New York, New York (1977)

Too much of everything

Sorry, this movie sucks

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Coming from the success of his previous films, Scorsese went back to the 40s and made a tribute to his home town and the classic Hollywood genre – although he refused to call it a musical, mentioning Billy Wilder's statement that you can't call a film a musical unless characters sing in situations where you don't expect them to.With almost a three-hour running time, this highly stylized film filled with music and a rambling plot was a box-office failure and only a few critics giving a positive review, including Roger Ebert who said that if we forgive the movie its confusions we're left with a good time. Robert De Niro, collaborating for the third time with Scorsese for his least memorable character with the director, was not charming in this film and almost coming off as an annoying selfish character (and maybe that's the point), but Liza Minelli was great when performing the songs, especially in the highest point of the film when she sang its theme song, which is more memorable than the film itself – an indication that it was one of Scorsese's rare miscarriage as a director.The failure of the film led his cocaine addiction into rock bottom, which obviously he will recover from with flying colors – bouncing back in the next decade for a brand new chapter of his life and career.

When I saw this movie 4 words came to mind: Amazing, outstanding, compelling and unique...Amazing that someone would actually spend $14,000,000 to make this film and that anyone would actually pay to watch it.Outstanding proof that Liza Minnelli wouldn't have ever gotten a job in show business if she did't have famous parents - her father, film director Vincente Minnelli and her mother the alcoholic drug addict, Judy Garland.Compelling one to violently vomit at just the sight of her face, or sound of her voice, which isn't really singing as much as a bad caricature of her mother's drug induce yelling. Yelling that we're somehow to take as singing.Unique in that when you combine Minnelli's and Garland's genes you end up with someone who looks like a toad from space that was beat with an ugly stick.

"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.

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.