SUBWAYStories: Tales from the Underground

Funny, poignant, attractively economical. Maybe the stories (and the subway scenes) are a touch sanitized but the whole thing works wondrously. It sometimes reminds you of "Smoke" - very high praise. Loved the NYC tourist's game of recognizing the stations and character types.

I really loved these weird stories about the New York City subway, especially the one with the boy and the older woman, and the one with Dennis Leary. That's what I want to say about it. It's underground, it's a different world...go and rent it

The New York Subway is not just a transit network: it's also a place where all sides of that city's racial divide come together, albeit not necessarily in harmony. Even I have a collection of several Subway stories, and I was only in New York for 4 days. So the idea of making a film based on the true experiences of Subway users might not appear bad. But a collection of separate short films (each by a different director) always runs the risk of going nowhere, of offering underdeveloped plots and scenes that are meaningless without context: most of these stories end undramatically when someone simply gets off the train, and feel no more exciting or complete than the tales that I sometimes bore my friends with. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, my favourite segment is 'The 5:24', which develops a proper narrative despite fitting the overall pattern of chance encounters on brief journeys. Overall, however, 'SUBWAY stories' mainly reflects its subject matter: diverse, functional, but not exactly a place you'd choose to be without a very good reason.

I love short story films, especially when, of one particular theme, they are connected to satisfy a feature length running time.

Like taking any subway/underground/metro train, with Subway Stories, if you don't like one particular story, wait a few minutes and a better one will come along.

Of course everyone will have their particular favourites, but for me

Fern's Heart of Darkness, Sax Cantor Riff, Manhattan Miracle, Love on the A Train, and Underground were simply original and wonderful.

I'm English and lived in London for four years so these types of stories are not exclusive to New York.

Where there are people, there are possibilities.

I do regret a little that I bought it without seeing it first. Some people might really like the style of those short stories, others might not. People who tend to like reading short stories would definitely enjoy most of them.

If you are an (amateur) filmmaker yourself or have worked on low budget productions, I guess you would really appreciate it. Some of those stories are constructed very clever, it is amazing how they turned everyday situations into something special in so little time.

If you have happened to see the September 11 short stories you might know why I expected a little "more".