New Trailer for the Anthology 'New York, I Love You'

Great cast, good directors, the best damn city on the planet - there is plenty to move you toward New York, I Love You. However...these anthology movies rarely work. They can - anything can - but more often than not, movies with 11 directors come up a little short because you're not going for the same two-hour ride your used to.

In this case, the directors include Natalie Portman, Mira Nair, Shekhar Kapur, Allen Hughes, and Brett Ratner, and that is a strange collection. According to a synopsis, "The 12 segments will be connected together via transitional linking sequences. New York City is the main unifying character and the film will show the city as a living, breathing and loving whole." Woody Allen managed to do that beautifully 30 years ago with Manhattan, but that was a different New York City. I certainly don't begrudge people trying, though, and the new trailer has a lot more energy than you'd think they could get out of a dozen short films.

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Movie Trailer - 'New York, I Love You'

Anthology films usually attract more people to be in their casts than in their audiences. For some reason, whether it's the lack of one linear storyline or whatever, movies like Four Rooms and Coffee and Cigarettes routinely star some of the world's best talent and recruit some of its best directors (although Coffee and Cigarettes was directly entirely by Jim Jarmusch). Paris Je t'aime was released in 2006 as a love song to Paris, and included segments directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, Tom Tykwer, Walter Salles, Gus Van Sant, and Wes Craven, among many others. That film inspired the follow-up New York, I Love You, which you can't really call a sequel, but it's not a continuation of the storyline. It's kind of an American reimagining, if I can use my least favorite movie term. I kind of wish this film featured the work of the Paris directors, frankly, although we do get to see the behind-the-camera debuts of Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. Other directors include Shakhar Kapur (Elizabeth), Brett Ratner, Mira Nair, and Allen Hughes, best known as half of the Hughes Brothers (Dead Presidents). The cast, though is absolutely top notch: Julie Christie, Shia LaBeouf, Portman, Ethan Hawke, James Caan, Eli Wallach, Robin Wright Penn, Kevin Bacon, Christina Ricci, and on and on and on. And while I'll admit I don't ever remember seeing the credit "In Post Production" at the end of a trailer before, that's about my only complaint with it. For my money, this trailer captures the spirit and the bustle of the greatest city on Earth pretty well. Hopefully the movie is as well-assembled as the trailer. New York, I Love You will be a Valentine for Manhattan, opening on February 13th.

Shia, Julie Christie Love 'New York'

With Elizabeth director Shekhar Kapur stepping in to direct the script written by the late Anthony Minghella, the Hollywood Reporter says that Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie and John Hurt will star in one of 12 segments in the upcoming anthology, New York, I Love You.

A companion piece to the recent Paris, Je T'Aime, New York will feature short films directed by Allen Hughes, Brett Ratner, and both Boleyn girls, Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, among others.

The 12 films, all set within the five boroughs, will feature performances by Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Chris Cooper, Anton Yelchin, Drea de Matteo, Ethan Hawke and Kevin Bacon.

The short starring Christie and LaBeouf is being compared to Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply, the film that first brought him acclaim. Christie will play a woman who checks into a hotel "that is in between worlds," whatever that means, and there she meets LaBeouf, and apparently, there's an amazing connection neither could see coming.

A release date for New York, I Love You is not known, but production has begun on the anthology.