Four of Them

-An anthology in the vein of Paris, je t'aime. Common denominator? Natalie Portman.

-This is...a cute mess. A bland look at love amongst New Yorkers, mostly in the East and West sides, predominantly white, entirely straight. They vary from standrad romantic comedies (Shunji Iwai's Orlando Bloom and Christina Ricci-starring segment) to slice-of-life 'New York Moments' (Yvan Attal smoking-on-the-sidewalk vignettes) to culture dramas (Mira Nair's Gujarati Irrfan Khan and Hassitic Natalie Portman segment) to baffling fantasy-realist tragic-dramas (Shekhar Kapur's adaption of Anthony Minghella's screenplay, starring Julie Christie, Shia Labeouf's vaguely Slavic accent, Shia Labeouf's pronounced limp, and Shia Labeouf). Some are notable, like a mediation on the aftermath of a one night stand between a younger man (Bradley Cooper) and an older woman (Drea de Matteo).

-There's the token old person tale, this one starring Cloris Leachman and Eli Wallach. There's the actor-to-director one, Natalie Portman's quiet father-daughter short (which I've heard was awful, but really, it's not terribly offensive, offbeat and intriguing, not brilliant, but not terrible), there's a lot of twist endings (Brett Ratner), some transitions (starring Justin Bartha, Emilie Ohana, and Eva Amurri). But really...it's not good. It's not bad, but it's not very good. Pleasent, fluffy, sometimes weird, but washed in this coat of sameness.

-I'm fucking sick of that Radiohead song. Shut it up.