FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, MARTIN SCORSESE & WOODY ALLEN EACH CONTRIBUTE A SHORT FILM TO "NEW YORK STORIES" (1989) - YOU'LL NEVER GUESS MY FAVORITE ONE

 
An overlooked and underappreciated trilogy, I think mostly due to the names being bigger than the sum of it's parts. The general consensus thru the years is that everyone agrees Scorsese's "Life Lessons" is the best, Coppola's (which really in essence is a Francis & Sophia directed project) is terrible and Allen's "Oedipus Wrecks," some like and some don't. They're all so different and this might have added to the problem of it's not being received as well. I think both Scorsese's and Allen's would have made great full features had it gone that way, Coppola's "Life Without Zoe" was always a short film and of the three is mostly developed as such. 

A fantasy about a 13-year old girl who lives in the Sherry Netherlands (a slight takeoff on the old Eloise children's book about a girl who lived at the top of The Plaza,) a young and oh, so stylish Heather McComb stars. She helps return a valuable earring to an Arab princess while at the same time making new friends and trying to reconcile her two separated parents. Comedian Don Novello of SNL fame has a great dramatic part here as our protagonist's butler and the music is entirely composed by the then-super-hot King Creole & The Coconuts.

Now, even though I'm probably the only person on the face of the planet that digs the Coppola segment, there's no denying Scorsese's film is the best of the three. Scorsese captured what in my opinion is the best Nick Nolte performance ever, even surpassing North Dallas Forty. Rosanna Arquette is her usual phenomenal best and it's the performances of these two that make the entire segment worth watching. I only recently discovered that the European markets actually had a different version where the running order starts with the Coppola film, then Allen's, then Scorsese and this to me seems more ideal regardless of what one thinks of the Coppola piece.  4.0 stars/5