I Love N.Y.

I watched this movie on TV the other weekend. It is a made-for-TV film so awful that the director wanted his name removed (note the infamous Alan Smithee credit!). Yeah, it's every bit that bad...

"I Love NY" stars Scott Baio as a "rebellious" photographer from the wrong side of the tracks who falls for Nicole Yeats (Kelly van der Velden), a spoiled princess whose father is a prominent stage actor (Christopher Plummer). The film is just awful... nothing happens, no one moves... Scott Baio is doing his best to play an Italian tough-guy and the other actors are so bad you will wonder if they were all drugged before filming. There is nothing memorable about this film... I couldn't even enjoy it as a good "Bad" movie. It is just senseless filler- avoid at all costs!

Oh and after reading ten reviews online, I finally discovered that the "NY" of the title stands for Nicole Yeats, the girl he falls for. That's about the level of wit this film has to offer. Clip your toenails instead.

GRADE: D-

There is only one reason to see I Love N.Y. and that is for Christopher Plummer to see both as an international superstar man of the theater and in character as Cyrano de Bergerac. I just loved seeing him as Cyrano, I just wish there had been more.

Outside the theater Plummer has got some other problems mostly involving his little princess of a daughter Kelly Van Der Velden. He's used to getting his way, he's also used to giving her whatever she wants within reason. But when she catches sight of up and coming photographer Scott Baio, that's what she wants and Plummer thinks he's beneath her.

A kid with a widowed mother, Virna Lisi, growing up in Little Italy aspiring for the daughter of a Sir Laurence Olivier like theater icon.

By the way though the film is set in New York, the title is a double entendre because the object of Scott's affection is named Nicole Yeats. By any name poor Ms. Van Der Velden couldn't act at all, though beautiful she is. It's the main problem with the film.

One thing I did like was in 1987 one of Baio's photographic assignments was a commitment ceremony between two gay men in Coney Island. In this day of same sex marriage on the verge of becoming a reality in more than two states, I Love N.Y. turns out to be years ahead of its time.

Still you can be years ahead of your time and not be a great movie.

Scott Baio stars in this lusty tale of modern romance, as Mario Cotone, a talented young photographer from Little Italy, with dreams of making it big in the Big Apple. His chance for success comes in an assignment photographing John Robertson Yeats, an international superstar currently starring in a smash Broadway Show. But Mario is clearly distracted by the lure and charms of "N.Y."-not the city, but the girl, Nicole Yeats, the pompous actor's gorgeous daughter.

The senior Yeats is furious, and quickly puts and end to the romance...or so he thinks!

First of all, the tag line that IMDB has for this film is very funny.

I watched this movie on TV at 2:30 am while doing some paperwork and became curiously involved. Christopher Plummer, a bit part for Jerry Orbach, music by Bill Conti - can't be all bad, right? Though Gianni Bozzacchi choosing the Alan Smithee pseudonym to leave his name out of the credits is a bad omen. The overall result is a romance between two young lovers (with 1980s fashion overtones) that falls short of movies that could be considered similar such as "About Last Night" or "St. Elmo's Fire."

The performances are consistently credible and honest. Baio and Kelly Van der Velden have chemistry. Plummer and Sydney Coale each show genuine concern as single parents. Yet the predictable, somewhat low-energy story fizzles toward the end after making some strange choices. Baio's character causes an unbelievably stupid accident (this won't ruin anything - you'd see it coming from a mile away yourself) by attempting to photograph his girlfriend from underneath as they both ride a motorcycle across the Verrazano(?) bridge. In another scene Plummer, a professional actor, comes home shortly after a theater performance without removing his beard and makeup. He enters his daughter's room in the dark, briefly reciting lines from the production he's in before apologizing for restricting her social life. It's melodramatically odd. Also it's sometimes difficult to determine what causes disharmony between the two lead characters beyond their own neuroses.

Van der Velden is as good as any other young actress from the '80s. I'd expect her to have been involved in more films (Jennifer Beals found work in subsequent decades). But the only other database entry is a foreign film she did a few years earlier.

And why the title (which is repeated in the film)? Was funding provided by the New York City Visitors Bureau?

Weird recommendations for other films come up whenever I go to this movie's page . . .