New York Stories

Plot synopsis:
=== Life Lessons ===
In a story loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's short novel The Gambler, Nick Nolte plays Lionel Dobie, an acclaimed abstract artist who finds himself unable to paint during the days before the scheduled beginning of a major gallery exhibition of his new work. Rosanna Arquette is Paulette, his apprentice/assistant and former lover. Lionel is still infatuated with her, but Paulette wants only his tutelage, which makes things difficult since they live in the same studio-loft. Paulette dates other people, including a performance artist (Steve Buscemi) and a painter (Jesse Borrego).
These deliberate provocations on Paulette's part make Lionel insanely jealous — and fuel his creativity. Lionel and Paulette, it becomes clear, have been using each other: Lionel using her sexually, Paulette using him as a means of entry to the higher spheres of the New York social and art scene. Paulette wants to give up and go home to her parents but Lionel persuades her to stay because New York is where a painter needs to be.
Lionel pours his anxiety and repressed passion into his work. Paintings around the studio show visual metaphors from relations past: stormy skies, burning bridges, and tormented clowns. Lionel realizes that he needs the emotional turmoil of his destructive relationships in order to fuel his art. In the last scene, at the art exhibit, Lionel meets another attractive young woman, a struggling painter. He persuades her to become his assistant, and potentially his lover, beginning the cycle anew.
=== Life Without Zoë ===
Zoë (Heather McComb) is a schoolgirl who lives in a luxury hotel. She helps return to an Arab princess a valuable piece of jewelry that the princess had given to Zoë's father (Giancarlo Giannini) and had been subsequently stolen and recovered. Zoë tries to reconcile her divorced mother, a photographer (Talia Shire), and father, a flute soloist.
=== Oedipus Wrecks ===
New York lawyer Sheldon Mills (Woody Allen) has problems with his overly critical mother Sadie Millstein (Mae Questel). Sheldon complains constantly to his therapist about her, wishing aloud that she would just disappear. Sheldon takes his shiksa fiancée, Lisa (Mia Farrow), to meet his mother, who immediately embarrasses him. The three, as well as Lisa's children from a previous marriage, go to a magic show. His mother is invited on stage to be a part of the magician's act. She is put inside a box that has swords stuck through it and she disappears, just as she is supposed to, but then she never reappears.
Although he is furious at first, this development turns out to be great for Sheldon because, with her out of his life, he can finally relax. But soon, to his horror, his mother reappears in the sky over New York City. She begins to annoy Sheldon and Lisa (with the whole city now watching) by constantly talking to strangers about his most embarrassing moments. This puts a strain on his relationship with Lisa, who leaves him. Sheldon is persuaded by his psychiatrist to see a psychic, Treva (Julie Kavner), to try to get his mother back to reality. Treva's experiments fail, but Sheldon falls for her, possibly finding her to be very similar to his mother (see Oedipus complex). When he introduces Treva to his mother, she finally approves and comes back to Earth.
=== Trailer ===
The trailer contains three shots from the "Zoe" segment not in the actual film: (1) Zoe ordering room service, (2) A boy slams a pie in a girl's face at a party, and (3) A different angle of Zoe's parents kissing right before Zoe yells "cut". The trailer can be found on the 2012 Blu-ray edition.

Tags: paranormal, satire, storytelling

Review:
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).
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.
Three 40 minutes short films by three of the greatest American directors; Scorsese, Coppola and Allen.
Even if I personally is not a fan of Nick Nolte, the movie has depth and it's just as good as you would expect from a director like Scorsese.
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.
It is a film that has a lot of depth, but it is quite worth it for fans of the actors and those who could get interested in Richard Price's story.Coppola, director of THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE NOW makes Life Without Zoe here, a film that is 180 degrees out of whack from those two movies in that it tells the story of a little rich girl whose best friend is a doorman and revolves around a rich boy's birthday party.
In a way, it almost could appeal to kids, but it's the wrong place to put in between a story of artists by Scorsese and a comedy of mother and son troubles by Allen.Which brings me to the last short film, Oedipus Wrecks, where Woody plays a character whose mother suddenly out of the blue disappears.
So, New York Stories is worth checking out for Life Lessons and Oedipus Wrecks, and there could be an audience somewhere for Life Without Zoe, although the biggest flaw of the movie comes that neither one can connect at all outside of the fact that they all take place in New York and are made by New York directors- in short- fascinating and imperfect in some ways.
Martin Scorsese's "Life Lessons" shows artist Lionel Dobie (Nick Nolte) trying to assess his relationships with people, Francis Ford Coppola's "Life without Zoe" shows a very mature girl, and Woody Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" is about Sheldon Mills (played by Allen himself), a man who quite literally cannot get away from his mother.I have to say that Scorsese did a very good job looking at troubled relationships, and Allen shows how hard it is to have certain kinds of people as parents (of course he often shows that).
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.
This is the case in New York Stories, because Woody Allen's segment, Oedipus Wrecks, the final third of the movie, is hilarious.
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.
My best advice to anyone renting it is to sit back and thoroughly enjoy the first segment by Martin Scorsese ("Life Lessons")-although you may be sick of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by the end of it, or you may have a new reason to love it.
Then, watch Woody Allen's very funny "Oedipus Wrecks." This short film, like Albert Brooks' "Mother" will have you going, "My God, it's Mom!" A satisfying rent.
"Life Lessons"Nick Nolte plays a Leroy Neimann-style artist living in a New York City Loft and he picks up Arquette promising her "life lessons" Basically, he uses her and spits her out, but there's more to it than just that.
This is as reminiscent of the best of Allen's "funny films" as it is of his beautifully constructed New Yorker short stories.
Three stories, Scorcesse/Woody Allen/& Francis Ford Copola...Martin Scorcesse's dealt with cosmopolitan talent by way of artistic integrity, a piece of delicate Lalique is less fragile than the characters in this episode...Nick Nolte needs to come to grips with it..the simple fact is that HE'S HORNY!!
Woody Allen's segment dealt with the occult, wishes were reality and reality was taking a sebaticle...The Jewish Mother is so loving, she is relentless in driving her son crazy!!...Believe me, this problem is a nice one to have...The best line in this segment being..."What do need to marry a blonde with four kids for, You're not an Astronaut"..What wins out in the end is the theme song to this segment..."I want a girl just like the girl who married dear old dad" AND THE WINNER IS: MARTIN SCORCESSE!!!Scocesse's segment dealt with the demented concept that everything in life takes a back seat to an obsession...(For some people anyway) a sexual obsession,,,that is usually the favorite...The intensity of emmotions that Nolte and Arquette displayed are truly Life Lessons indeed...SO THE NOD GOES TO THE OBSESSION!!.
I'd seen NEW YORK STORIES (NYS) before on cable, and I'd enjoyed the trilogy of short films by Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Woody Allen.
As for the other entries, Scorsese's LIFE LESSONS, with a screenplay by Richard Price, is well-crafted and well-acted, though the temperamental, manipulative artist and assistant/muse/lover played, respectively, by Nick Nolte and Rosanna Arquette were so immature and strident they got on my nerves after a while.
I have viewed the "Life Lessons" segment of New York Stories probably 80 times.
So I will comment on them individually.The first short, 'Life Lessons', is directed by Martin Scorsese and is about Lionel Dobie, an artist (Nick Nolte) whos girlfriend Paulette (Rosanna Arquette) dumps him as a lover, yet stays in his atelier to live.
"New York Stories " it's a collection of three shorts made by Martin Scorsese ,Francis Ford Coppola ,and Woody Allen .
The first ,By Martin Scorsese"Life lessons " it's my favorite .The short story it's very well developed and the direction was quite good .
The special tenderness of love for a father's daughter, and when young, this special inexplicable bond, mutually returned, is beyond 25 words or less--but Coppola has sensed this, no doubt especially helping to create this reciprocal magic by employing Sofia in the filmic role of the daughter--at this age and stage of Zoe's tender life, although her early cinematic ability is undoubted and has since been proved, I would judge being employed firstly as being the real daughter and distant secondly, as an actress.And in my view, he and she have both sensed this, and made a good filmic depiction of it.
There is great depth of love mingled with total child's whimsy-quite a tough mix to encompass in a film short.Although I hinted this paediatric Ulysses (a day in the life of...little girl X), as a child thinks, doesn't have beginnings, middles or ends, the adoration of young Zoe, mingled with all her other dreams, is crafted into an aesthetically stunning (?how real?) climax of her father's achievement as a musician when he is lead flautist at an orchestral performance in the open air at the foot of the Acropolis, commencing at dusk---just one of these stunning, life lasting images that Coppola has this ability to produce.
When Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, GoodFellas), Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) and Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Hannah And Her Sisters) join forces and make three separate short films all based around the same simple idea of living in New York, you know that original and interesting concepts will be seen.Scorsese's "Life Lessons", the first of the three films, is probably also the best.
Scorsese and Allen put together excellent pieces and showed their talents to the world, unfortunately Coppola couldn't do the same.What if New York Stories 2 was made today?
In these three short stories set in New York, Allen boils a funny but flavourless chicken, Coppola conducts a disastrous flute solo, and Scorsese paints a masterpiece..
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 result is New York Stories.The movie starts with Scorsese's segment, titled "Life Lessons".
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.
Nostalgia takes over."Life Lessons" (Martin Scorsese segment): Marty, the only who haven't wrote his own piece, made a small masterpiece with his short film, the longest of the segments.
"New York Stories" are three films from three directors, and not the least of them: Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen.
Scorsese and Allen's segments are no masterpieces, but "Life Without Zoe" is the worst film ever made by Coppola.
While Scorsese and Allen at least intended to tell us stories, you know, with characters, conflicts, with seemingly plots for Cinematic Gods' sake, "Life Without Zoe" is a lifeless, dull and shockingly thin film, relating in a fairy-tale format the adventures of a rich little girl, with her friends, and one obscure Arab Prince who speaks Oxford' English and still struggle to understand some basic words.
It looks flashy like "The Color of Money" but the film borrows more from "After Hours" (starring Rosanna Arquette too), through the depiction of the artistic New York, a world made of venal interest and sincere passion, where talentless people use sex to fulfills their ambitions, and true artists translate the lack of it into their work.
I wish he could see Marty and Woody's films and look at "Zoe" and think "What have I done?" How can a man so capable of greatness like "The Godfather" let himself slipping that way?
I even wonder if he didn't remove the last names in the opening credits out of shame.I've got to hand it to Scorsese to outshine two great directors and make a truly original piece of art, I wish Allen could make a worthy ending to a very promising comedy.
Eager to see it, an interesting collaborative project between three key directors of the New Hollywood movement, I even rushed home from a prior engagement.Three shorts banded together with the unifying setting of New York, New York Stories consists of: Life Lessons, Scorsese's tale of the relationship between an artist and his apprentice; Life Without Zoë, Coppola's take on the life of a child of wealthy parents, left to live alone in a luxurious hotel; Oedipus Wrecks, Allen's exploration of mother-son relationships.A distinct danger with films of this sort is in the directorial differences which can vastly disrupt the overall film's flow.
Not masterful, but quite, quite funny, and with a nice dash of comment on the issue at hand.The kind of idea that's interesting to see played out, New York Stories is neither as bad as its worst nor as good as its best.
New York Stories (1989) consists of three shorts with the central theme being New York City.It's directors are Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen.From that trio you could expect something better, but the result is very mediocre.The first story is Scorsese's Life Lessons, loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Gambler.It tells about the relationship between a painter called Lionel Dobie and Paulette, his apprentice and former lover.The second story is Life Without Zoë by Coppola.It's about a rich schoolgirl.Allen's story is Oedipus Wrecks.It tells about a Jewish New York lawyer, who has problems with his mother.She doesn't like her son's fiancé Lisa, and the mother starts hovering above the city and telling embarrassing stories of her son.The actor list looks great.Nick Nolte is Lionel.Rosanna Arquette plays Paulette.Steve Buscemi is Gregory Stark.Illeana Douglas is Paulette's Friend.Deborah Harry is Girl at Blind Alley.Heather McComb is Zoë.Giancarlo Giannini is her father and Talia Shire the mother.Holly Marie Combs is Costume Party Guest.Adrien Brody appears in his first film role as Mel.Woody Allen is Sheldon.Mia Farrow is Lisa.Mae Questel plays the mother.Julie Kavner portrays Treva.Larry David is Theater Manager.Kirsten Dunst is Lisa's Daughter.Mike Starr is Hardhat.From the three I liked Scorsese's the best.Nick Nolte's performance was intense.I also liked Allen's work.The magic show scene was funny, after which the mother disappeared.Coppola's was the weakest of the three.This is worth seeing, even though I expected something better..
Woody Allen's post 2000 movies, like Small Time Crooks, are full-length versions of his short in New York Stories, which really isn't a bad thing.
Fellini uses a gimmick for his short comedy and Allen uses exactly the same one.Of the handful of short film collections I have seen, New York Stories (especially the Scorsese & Allen segments) is the only one that draws me back for more..
You get three of the world's most talented filmmakers together to make a film about the city that inspired the majority of their films and you would expect a little more than what New York Stories has to offer.
Francis Ford Coppola's Life without Zoe is more fun than the previous film, but still has little impact.
Woody Allen's inspired piece about a man haunted (literally) by his hounding mother is funny and seems to have more to say about New York than the previous films.
Three top directors (Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen) helm three separate stories about denizens of the Big Apple.
Scorsese, still in "After Hours" mode, works quite well with handsome, raffish Nick Nolte, playing an obsessive painter; Coppola, working from a dim script co-written with daughter Sofia, has nothing up his sleeve with a tale about a poor little rich girl; Allen wrote and co-stars with Mia Farrow in the best segment, a funny fantasy about a Jewish man at the mercy of his domineering mama.
Big-timers Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Woody Allen direct self-contained segments that never interact.
But this was so bad, so boring and uninteresting that I hardly could watch it even with fast forwarding.Overally, because the Scorsese's piece is so great, and the Coppola's piece also in it's own way, this episode movie was very good, and very interesting.
The first is Martin Scorsese's "Life Lessons", written by Richard Price, and starring Nick Nolte and Rosanna Arquette.
In general, I don't like Sofia Coppola's work, but if you do, you might appreciate this directionless piece.Woody Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" concludes New York Stories.
The final story "Oedipus Wrecks" is directed by Woody Allen.
Scorsese's short movie with Nick Nolte and Rosanna Arquette, was the best of the three but I still expected better from him.
In all, I was disappointed with these short movies which centred around New York, but out of all of the directors, Scorsese is the winner.
Budget: $15million Worldwide Gross: $11millionI recommend this movie to people who are into there dramas about 3 different stories based in New York and directed by Coppola, Scorsese and Woody Allen.
New York Stories (1989) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Three legendary directors come together for this anthology film but sadly the end results really don't live up to the hype.
Even though all three films open with credits that tell you who directed them, anyone familiar with their work would be able to tell even without the credits.Martin Scorsese's "Life Lessons" features an artist (Nick Nolte) struggling to find his painting in time for his big release party but while trying to finish up he's also struggling to find a connection with his assistant (Rosanna Arquette) who he has been having a sexual affair with.
Farrow isn't much better as she just sleepwalks through her part.NEW YORK STORIES, in the end, is a pretty disappointing affair with only Scorsese's film really coming to life and being something worthy.
Francis Ford Coppola's 'Life Without Zoë' is a fizzy, uptown urban fairy tale told from the point of view of a precocious, sophisticated 12-year old heiress, and Woody Allen's amusing, typically neurotic 'Oedipus Wrecks' is reminiscent of one of his New Yorker essays, perhaps better suited to the printed page.
If I could rate this film on Woody Allen's contribution alone, it would receive a 10, however, since I have to include Scorsese's and Coppola's as well, a 5.
And mind you, all five of those points are for Woody Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks." Scorsese and Coppola both seem like they did not take this project seriously at all.
Woody Allen directs the last story in a trilogy, the other two being unsatisfactory pieces by Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola.
{It was also really interesting tosee the large canvas that is the centre-piece of the film take shapefrom nothing to a real work of admirable art by the story's end.} 8/ 10 on this one.The second segment, "Life Without Zoe", by Francis Ford Coppolais, to put it frankly, horrible!
Not only is this the best piece of thethree shorts that make up NEW YORK STORIES, but one of thevery best of Woody Allen's films, period.
I'd rate it *1/2 out of 4.Woody Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks" (great title, by the way) is possibly his purest comedy - and his funniest film - in a over a decade.
This was obviously a story close to the Coppola's heart, yet they were unable to make it interesting."Oedipus Wrecks" is pure Woody Allen.