HotToastyRag Three short films are strung together in New York Stories. The first is Martin Scorsese's "Life Lessons", written by Richard Price, and starring Nick Nolte and Rosanna Arquette. Nick is a tortured artist, and has a passionate but strange relationship with Rosanna, his assistant. This vignette is a little weird, but if you're into art and emotional, volatile relationships, you might like it.The second is Francis Ford Coppola's "Life without Zoe", co-written by him and Sofia Coppola. Talia Shire plays an incompetent mother to Heather McComb, who's spoiled, rich, and pretty much only serves to annoy the audience. 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. It's equally as weird as the previous two vignettes; a man who hates his mother wishes she would disappear and then she does. Look for Mia Farrow, Julie Kavner, Mae Questel, Larry David, and Woody himself in the cast. If you liked Woody's Magic in the Moonlight or The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, you'll probably think this vignette is cute.

Michael Neumann It's exciting to find three high profile filmmakers working in a short story format, but (perhaps not surprisingly) this unique anthology adds up to something less than the sum of its parts. Because of the talent involved it's difficult to avoid playing the comparison/contrast game, which would make Martin Scorsese's 'Life Lessons' the most impressive segment, in large part because of Nick Nolte's dynamic portrayal of a burned-out bohemian artist in trend-setting SoHo. Scorsese's direction is no more stylish than the efforts of his companions, but there's more substance in this one episode than in both others combined. 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. Taken altogether, the trilogy is a diverting throwaway effort by three directors whose talents far outshine the material each is working with.

leanneallan There has been arguably the strongest outpouring of negative commentary in IMDb ever seen about the supposedly little afterthought of the New York Storiues triad - "Life without Zoe." Could I at least ask a reconsideration? This dear, tender piece, created as a light bon-bon, shows through the magical/real prism of the young eyes that (Ihope that) you all experienced looking at the world as a child. One object or friend takes one's fancy for some reason for a little while, then another. Pace and cinematic tempo must reflect that which may look a mish-mash to adult viewer's eyes.The film basically just follows a bright, attentive young girl's life over a number of days,events being magnified or diminished just as they are as a girl records her diary highlights, or tells you the essential summary of what happened at school at the end of a day when you pick them up to take home. Seeing a drunk in the street may loom large, or the latest hip item of local kids clothing to be seen in.Many of these daily events don't necessarily have a further deep meaning, a filmistic solution or termination--the half-sculpted and wonky images of a day's life just end hanging,(or disappearing) into thin air.Matt Groening recently commented (admiitedly speaking about the different genre of adult comedy)in a UK interview that he felt that US audiences needed to be hit with a sledgehammer to produce an adequate comic effect and he would sometimes love to produce comedy with the subtlety acceptable to overseas audiences. I don't want to inflame any transatlantic passions, but is it possible that US audiences are just not able to handle stories such as the running of a child's mind that doesn't necessarily have a beginning, a middle, or an end? What if you just sat in the film and took in the experience---no punchline, only feeling and seeing...But young girls have bigger dreams and special loves---and there is (for many) nothing more special than the daughter's adoration, showoffiness,and special love for---their FATHER. It may extend to magnification of Dad to almost superhuman proportions---in this case, Dad is a classical flautist, and the dreaminess about her suave, charming, European, traveled father creates a delightful loving giant edifice of her father in her eyes, who creates special flute wandering leitmotifs to lull her to sleep, and informs her life with love. In reality, there is no fluff in here at all. I became (blessedly) a father to identical girl twins well after seeing this movie--and the relationship I have with my girls was perhaps more accurately portrayed here than in any other resonance or description I've encountered. 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. Perfectly timed, with kids in the select audience, father stands up and plays--and the repertoire drifts as thrilled Sofia's mind hears him playing(at least to her ears)---the special children's music he plays to her when they are together putting her to sleep---my memory may be wrong, but I think it is is a rearrangement into multiple rather simple chord inversions and hence variations of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'---but to Sofia, it is a classical triumph- a peak moment in a girl's pride in her father and an orchestral triumph of course of the highest order. Dramatic irony taken right back to the home of it!Give it a go and look at it again,if you liked the dream-time aspect of your own childhood, and especially all Dads of 7-12 yo girls, ESPECIALLY twins,and I expect, Grandads too, whose love for their grandchildren granted the gift of spare time and maybe reflection, often to me seem to even be more tender about the young than parents. It's not really a story--sorry, no big plot, no hard-hitting tag-line. It's drifting along that magical stream of consciousness of a child with parents that loom very large and blurred with an aesthetically beautiful finale at the Acrolopis with orchestra lit at dusk ----Mark Allan, Nedlands (Perth),Western Australia

mkw-5 "Life Lessons" (Scorsese)-This is really different from the Scorsese we are used to see. This special form (=short episodes) seems to have given the directors some new possibilities and freedoms. The movie is great. Nick Nolte and Rosanna Arquette are absolutely perfect. The story is simple on the surface, but the characters are very well build and very realistic: They are both lovable, sympathetic and stupid and selfish at the same time. The characters are maybe the deepest and most multi-dimensional that I've ever seen in a Scorsese movie."Life Without Zoe" (Coppola)-Very interesting movie. The story is about rich people, a rich and well succeeded family. The movie shows that rich people are people also. Very specially directed and acted. Very interesting."Oedipus Wrecks" (Allen)-I don't know if Allen is a director or an artist at all. He don't have anything to say, at least in this short picture. He's again acting himself, and comically, not acting very good. He's a super-neurotic person that creates problems out of nothing. He doesn't seem to have anything else in his life than whining about nothing and making movies about that. This is his most boring work I've seen. OK, maybe he's done something good also. 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. Allen's part couldn't make the other parts worse. Recommended for everybody.