Capsule reviews - `Wild Things' and others

Capsule reviews of films opening this week: "New York, I Love You" The title is "New York, I Love You," and it's a collection of shorts intended as one big love letter to the city and all the romance it has to offer. The result is a curiously bland hodgepodge not terribly evocative of such a famous place, and not all that inspiring in the connections it depicts.

Following 2007's "Paris Je T'Aime," this is the second in a planned series of "Cities of Love" films. Each features a group of eclectic directors and well-known actors coming together to concoct brief clips. Inherently with such a structure, you're going to have hits and misses. Not all the segments are going to work for every viewer.

But whereas "Paris Je T'Aime" had a healthy number of hits, "New York, I Love You" is the unfortunate opposite. The challenge presented to filmmakers was intriguing, too: Each of them had two days to shoot, then a week to edit. Each short had to take place in an identifiable New York neighborhood. And each had to involve some kind of love encounter.

Except for Shekhar Kapur's entry, with its dreamy, ethereal light, nearly everything in "New York, I Love You" has a dark, gritty sameness that feels smothering. Aside from references to Central Park and the Dakota building and restaurants like Balthazar and Pastis, "New York, I Love You" could take place in any bustling, densely populated metropolis. Mira Nair, Brett Ratner, Joshua Marston and Natalie Portman are among the directors; James Caan, Orlando Bloom, Julie Christie and Robin Wright Penn are among the actors. R for language and sexual content. 103 min. Two stars out of four.

"Where the Wild Things Are" The book is just 339 words long, but in turning it into a feature-length movie, director Spike Jonze has expanded the story with a breathtaking visual scheme and stirring emotional impact. What keeps the film from reaching complete excellence is the thinness of the script, which Jonze co-wrote with Dave Eggers.

The beloved and award-winning children's book, which Maurice Sendak wrote and illustrated 45 years ago, still holds up beautifully today because it shows keen insight into the conflicted nature of children the delight and the frustration that can often coexist simultaneously. With its warm lighting and detailed production design, "Where the Wild Things Are" remains lovingly faithful to the look and spirit of the book but functions assuredly as its own entity.

Jonze also gets the feelings of fear and insecurity that the wild things of "Wild Things" represent, and he's taken the bold step of showing the creatures not through animation but rather by using actual people in giant, furry costumes.

The monsters were voiced by an all-star cast and enhanced through digital effects to make the facial features seem more lifelike. And because talented character actors like James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara and Paul Dano had the benefit of voicing their roles on the same stage at the same time rather than recording their parts independently of each other, which is standard practice their interplay feels more organic.

At their center is Max, played by 12-year-old Max Records, a lonely, misunderstood kid who runs off to the magical land where the wild things are and becomes their king. PG for mild thematic elements, some adventure action and brief language. 101 min. Three stars out of four.