[There are ritualized conceits in] "New York, New York," Martin Scorsese's elaborate, ponderous salute to Hollywood movies of the 1940's and early 50's in the form of a backstage musical of the period. (p. 70)

The big-band sounds are right, as are the sets and costumes and especially the movie conventions. "New York, New York" knowingly embraces a narrative line as formal and strict in its way as the shape of a sonnet. Even the sets are meant to look like back-lot sets, not the real world….

Yet, after one has appreciated the scholarship for about an hour or so … one begins to wonder what Mr. Scorsese and his writers are up to. "New York, New York" is not a "parody," but the original genre is really not interesting enough to have had all of this attention to detail spent on it. It's not that the movie runs out of steam long before it has gone on for two hours and 33 minutes, but that we have figured it out and become increasingly dumbfounded. Why should a man of Mr. Scorsese's talent … be giving us what amounts to no more than a film buff's essay on a pop-film form that was never, at any point in film history, of the first freshness?

Even more disturbing is the movie's lack of feeling for the genuine feelings that those old movies were meant to inspire….

"New York, New York" is not a disaster of the order of Peter Bogdanovich's "At Long Last Love." … Yet, "New York, New York" is a somehow more painful movie, being nervy and smug. (p. 71)