Hollywood marketing departments aren't that creative, so how else to sell an ensemble pic? With a bunch of smiling stars smooshed on a poster, especially in a cute shape. The only one who appears on all three? Bradley Cooper!

After a couple good weeks at the theaters, its a bit of a minefield awaiting your weekend entertainment. But no one ever said going to the movies was a coward's game; once more into the breach!

Though she's often seen dancing at nightclubs and stealing fur coats around the city, actress Lindsay Lohan doesn't actually live in New York. Yet. She and probable girlfriend deejay Samantha Ronson are rumored to be looking to relocate from Los Angeles to the big rotten apple, possibly in the Dakota building (Yoko!) of all places. So what might their reasons be? We don't think it's that old saw about how real New York celebrities are. You know that one about how they live boho lifestyles, free from the nagging press and prying eye (everyone pretends not to notice!). They're people like Keri Russell and the late Heath Ledger and, um, the Olsen twins? See therein lies the rub. The kind of celebrity that Lohan is, like the Olsens, isn't the kind who can just turn in a well-respected performance and then retreat, Julianne Moore-esque, back into civilian life. No, Lohan is a clubgoer and a partyer and—at this point it must be assumed—a huge fan of the paparazzi cameras. I mean, if she is coming to the city to live that whole quiet life thing, she's doin it rong. The Dakota isn't exactly a secret enclave of the city. She'll be right smack dab in the middle of things, ready to mix it up with crazed celebrity hounds uptown and downtown. According to News of the World, Lohan "plans to make [the apartment] a hotbed for parties." Ugh. Though, I guess it's almost respectable that she's not going in for that "I'm just going to live in Brooklyn and be a person" cliched lie. So yeah, we suspect that Lohan is moving here for that maybe-still-lingering "cool New York celebrity" factor (not the homey "cool", the Beatrice "cool") and because LA is probably sick of her and she of it. So there. She's going to flaunt it and we'll (maybe) have to deal with it and that will be that. I suppose the Upper West Side could use two more lesbians anyway. Update: From an Observer article on the whole matter:

Oh yay, the trailer for New York, I Love You, the new movie about "Love in New York" (hah hah, actual monster sightings are more likely).* New York, I Love You features not only an ensemble cast — Ethan Hawke, Blake Lively, Orlando Bloom, Rachel Bilson, Olivia Thirlby of Juno/The Wackness fame, Christina Ricci and so many more indie movie people you felt manipulated into having liked in their first one or two movies before you realized they were narcissistic assholes (duh) and dumb (duh) — but also an ensemble bunch of directors, among them Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman! Here is the movie's most profound thought thus far leaked:

Paris, je t'aime-a series of shorts, one for each Paris's twenty arrondissements, directed by famous directors and acted by famous actors-was a lovely (if forgivably uneven in parts) ode to a lovely city. It was quiet and subdued, and though many Americans were involved (most notably Alexander Payne directing a heartbreaking Margot Martindale in the film's final story), it just felt very European. So it's not surprising that America is trundling up to ruin it. New York, I Love You is forthcoming, with brilliant famous directors like Scarlett Johansson and Brett fucking Ratner, and now there's a trailer! It's after the jump. I love this big Rorschach test of a city, but I'm not so sure about this movie. (Orlando Bloom cannot act his way out of a beautiful, toned paper bag.)

A funny thing happened to Brett Ratner on the way to reviving Smell-o-Vision for a generation deprived of the aromatic arts: He tried filming Anton Yelchin and Olivia Thirlby fucking in a tree. In Central Park! Never one to do anything the easy way, Ratner bravely faced down layers of Gotham bureaucracy in the pursuit of his six-minute segment of the forthcoming omnibus film New York, I Love You:

Reports today confirm that Natalie Portman will join would-be sexy nurse Scarlett Johansson as a first-time director in the short-film compilation New York, I Love You. First known as the movie where that Hasidic dude walked out on co-star Portman, then better known as the one where contributing director Anthony Minghella hand-picked replacement Shekhar Kapur before he died, NYILY is finding its latest momentum as the film featuring everyone from Brett Ratner to Orlando Bloom to Cloris Leachman pimping out for the city tourism board. "NYC & Co., the official marketing and tourism organization for the City of New York, is fully behind the pic, throwing its weight into sponsorship deals," writes Variety's Dade Hayes. "A major airline is in final talks to help ferry talent to and from the city and promote the film on its aircraft, for example." The producers, however, cite an "explicit auteur approach" that will keep the art front-and-center, promising Johansson the latitude to fire a maximum of 10 PA's as she learns to flex her megalomaniacal muscle behind the camera. [Variety]

Filmmaker Anthony Minghella is staying in the news a week after his death, with Defamer learning that Elizabeth director Shekhar Kapur will complete Minghella's portion of the currently filming omnibus project New York, I Love You. A rep for the project confirmed that Minghella handpicked Kapur prior to undergoing the fateful March 18 operation to treat his tonsil cancer. "He knew he was going into surgery and was unsure of whether or not he would recover fast enough to be able to direct the film," Defamer was told this afternoon. "The production team obviously all hoped Anthony would recover, but they were relieved he had chosen someone of his own to direct the piece he wrote. It worked out well for all the parties."

We have disappointing news, as Abraham Karpen (the adorable mensch plucked out of Hasidic anonymity and cast opposite Natalie Portman—one of the most famous, talented, and beautiful Jewesses on the planet!) has been ordered to stop filming on a segment of New York, I Love You by Hasidic elders who clearly want to ruin his LIFE FOREVER!!! (*Sound of scampering down a hallway and a bedroom door slamming shut.*) [ABC News]

Abe Karpen is a Hasidic Jewish hunk who was supposed to star in New York I Love You with Natalie Portman. He had to drop out of the film after being threatened by members of his community. Due to his strict religious beliefs, Karpen refrained from holding Portman's hand during filming, but he still freaked out all of his Hasidic homies.

We're a fan of all of Natalie Portman's film work, but it's her strides in the shortform variety that have particularly astounded us lately. Just six months after she at long last unveiled both Boleyn girls—along with the rest of her—in Wes Anderson's Hotel Chevalier, comes another drastic about-face for the consummate actress and Star Wars-geek spankbait-object. In a sequence in New York, I Love You, an anthology of love stories set in Manhattan (including one directed by shameless romantic Brett Ratner), the Israeli-American actress bundles up to play a Hasidic woman—albeit notably unencumbered by one of those tricky-to-maneuver, five-seat strollers. Could the dashing young mensch to her right be searching for just the right moment to pop the question, and get a little under-the-chupah action going? Those smiles say yes.