2 Days in New York (2012)

This is not a movie. This is a very expensive pay off to the Delpy clan. The end product is a feel good publicity for the French. Yet the joke is on the French public, the actual nice of this movie. Everything is carefully white washed. From racist remarks. To the smallest details. Like the heroic father who refused to kill the civilians who rose for independence and it is said he had to wash military toilets. All dirty in the distasteful ensuing slideshow. All toilet bowls with toilet seats. Although in 2017 there are many public places that DO NOT have a toilet bowl, just a hole in the floor. And the public places that do have a toilet bowl either do not have a seat, or the seat is somewhere fallen to the side.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

"It's my mother. No tongue" (Mingus / Chris Rock)2 Days in New York is a brilliant and funny sequel to the cool 2 Days in Paris. The film was directed by Julie Delpy and written by Julie Delpy and Alexia Landeau (Rose in the film).Julie Delpy wrote Mingus' role especially for Chris Rock.The film continues describing the lack of communication between different cultures and we find hilarious scenes that are very real. As 2 Days in Paris, 2 Days in New York has a taste of Woody Allen and of European films.2 Days in New York didn't get any important award.The best: the lack of communication between different cultures, Chris Rock, Albert Delpy, the sauna scene, the yoga class and Rose's breast, the music, and the puppets.The worst: nothing.

A follow-up to Julie Delpy's first directorial effort, "Two Days in Paris," that's quite a bit more entertaining, IMHO, than the original. The premise—JD and Chris Rock are Marion and Mingus, Downtown culture workers with two slightly troubled, adorable kids—doesn't quite fulfill its promise but fans of Richard Linklater's "Before" films might want to take a chance. The main storyline chugs along pretty nicely: the couple endures a brief visit from her elderly flowerchild father ("he says that showers deplete the immune system"), tactlesss sister and sister's doltish boyfriend. Parallel plots involving a gallery opening (she's some sort of conceptual art photog) and a colossal Lucy-style whopper she tells a neighbor to get out of a minor scrape are a little draggy, though a couple of these filler scenes have a modest payoff later on. Delpy plays pretty much the same talky, frazzled, excitable character she does in the "Before" films; Chris Rock seems a little colorless (as it were), as if he's trying too hard to escape from his standup persona (the scenes where he soliloquizes to a cardboard-cutout Obama didn't do much for me). Delpy's been accused of being a self-hating Frenchy, but I think the point is that people tend to behave as if the stuff they do in a foreign country doesn't really go on their permanent record—Sis swans around in a T-shirt that doesn't quite cover her butt, par example, Dad takes his keys to the lustrous flanks of a stretch Hummer (back home he only does that if they're parked on the sidewalk), boyfriend Manu commits every possible faux pas. The highpoint is a scene where Mingus, who writes for the Village Voice, is trying to score points with a dark-complected White House staffer (not played by Kal Penn) they run into in a café, and the sisters immediately start bickering while Manu babbles on about Harold and Kumar going to White Castle… Not a must-see at all but definitely watchable.PS—a reviewer down below insists that Marion's French connections don't act right b/c they're "gritty" Bretons, not Parisians. Au contraire! Both films make clear that Dad's a gallery owner, Sis a child psychologist and Manu some sort of writer; they're from Paris.

I think it's hilarious that some of the reviewers chastise the FRENCH Julie Delpy for portraying French people abroad in an unbelievable and unflattering light. Yeah of course you are more likely to be right! Part of the charm of the movie is showing that many cultures, when travelling, behave far more informally than they do at home. The situations here are supposed to be caricatures and not politically correct plastic people and they work well. And yes, the French talk about sex a lot - it's part of their charm - and they like to embarrass each other too. These guys are supposed to be from Brittany which isn't Parisienne sophistication but rural grit and it makes for a very funny movie that doesn't contain a Allen-esque message but is great entertainment pure and simple. Don't come to the movie expecting Chris Rock standup and zaniness (great casting for that reason alone) but to be humoured in a gentle way more reminiscent of slapstick than Woody Allen. Julie Delpy writes very well and maintains a good pace as director. All in all a job well done.