Who's In It: Hayden Christensen, Andy Garcia, Rachel Bilson, Natalie Portman, Irfan Khan, Orlando Bloom, Christina Ricci, Ethan Hawke, Chris Cooper, Robin Wright Penn, Anton Yelchin, Maggie Q, Olivia Thirlby, Blake Lively, Drea De Matteo, Bradley Cooper, Julie Christie, Shia LaBeouf, John Hurt, Jacinda Barrett, Eli Wallach, Cloris Leachman, Eva Amurri, Justin Bartha, Emilie Ohana, James Caan
The Basics: There's this place called New York City. Perhaps you've heard about it. There really aren't a lot of movies made there so it kind of needs all the media attention it can get. It's a city full of fascinating people in all kinds of interesting love situations. Those people are white. Sometimes they're also Indian, because Hindu stuff is so colorful and great for set decoration. Occasionally these people are other Asians who aren't Indian. But they are never African-American or Puerto Rican. Or not heterosexual. Sorry, but there just are no African-Americans or Puerto Ricans or gays in New York City. There used to be some before they made this movie. But they all moved out just before shooting commenced. They went to Vermont or some other place where nothing happens.
What's The Deal: Blame Paris, je t'aime for spawning this movie. That French import from 2006 featuring 18 short little films about people finding love (or not) in Paris wasn't bad at all. Cool directors, fresh ideas (even when they were about street mimes) and a few really brilliant moments (like Alexander Payne's moving final short about a Colorado postal worker vacationing alone) made it the kind of thing you probably missed in theaters; then all your friends bugged you about it until you put it in your Netflix queue. That won't happen with this one. The SNL short where Fred Armisen plays Martin Scorsese and talks about NYC's glory days when you could get a cookie as big as your entire body only takes 90 seconds to watch and it's exponentially better.
How To See It: On DVD, broken up into individual chapters. The interstitial stuff that tries to tie it all together is pointless anyway. That way you can skip right to the pieces directed by Shunji Iwai (with Orlando Bloom as something other than a pirate or an elf), Fatih Akin (starring Ugur Yucel and Shu Qi) and Shekhar Kapur (just for Julie Christie and a cowering Shia LaBeouf trying to act like a grown man in her presence).
Bizarrely Enough, The Worst Of The Bunch Is Not Directed By: Brett Ratner. His contribution is actually kind of sweet in a very-post-John-Hughes way. Shocker.