New York, I Love You
A
This film is a pastiche of several short films about love in its various incarnations in NYC. If this premise sounds familiar that’s because it’s produced by the same people as Paris, Je T’Aime. New York, I Love You has more A-List clout (James Caan, Orlando Bloom, Shia LeBouf, Christina Ricci, Ethan Hawk, Natalie Portman, Andy Garcia, Bradley Cooper, and many more) and the short films interweave much more fluidly than its Parisian predecessor. It’s a magical movie experience with a lot of humor, a lot of heart, and a slight wisp of sadness thrown in for good measure (no such thing as love without sorrow to some degree). Bottom line is you don’t have to love New York in order to love this film—but it doesn’t hurt.
City of God
A
I’m late to the party on this 2002 South American version of Goodfellas in Rio. Like Scorsese’s film, this is also based on real life gangsters, but City of God has a desperation and gritty rawness to it that Goodfellas’ did not. Don’t misunderstand me, this is not a cheap knockoff of Scorsese. The characters are engaging and the narrative is enthralling. A truly great gangster film worthy of a place alongside the other genre greats on your shelf. Big thanks to DOJ for the recommendation on this one!
Payback [Director’s Cut]
A-
I vaguely remember anything more than Lucy Liu as a dominatrix in the theatrical version, but the director’s cut is a different beast altogether. I looked up this Director’s Cut of the 1999 film based on Baytor’s recommendation and am I ever glad I did. This is a modern day crime noir revenge flick where Mel Gibson plays a hard as nails crook who has little more to live for than his principles and his mission to get the money he’s owed. My only complaint is the James Brown song of the same name was nowhere to be found.
The Reader
B
The film got attention for Kate Winslet’s Oscar winning performance as a former Nazi concentration camp guard trying to live with the shame of her past. The film’s climactic courtroom scene is a big “Really? Are you serious?” kind of melodramatic moment that feels like it’s just there to serve the purpose of setting up the circumstances for the third act to unfold. It has an interesting premise and at its heart it’s a slow-paced May-December tale of romance and reconciliation with surprisingly less substance than one would expect from an Oscar winning film based on an international best-seller novel.