border on the silly.7/10s for the Allen and Scorsese portions, 3/10 for Coppola.

I'll step out of the loop here about "New York Stories," three tales of New York from 1989, directed by three formidable directors: Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen. I happen to think all three films had something to offer, and the fact that the Zoe sequence is about a child does not for me make it the weakest segment.I found the Scorcese segment starring Nick Nolte and Roseanna Arquette the most thought-provoking, the Zoe segment the most charming, and the Allen segment the wackiest. The first episode is about a tortured artist (Nolte) who expresses his sexual frustrations and problems with his young protégée (Arquette) in his work. She no longer sleeps with him and wants to quit New York and go home; he wants to kiss her foot and professes undying love for her. To Puccini's Nessun Dorma, he stares at his artwork and goes through a variety of emotions as he paints another masterpiece. This particular muse in the form of Arquette used up, one sees him at his art show connecting with another would-be artist/muse whose identity will also be lost in his genius.The second sequence, directed by Coppola, is a take-off on the Eloise stories by Kay Thompson. This little girl's name is Zoe. Her father, Claudio Montez (Giancarlo Giannini), is a famous flautist who travels, and her mother (Talia Shire) is a photo journalist who travels. Zoe lives with a butler and her dog Vegas at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel. She proves herself smarter than either parent in this charming film. My only question is why Giancarlo Giannini speaks Italian to his daughter when the name Claudio Montez is emphatically not Italian. Okay, it wasn't typical Coppola, but who said it had to be? The last one is pure Woody, Oedipus Wrecks, about a man with a nagging, critical mother who wants to marry a young woman (Mia Farrow) with children. He loves his mother, but he wishes she'd disappear. During a magic show, he gets his wish, when his mother goes into a magician's box and never comes out. Later she shows up in the sky telling him what to do, with the world as a witness. His girlfriend can't take it. He then goes to a psychic (Julie Kavner) who makes him a boiled chicken dinner. A complete delight.Three different, interesting stories by three great directors.

New York Stories is another anthology film that I was suckered into because of the credentials. Other anthology films that I've seen, like Four Rooms, have not been very good despite the amazing credentials. I haven't been a fan of most movies with more than one director, hence more than one vision thus many colliding like an orchestra playing unharmonious notes. New York Stories is satisfactory however, eve if its mood swings leave one feeling many different ways about it. You'll feel stimulated, yet strangely unfulfilled.Martin Scorsese's segment, Life Lessons, is very melodramatic in that hardened, grungy way of his. Nolte gives a wonderful performance, very intense, and Arquette is very realistic and effective. Scorsese employs his usual machine gun multi-genre soundtrack and plunging, stylistically passionate and energetic cinematography. His segment says something very profound and important about the human characteristic of selfishness and how much more abundant it is in ourselves than we care to accept.Then comes Francis Ford Coppola's segment, Life Without Zoe. Arg. The acting, despite the leniency one may generously give child actors, is awful. Heather McComb did in fact fill out very very nicely when she grew up, but that does not excuse her very scripted performance here. She's the least of the cast's problems, though. Everyone sounds like the salesmen on the used car commercials. The story is something quite silly. Perhaps it would be fine if it were its own film, but Coppola had to know that he was being teamed with Scorsese, his fellow creator of quintessential Mafia cinema, and Woody Allen, the prolific source of mature and sophisticated comedies about sex and relationships. Did he submit this segment for shock value? I guess so. Well, it worked. I don't understand why Coppola works with kids. His daughter Sophia, who at age 18 here co-wrote the script and designed the costumes, did in fact go on to become a fine director herself, but did he not notice his pattern after awhile? He makes The Conversation, the Godfather films, and Apocalypse Now, and we think he's found his niche. Then he starts making movies like this, following up with films like Jack with Robin Williams.Woody Allen's segment saves the film. I suppose this is one way anthology movies are interesting. In a single feature-length narrative film, when it takes a plunge in the middle, it can't really be saved in the end, especially if it was as bad as Coppola's segment. In an anthology, if the middle of the movie is terrible, you still have the end to look forward to. This is the case in New York Stories, because Woody Allen's segment, Oedipus Wrecks, the final third of the movie, is hilarious. It's one of the funniest satires he's ever done of the Jewish Brooklynite's culture. It's goofy in a subtle way, and fascinatingly surreal the way a lot of Allen's best and most creative work is. Actually, Oedipus Wrecks is perhaps the only one of the three parts that actually clearly represents a hue of New York's culture. Scorsese's part didn't represent New York as much as it represented the emotional tempests of an artist and happened to take place in the meatpacking district. Coppola's mid-section represented the lives of wealthy children whose lives are so free that they live practically like very spoiled and gossipy adults, but to such an outlandish degree of family-oriented fantasy that it's not at all credible. Woody Allen firmly focuses upon his division of New York culture. And by the by, it's a very pleasant surprise to see a younger Larry David, pre-Seinfeld and pre-Curb Your Enthusiasm, in a bit role in Oedipus Wrecks.Whatever was going through Coppola's mind, it's because of him that New York Stories can be described as a film in the shape of a circular saw. It's on one level, then takes a ninety- degree plunge to a different level, then again with the third segment it takes a ninety-degree ascension to the precise level it was at before.

The anthology that include three short films that take place in New York City was made by three great American directors, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Francis Ford Coppola."Life Lessons" directed by Martin Scorsese, literally took my breath away - it made me want to rewatch all Scorsese's films (with the one exception, GONY, though). What a magnificent work - visually it is as powerful as the painting Nolte's Lionel was painting. Combining in one short film Procul Harum's "A whiter shade of pale" and Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" from "Turandot" was a stroke of genius. This film is an ode to the power of talent; it is about greatness and curse of the gift, not about love to the woman. The best scene of the film and I'd say one of the best ever made about the Artist's work is Nolte triumphantly painting his masterpiece - his love, desire, lust, cries, whispers, tears, and humiliations magically transform with every stroke of his brush into the immortal, triumphant, brilliant work of art. By the time the painting is finished, he would need a new source of inspiration and self-torture, and the cycle will repeat over again. Devilishly clever portrait of an Artist as Not a Young Man. 9.5/10 I loved Woody Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" and I think it is very funny and touching. Looks like Allen has met mothers or grandmothers like Mrs. Millstein in real life and his little gem is his love-hate letter to them. In the end, mom always knows what is best for her little boy. Mae Questel and Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson) were wonderful. Woody's face after his mom "disappears" and the scene when he practically makes love to the chicken drumstick are pure delight; also the commentary that New York is used to everything and readily accepts the crazy situation - it is so true. One of the best Allen's films I've seen lately - I am very glad that I finally saw it.Larry David ("Seinfeld", "Curb Your Enthusiasm") plays the Theater Manager. It made me think if Estelle Costanza created by David and Mrs. Millstein (Woody's omnipresent mother) have a lot in common in making the lives of their sons miserable and smothering them with their merciless love? 9/10 Coppola's "Life Without Zoë" was much weaker than Scorsese's and Allan's stories and paled in comparison - this episode "from the lives of the reach and beautiful" was pretty and cute but you can skip it. 5/10