Paris Je T'aime, the short film collection about the various ways that various directors choose to express their love of Paris, was made up of 18 vignettes by 18 different directors. Of that number, only 3 (Alexander Payne's warm, hilarious short about a middle-aged American woman's trip to Paris-complete with broken French; The Coen Brothers' funny tale about what happens when Steve Buscemi makes eye contact with someone in the Metro; and Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas' moving glimpse into the life, and very long commute, of a nanny) weren't completely soaked through with irritation, whimsy, or boredom. The rest of the shorts were a muddled blur of mimes, embarrassingly twee romances (Hi, Natalie Portman), grating whimsy, general pointlessness, and uses of the phrase "hot jazz."
Now the producers of that completely uneven anthology are at work on another one: New York, I Love You. Zach Braff, (Hi again) Natalie Portman, Anthony Minghella, Brett Ratner and a number of other people have directed short films for the movie. So did Scarlett Johansson. But according to the Post, her film has been cut from the movie, which leads me to ask: How bad does a short film have to be to get cut from the sequel to Paris Je T'aime?
From The NY Post:
Scarlett Johansson's dream of being a director was dashed on her first try.
Johansson — who's said in the past she'd prefer to direct rather than act — helmed a segment for the upcoming movie "New York, I Love You," a series of intertwined love stories shot by several auteurs, including Brett Ratner and Natalie Portman
But unfortunately for Johansson, her segment, starring Kevin Bacon and shot in black and white, was deemed "unwatchable," sources said.
"It was really bad, so it was cut," one insider told Page Six.
There's normal "really bad," like Fireproof, and All The Good Ones Are Married (starring the immovable plastic shell that once was Daryl Hannah), and short films made as part of an "art therapy" program at a local hospital, but then there's cut-from-the-sequel-of-Paris-Je-T'aime-for-being-unwatchable bad. Paris Je T'aime included a mime romance, a guy getting romantic advice from the ghost of Oscar Wilde, a magical cowboy/grief counselor, a man dying from a stab wound who asks for coffee, and a vampiress who falls in love with a backpacker—to name only a few spikes of awfulness. Almost all of the shorts were seemingly in competition to be the most unwatchable. If New York I Love You is anything like Paris Je T'aime, Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut is clearly on another level of terrible.