Prashun Chakraborty New York New York is a musical about a passionate jazz player and his struggles with love and career with a Hollywood love letter thrown in as well. Now which film does this remind everyone of? Just like La La Land, New York New York is a homage to the golden age of musicals but packs Scorsese's intensity. Robert DeNiro is in his 70's prime and knocks it out of the park with his performance, easily the best feature of the film. Liza Minelli does a decent job but she's there for her singing and does great in that. However this is easily the most flawed film I have seen from Scorsese, it stands at an enormous run-time of nearly three hours, there's more than a few scenes which could be trimmed down, especially during the first hour and a half, I think a lot can be blamed on Scorsese unable to handle a big budget film back then, the sets were expensive so were the cars and the props but he was spending way too much time in pointless scenes. However the film really picks up and the last one hour is where this movie truly shines. DeNiro was just brilliant in his role of an insecure but ambitious saxophonist. A film despite it's flaws should give you a handful of scenes which will stay with you once the film is over, one scene in particular will always stay with me, DeNiro is angry and frustrated with his wife Minnelli but keeps it bottled in and it comes out during a magnificent scene with him and his saxophone playing an energetic and a furious melody while his eyes rain down fireballs on her, no dialogue just music and body language.

rooprect "New York, New York" is a musical brought to us by the director (and leading actor) of "Taxi Driver" just a matter of months after that hard-hitting, violent classic shocked us. What Scorsese sought to do here was use the style of those candy-coated technicolor song & dance films our grandparents grew up on ("Singin in the Rain" and such) but give it a more realistic edge. Visually he succeeded impressively. The sets, lighting, camera work and costumes are exactly as you'd expect from a classic toe tapper. As for the realistic edge, he also succeeded--perhaps too well.Like a few other reviewers, I have a problem with the casting of Di Nero, especially when contrasted against the sweet, passive charm of Liza Minnelli (whose amazing performance I'll get to later). From the outset, Di Nero comes across as a borderline psycho just waiting to smack a few women around, and I found that to be very distracting from an otherwise personal story.In Scorsese's prologue to the 35th Anniversary DVD he talks about how he wanted to tell a story of 2 people in love who just can't seem to mesh due to personality & artistic differences. But instead what we get is the story of an abusive man and a submissive woman. This is not, as Scorsese implies, simply a personality difference. It's a very polarized tale of a creep & a sweet girl. Honestly, it was Scorsese's deceptive prologue that made me feel like the film failed. If he hadn't said anything, or if he had more accurately said that this is a disturbing story of domination set as a cute musical, I would have said it was a triumph. But in that it fails to do what the director says it's designed to do, it fails artistically.Does that mean it's a bad movie? Absolutely not! Just like "Rollerball" (1976) was supposed to be Norm Jewison's anti-violence film but ended up thrilling us with its heart-pounding action & violence, "New York, New York" is a very well made, entertaining and masterful piece of film. The contrast between its charming visuals and its unsettling dysfunctional love story is very effective. I just wish it had featured a different leading male--someone better suited to play an imposing figure with a heart (Christopher Walken, anyone?) rather than Di Nero who, at least in this film, comes across as a villain.Liza Minnelli is stunningly good. She is what raises this film from "good" to "great". Her character is submissive to Di Nero's tyrannical presence; yet we never get the feeling that she's a pitiable victim. Instead, she seems smart, bold, and while she doesn't fight back at times we wish she would, she always deals with the problem instead of lying down and taking it. Her emotional scenes are very genuine (not sappy). And of course that voice! This is one of the rare musicals where a song number *adds* to the drama rather than serving as a sideshow.In all, this is a unique and powerful film which you should watch if you get the opportunity (note: although it's quite long, be sure to see the uncut 2 1/2 hour version). While it seems to have failed at delivering the director's original intent, it does give us something else worth sinking our teeth into.

JohnWelles Director Martin Scorsese is best known for his searing portrayals of urban life and its corruptions, as detailed in acclaimed films like "Taxi Driver" (1976), "Raging Bull" (1980) and "Goodfellas" (1990), but here, in the first of many directorial moments where he demonstrated his verisimilitude, he lovingly crafted a musical with a twist. "New York, New York" (1977) has the glorious look of an MGM Technicolor musical of the late forties or early fifties, from the plentiful sets recreating the artifice of the Big Apple in large sound stages in Hollywood, to the costumes and makeup, Scorsese flawlessly imitates the style, the look of another era of cinema. Yet if this was all there was, the film would be an empty, hollow stylistic exercise; instead, the characters that populate this entirely synthetic world are completely real, De Niro and Minnelli creating complex, fascinating characters. Working like the great improvisatory director John Cassavetes, Scorsese coaxes flowing performances from his two leads, detailing their relationship and the conflicts that stem from their deeply musical, creative personalities. Lionel Stander has a memorable supporting role, his distinctive, strong New York accent dominating his scenes. However, this film is defined by the trio of Scorsese, De Niro and Minnelli who collectively define the film.The production design by Boris Leven, who himself had designed "West Side Story" (1961), is excellent; the cinema's view of the Big Apple circa 1945 once more brought to the screen and counterpoints the realism of the characters in a satisfying contrast. Famed Hungarian cinematographer László Kovács shoots in the characteristically Baroque style of the forties while employing some incredible crane shots to remarkable effect.However, one of the key facets for any musical to be a success is its score, and with songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb, who wrote the music for the original stage productions of "Cabaret" (1966) and "Chicago" (1975), the film achieves magnificently. The title song, subsequently covered by Frank Sinatra, is justifiably iconic, but "The World Goes Around" and the lavish ironic musical number "Happy Endings", invoking the extravagant set pieces of Busby Berekly in the 1930s musicals also help assure the picture's position as the finest original musical of the last forty years.A passed over classic, a forgotten great of New American Cinema of the 1970s, this deserves to be seen once more and appreciated for its tremendously fresh achievement.

Lee Eisenberg OK, so Martin Scorsese took a break from his gritty movies to make an homage to old-time musicals. The result has its strengths and weaknesses. I liked how the movie ended (the ending proves that Scorsese didn't throw his dignity out the window), but I would have liked the movie better had it focused on political issues affecting the world after WWII, like "The Way We Were" did. Otherwise, "New York, New York" is worth seeing, if far from Scorsese's best movie. Liza Minnelli's small-time singer comes across as sort of silly, but Robert DeNiro's sax player makes you feel as if you're walking on eggshells (it's basically Jake LaMotta with a sax).Obviously, a lot of the scenes are clearly filmed on sets. In an introduction on the special edition DVD, Scorsese notes that it's deliberate: he wanted the movie to have the look of an old-time musical, right down to the sets. All in all, it's not a bad movie. Also starring Lionel Stander, Barry Primus, Mary Kay Place, Dick Miller (a character actor known for appearances in Roger Corman's and Joe Dante's movies), Don Calfa and Jack Haley in an uncredited cameo.Oh, and if you're wondering about the title of my review, it's a reference to "Scooby-Doo", since Casey Kasem (the voice of Shaggy) appears in "New York, New York" as a DJ.