Monday, May 18, 2009

New York, I Have Faith In You

See If You Can Find the Mistake!

Paris, Je T'aime, upon traveling across the ocean and settling on our shores, became an instant classic. With beautiful cinematography and some of the most original and brilliant stories I have seen in a very long time Paris, Je T'aime found a place in my heart and, like a blood sucking parasite, nestled in, not ready to leave any time soon. With its sucess came talks of several follow up films, each highlighting the most fabtastic aspects of major cities across the globe: Shanghai, Wo Ai Ni, Jerusalem, Ani O'hev O'Tach, and the only one that has thus far come to fruition, New York, I Love You. Sounds like a good idea right? I would hope so...

Let me list of a, well, list of the directors that have been slated to create a the shorts of New York:

Fatih Akin
Yvan Attal
Allen Hughes
Shunji Iwai

Wen Jiang
Shekhar Kapur
Joshua Marston
Mira Nair
Natalie Portman
Brett Ratner


A nice list, many directors varying in nationality and style, should be just as moving and brilliant as Paris, right? Let your eyes wander on down to the last two names on the list. What's that feeling in your stomach you ask? Well, I'll tell you, it's the angry, angry film butterflies in your gut trying to burst forth from your chest to tell you that neither of these people have proven themselves as people that should be representing America, New York, or any sort of film type media on a project that has so much potential. Tell your film butterflies to shut up so that you can read on.

Natalie Portman: An actress with so much to give. Movies such as Leon The Professional, Mars Attacks!, Garden State, V for Vendetta, The Darjeeling Limited, and Hotel Chevalier. Hotel Chevalier! Good, if not great movies (Well, known movies I guess...) but go to her imdb page and check out her writer/director credits...done yet? What did you see? Not much right? Listed are New York, I Love You, and Eve. I've never seen Eve and I can't find much on it but with character such as Grandma and Joe I can only imagine that it is utter cinematical genius. Maybe I'm just being an old man in a room of gays, maybe I just need to give her a chance. New York could very well be a chance for some up and coming young thing to test the waters. Natalie Portman, I have faith in you

Brett Ratner: Director of such classics as Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, Rush Hour 3, and the in development Rush Hour IV. I don't even really know where to start here. I know there are people out there who enjoy these movies and power to ya' but they don't seem like the sort of thing I want to see come out of such an ensemble. I know that the entire point of the Je T'aime movies is to highlight differences between directors and their styles but there seems to be so many better choices when picking from the proverbial barrel of American directors, Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, J.J. Abrams, and David Lynch just to name a few. You could probably even choose a British director and get away with it but Brett Ratner. Characters such as Prom Girl and Other Prom Girl just don't sound like the best way to express the beauty and uniqueness of New York as a major metropolitan area but, who knows, I could be totally wrong (I COULD be...). Brett Ratner, I want to have faith in you but I'm finding it hard to so prove me wrong...please...

New York traffic, the most cinematic Rush Hour in the world

With an American release date of October 16th I await this movie with anticipation. It has much to live up too, its predecessor one of the great films of our generation in my opinion and hopefully can find its place up there too but I also keep myself ready for the possible disappointment that comes creeping once every once in a while. New York, I Love You, I have faith in you. Just don't fuck it up. And if you do, well, at least there are another eight directors to try and prop it up. But who knows, maybe it's them I should be worried about. Toodles

4 comments:

  1. Actually Natalie Portman's Eve was ver well received. Excellent reviews all round!

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  2. I don't understand why you jump straight to the characters' names to illustrate how shaky you imagine these films you haven't seen are.

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  3. Fatih Akin, dude. Fatih Akin. Also, I agree with Kevin. Have no faith in Brett Ratner because he's Brett Ratner, not because of his character names. Brett Ratner isn't even a writer. But fuck him.

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  4. Oh! Oh! There's a hyphen between New and York, and no comma!

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