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Released by: Mill Creek Entertainment
Released on: May 15, 2012.
Director: Martin Scorsese/Francis Ford Coppola/Woody Allen
Cast: Nick Nolte, Woody Allen
Year: 1989
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The Movie:
The directors often affiliated with the biggest city in the United States team up for New York Stories, an anthology film about life in the city that never sleeps.
Life Lessons:
Martin Scorsese goes first with this story in which Nick Nolte plays an artist named Dobie who has become the darling of the hoity-toity New York City art world. He has everything he wants - his own studio, plenty of money, and a large group of friends, but he lacks a good woman. He didn't always, however - at one point he had a fling with a student of his named Paulette (Rosanna Arquette). When she comes back to New York hoping to study with him further, this time without the sex on the side, he starts to get possessive of her. As his relationship with Paulette becomes more complicated, a deadline looms ever closer and Dobie finds himself under the gun to complete his latest masterpiece in time for a new gallery showing he's been scheduled for.
An interesting thesis on how life can imitate art, Scorsese's picture is well acted, well edited, well shot and very polished. Nolte and Arquette are fine in the two lead roles while supporting players (one of whom is Steve Buscemi) also do well here. There's a good mix of comedy and drama in the story and it moves quickly enough that it holds our interest with no trouble whatsoever. It's interesting to see how the two central characters wind up using one another, even if they're more or less in denial about it all. It's quite a clever film that is wrapped up very nicely.
Life Without Zoe:
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, this story follows Zoe (Heather McComb), a young lady whose home life has seen better days. Though her parents - a musician named Claudio (Giancarlo Giannini) and a woman about town named Charlotte (Talia Shire) - are more or less done with each other, Zoe continues to the live the good life in her fancy Manhattan apartment where she's tended to by her butler, Hector (Don Novello). She comes back from school one day to find that the apartment is being robbed. When the thief takes off she finds in the spilled contents of her parents' belongings an antique piece of jewelry that she then decides to return to its original owner while setting into motion a plan she hopes will get her parents back together.
Though very nicely shot and quite well acted, Life Without Zoe is the weakest of the three stories simply because it's a bit all over the place and not quite as consistent as the other two entries. Characters are well developed and interesting and the movie does not lack for style but the plot goes in a few too many different directions at once and the end result isn't quite as solid as you get the impression that it should have been. The end result is an odd piece that serves more as a character study of a wealthy young lady who has it all - and it's a little difficult to relate to the central character in that way. Interesting enough to watch once for certain, and hardly any sort of disaster - but not great.
Oedipus Wrecks:
Last but not least, Woody Allen's entry once again finds the director playing the lead. This time around he's a lawyer named Sheldon Mills whose aging mother, Sadie Millstein (Mae Questel), rules over his life and just refuses to cut the cord. Her meddling has gotten to the point where it's driven Sheldon to see a shrink, and when he gets involved with a lovely divorcee named Lisa (Mia Farrow), things just get worse. She interferes with their dates, meddles in their affairs and generally just makes a pest of herself despite her good intentions. When Sadie quite disappears on stage right before their eyes and does not return, the result of a magician's trick, Sheldon starts to enjoy the newfound freedom he's never been able to sample before - but eventually his mother does return, though in a very strange way and with very strange consequences.
How much you'll get out of this will obviously hinge on your feelings for the film's director and star but for Woody Allen fans, this stands as one of his funniest movies and a great piece of the director's trademark neurotic style. Without going into too much detail on the story for fear of spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, the writing here is very clever as is the way in which the movie lets it all unfold. Allen gets most of the screen time here but Questel does a great job as the overbearing mom while Mia Farrow is likeable and charming as the oddball love interest. This one comes together fairly flawlessly and is the high point of the three shorts that make up the film.
Video/Audio/Extras:
New York Stories looks good in this AVC encoded 1080p high definition 1.85.1 widescreen transfer from Mill Creek. While it seems obvious more cleanup work could have been done, detail is definitely improved over previous releases and color reproduction looks pretty good. Black levels are generally strong if not quite reference quality - all in all, this is a perfectly fine looking image.
The only audio option on the disc is an English language DTS-HD 2.0 Stereo track, there are no alternate language options or subtitles though English closed captioning is available. There are no problems to report here - the dialogue is clean and clear, the levels sound like they're balanced properly and there are no issues with hiss or distortion. A surround sound remix might have been fun for a few scenes but what's here is perfectly acceptable.
The only extra on the disc is the film's trailer. Menus and chapter selection are also included.
The Final Word:
While New York Stories isn't likely to be the film that any of the three directors affiliated with it will be remembered for making, it's a solid trilogy of quirky stories well made with a game cast. Mill Creek's Blu-ray doesn't have much going for it in terms of extras, and that's a shame, but it looks and sound pretty good and you can't argue with the price.
