An American take on Paris, je t'aime, in which several shorts tell the tales of lovers within New York City.

My interest in this film was mild, it boasted a large cast and several directors, but I was more interested in Paris, je t'aime. New York, I Love You comes off as a poor attempt at trying to show talent and style. The film is good, but not as good as it should, or wants to be. I found it to be very uneven with each short and I truly liked only one of them.

Instead of going into each short, beat by beat, I'll highlight the ones I care enough to talk about, for better or worse. We start off with Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha, each getting into a cab and having a small argument over which street to take. This is our introduction to this film, it's interesting and mildly funny, but offers us no insight into either character or their situation. We go on through other shorts, involving a bald Natalie Portman and lazy boy Orlando Bloom. I found that a lot of the shorts had characters that I just didn't have interest in. For a short, one of the main objectives is to grab the viewer's attention with either a character or situation, many of these shorts fail to do this.

The one short that I absolutely loved, is also the most basic one. Two people who are in love walk down the street together. Cloris Leachman and Eli Wallach are perfect and in their old age outshine everyone else in this piece. Their short is soft and heartfelt. The only true love story in this whole piece. While other pieces were interesting and entertaining (Maggie Q and Ethan Hawke) none had the presence of Leachman and Wallach.

As mentioned before, some shorts are uneven and try to pull small twists here and there. Most of them are obvious (Ratner's piece & Cooper/Wright Penn) but I give them credit for trying. Everyone does a decent job in their roles, as I mentioned, this is a pretty big cast. Shia LaBeouf stars in the oddest segment of them all, along with the beautiful Julie Christie. It'll have some people scratching their heads, as it seems to be the odd one out of the group.

One big problem is that the film doesn't showcase New York enough, it should almost be a third character, but instead it's simply the backdrop. The film suffers from the lack of ethnicity that should be present. This is New York after all, but instead we get the beautiful cast, it doesn't feel real.

The film is pretty much hit or miss and nothing jumps out at you as a wow moment. Each segment is directed well, but nothing memorable. I read each segment was given a short amount of time to film everything, that has its pros and cons. Why not take more time to craft everything?

Following the success of "Paris, Je T'Aime", a group of directors decided to get together and make a similar anthology style film based in New York. Unlike the original film, the stories in this film seem to sometimes come and go too quickly--by the time you think are getting into a story, it's over in too many cases. And, the often start up and stop and then begin again--with the stories woven together. As a result, there is no title to indicate that a story is complete and it is less formal in structure.

Sadly, however, while "Paris, Je T'Aime" was hit or miss (mostly hit),most of "New York, I Love You" was miss. The stories tended to be much more sexual in nature but also far less sweet--and often quite terrible. It was an amazingly dull and uninteresting film with only a few exceptional stories--and perhaps the often depressing music made it seem more so. Now understand, it was good quality music but its somber tone really, really made me feel like cutting my wrists! Among the better ones was the story about the young man who took a girl in a wheelchair to prom, the couple talking about cheating outside a restaurant (though this was also in the first film) and the crotchety old couple. This is all so sad because I had loved the first film so much--and I really WANTED to love this film. I respected what they tried but simply didn't like it very much.

By the way, and this is NOT really a complaint, but I was amazed how many people were smoking in the film. For a recent film, that was unusual in our more anti-smoking culture.

Also, if you get the DVD, there are two segments included as extras that were not included in the film. One consists of Kevin Bacon (wearing a cool fedora) eating a hotdog....and absolutely NOTHING more for almost ten minutes. The other features a teen who spends the film videotaping the world--including a very unhappy couple.

These are approximately a dozen stories taking place in NYC. Some of them are interconnected. There are some good, some bad and some indifferent.

1. Hayden Christensen is a thief flirting with Rachel Bilson. That's a scary acting duo. The arrival of Andy García does not necessarily save it.

2. Natalie Portman is a religious Jewish buyer who is about to get married and Irrfan Khan is an Indian seller. This is an unusual and fascinating pairing. These are the interesting stuff that makes this movie worthwhile.

3. Orlando Bloom is a composer talking to lovely Christina Ricci on the phone who is urging him to finish his work. This is one of those indifferent ones. Exactly how interesting is somebody talking on the phone? 4. Ethan Hawke flirts with Maggie Q after lighting her cigarette. She turns out to be a prostitute. OMG. Ethan Hawke is doing 'Before Sunrise' except a bit edgier and sexually provocative.

5. After Anton Yelchin got stood up for prom by Blake Lively, James Caan sets him up with his daughter Olivia Thirlby except she's in a wheelchair. They end up having sex. This is a good one with a fun ending.

6. Bradley Cooper and Drea de Matteo are meeting up for a date and we hear their interior monologues. This idea is more interesting on the pages than on the screen.

7. Gimpy Shia LaBeouf helps Julie Christie settle into her hotel room. Shia's father John Hurt works at the front desk. It's a bit too desperate to be artistic.

8. Carlos Acosta is caring for little girl Taylor Geare as he brings her to Jacinda Barrett. People assume he's a manny. I like the locations but the unknown relationship isn't as interesting as writer/director Natalie Portman hopes. After all, Jeff Goldblum had a black kid when he faced dinosaurs.

9. Painter Ugur Yücel buys from herbalist Shu Qi. He asks her out but dies before the date.

10. Robin Wright Penn starts talking to stranger Chris Cooper on the street while having a smoke but are they strangers? This could be more but they don't even fully use the time that they're given.

11. Eva Amurri is arguing with boyfriend Justin Bartha and he decides to spontaneously buy a trip to Rome.

12. Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman are an elderly couple. Two veterans doing aimless conversations while on a very long walk.

Emilie Ohana is a video artist who pops up from time to time.