“But only if you’re comfortable with this, and if you’re not then you can just forget it, and you can quit, but if you are… then open this door.”
Anthology movies never really work. Very few get good reviews and even less make good box office. But despite this track record of little to no success, every few years, someone manages to convince another batch of directors and writers to contribute their own short film to something bigger, tackling some sort of common theme. In the 80s, powerhouses like Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese couldn’t make it work with New York Story. In the 90s, break out rock star film makers like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez couldn’t make it work with Three Rooms.
Not only do the film makers get tricked into thinking that somehow, this time, it might just work. But I do as a viewer as well. Sure, the above geniuses took a big swing and a miss at their own versions of the anthology movie, but surely, the next batch will get it right. Won’t they? It’s that optimism that lead to me buying the DVD of New York, I Love You back when it came out. But it’s the practical part of my brain that has let it sit on my DVD shelf, collecting dust for the six or seven years since. I want it to be good so much. But I also know that the odds are against it. But today, I bit the bullet. I watched New York, I Love You. (more…)
Bored and Dangerous 