woody allen

If I like the person enough then I'm sure I've some way of dealing with it.

Er........what a shit reply.

But of course the second I met someone as clever as I, I fucking went and got engaged to him. *sigh* Maybe I'm not as bright as I thought.

My point being, there are different kinds of smart. Wot-evah works...

To answer the (fascinatingly perverse) question, I date girls who are not as cultivated as me, and deal with this by attempting to fill them up with my junk. When I find a girl who can match me, and who just happens to be model-like, I freak out.

'well, i'm very shallow and empty and have no ideas and nothing interesting to say.'

'and i'm exactly the same way.'

haaaaa

I forgot how high Woody Allen's voice is. It's higher than mine, I think.

^ My kinda revive.

Actually, I noticed in his recent Fresh Air interview, his voice is getting a little raspy and old-mannish!

I just watched Annie Hall and I felt like freaking Big Bertha bcz of his little voice.

Whereas his voice makes mine seem a little more manly.

So: engaged in this very slow chronological watch-through of his films, and was thoroughly expecting his career to be back-loaded with crap. But I think Sweet & Lowdown might be one of my absolute favorites.

he's pretty great up through 2000 - but the 00s have been a bad decade for him. a lot of crap

Whatever Works is great! Esp. the monologue at the beginning. I've sworn off the Times.

totally disagree - watched it Saturday and thought it was terrible. Larry David couldn't sell that dialogue, which wasn't any good to begin with for the most part, and everything seemed so half-assed and predictable and tired...

I think after a decade of bad films (Match Point excepted) its time Allen and I parted ways. he's definitively past it now.

how do u think he'll react?

whinily

his recent work makes What's New Pussycat? look masterful.

sad but true

What's New Pussycat has jokes at least

god i hate WNP

couldn't make it through anything else tbh

i mean whatever works

an equally unmemorable title

Woody hates WNP too! The question is why he doesn't hate these scripts he's shooting.

well he's never been a good judge of his own work but at this point I assume he just continues out of habit

Doesn't he periodically call a lot of his disasters his favourite film to date when making them?

I dunno, but he said he wanted to scrap Manhattan when he finished it.

I want a copy of this:

http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/51T-PMA6C-L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

I think a lot of those are available online somewhere.

Doesn't he periodically call a lot of his disasters his favourite film to date when making them?

To his credit, he usually hates his films.

Move over Scarlett Johansson — Woody Allen has a new muse: France’s first lady, the model-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

The brunette beauty will appear in Woody’s next film in a role that is, as yet, undefined, reports Bloomberg.

“He offered me a role in his next movie,” Carla told a French TV show yesterday.

“I don’t know for what character, but I said yes. I’m not an actress at all,” says the wife of France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy. “Maybe I will be terrible. But, in my life, I cannot let such a chance go.”

Previously, Woody, 73, has waxed lyrical about 25-year-old Scarlett — who has starred in three of the director’s movies, Match Point, Scoop and Vicky Cristina Barcelona — saying, “She’s very charming, very bright, very amusing.

“She livens the set up. The minute she walks on the set, the amperage goes up 200 points… Whenever there’s a part she could play, she would probably always be my first choice.”

this fuckin guy

Thorough summary of Woody's first 20 years in showbiz, including the magazine ads he did:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/02/the-early-woody-allen-.html

Links to some clips from "Hot Dog", a kids' show from '71 which is the first time I remember seeing him on TV. Woody & Jo Ann Worley on how money is made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AtALhw0Ksc

Q. How do you feel about the aging process?

A. Well, I’m against it.

[....]

Q. Were you prepared for the firestorm of media coverage you set off by casting Carla Bruni-Sarkozy in your next movie, “Midnight in Paris”?

A. I was very surprised at the level of journalism that occurred in relation to her.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/movies/15woody.html?src=me&ref=general

Love that first answer. The whole interview is pretty entertaining.

Ime, Woody has two well-developed schticks: Funny Woody with his gulping delivery of every line and Artsy Woody who stays behind the camera and creates little drawing room dramas. I can't say I'm much taken with either schtick. I can take them or leave them. Mostly leave them.

funny Woody was frequently great and still has (hot) flashes of brilliance

I can't remember the last movie he did that was genuinely funny tbh. nothing this decade.

Curse of the Jade Scorpion maybe

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/6595/050708095500.jpg

whaaaaaaaaat

funny Woody was frequently great and still has (hot) flashes of brilliance

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Thursday, September 16, 2010 1:44 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is true. In the occasional interview and whatnot, he has proven that he still is very funny, somehow he lost the ability to translate this to film?

whatever works is pretty funny. criticisms of it sorta lay in its lack of depth iirc. i know it's a seventies script etc etc etc but it's all his.

my criticism of it was that I didn't laugh. in fact, I fell asleep about halfway through iirc

it was one of those things that looked great on paper and then in execution was just argggh why

I have skipped a whole bunch of '00s Woody, incl Larry David and some of the ScarJos

the new one is not bad, pretty black-hearted as usual

are there joeks

not a lot.

his "cynicism" is so facile though

Last one I love is Sweet & Lowdown

Alfred, I believe he calls it "realism"

which in his rendering is really just sentimentality.

meh, sometimes.

his "cynicism" is so facile though

otmfm. His cynicism used to resonate, or at least raise more questions than it squelched. He was facile (this is another great word with opposite meanings) with romantic futility. Now at best it's Bergman without the courage of its own premise, and at worst it tries to be funny and painfully fails.

Poor bastard. At some point everyone's best work is behind them, and you never know when that's going to be.

at this point life is behind him.

that's not fair -- life as he saw it was always behind him. He used to better at it, though.

"If I was speaking to the people who are protesting legitimately, I would try to convince them, if I could, that building the mosque takes a step toward eliminating this kind of thing from happening again. Preventing the mosque from being built is not a step in the right direction."

DiGiacomo asked Allen asked Allen if he has a bucket list of things he'd like to do before he dies. "Yes, and one of them is [to] live longer," the director responded. "That's at the head of the list."

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/09/earned_opinion.php

75th today for the altecocker

still only 75 wow, that means another 50 films before going out Manoel de Oliveira style.

really weird to me that he's "only" 75, he seems like he's in his 90s... I mean wasnt he writing for tv in the 50s? jesus...

i thought vicky christina barcelona was great - mainly because of penelope cruz (who i definitely didn't expect to like that much)

I mean wasnt he writing for tv in the 50s?

When he was about 19.

i thought vicky christina barcelona was great - mainly because of penelope cruz (who i definitely didn't expect to like that much)

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, December 1, 2010 8:20 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

]and rebecca hall yall

here's two woody allen bday links:

great 1985-circa interview with michiko kakutani:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1550/the-art-of-humor-no-1-woody-allen

amazing overview of his pre-movie career (tv writing, standup etc):

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/02/the-early-woody-allen-.html

<3 HB

I say this with no false modesty—that I feel I have done no really significant work, whatsoever, in any medium. I feel that unequivocally. I feel that what I have done so far in my life is sort of the ballast that is waiting to be uplifted by two or three really fine works that may hopefully come. We’ve been sitting and talking about Faulkner, say, and Updike and Bergman—I mean, I obviously can’t talk about myself in the same way at all. I feel that what I’ve done so far is the . . . the bed of lettuce the hamburger must rest on. I feel that if I could do, in the rest of my life, two or three really fine works—perhaps make a terrific film or write a fine play or something—then everything prior to that point would be interesting as developmental works. I feel that’s the status of my works—they’re a setting waiting for a jewel. But there’s no jewel there at the moment.

I dunno if I buy that as "sincere" but I love the desire to keep going.

nah, rephrase, if he means that then I think he's barking up an imaginary tree that sucks

He's pretty much always said this. He used to sit around with Sid Caesar going "If I could just write you one decent skit, I would be happy".

He's whined like this for years. However, classic lol: "I feel that what I’ve done so far is the . . . the bed of lettuce the hamburger must rest on."

The college dropout intellectual in him is never going to be satisfied that he's made more good films than, say, the Marx Brothers did. (or Chaplin, at least when it comes to features)

yeah but it's a (false) fanboy point of view. It's great if it works as a motor for him but it doesn't mean anything beyond that.

what is it supposed to "mean"? it's just the way he thinks.

Happy Birthday! Let's hope he has a Fanny & Alexander in him..

tons of Mubi links, incl audio analysis from Judd Apatow :o

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2593

a jewish american writer-director of relationship comedies, talking about his fondness for woody allen?

:o indeed

yeah, w/ the aspirations to high culture flipped.

I had such bad stomach flu today it reminded me of watching Knocked Up

I say this with no false modesty—that I feel I have done no really significant work, whatsoever, in any medium. I feel that unequivocally. I feel that what I have done so far in my life is sort of the ballast that is waiting to be uplifted by two or three really fine works that may hopefully come. We’ve been sitting and talking about Faulkner, say, and Updike and Bergman—I mean, I obviously can’t talk about myself in the same way at all. I feel that what I’ve done so far is the . . . the bed of lettuce the hamburger must rest on. I feel that if I could do, in the rest of my life, two or three really fine works—perhaps make a terrific film or write a fine play or something—then everything prior to that point would be interesting as developmental works. I feel that’s the status of my works—they’re a setting waiting for a jewel. But there’s no jewel there at the moment.

― shirley summistake (s1ocki), Wednesday, December 1, 2010 7:18 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

is this from the paris review interview? crazy. you know groucho marx said of allen that allen was better than the marx brothers. what other american comedian of the last fifty years could make films that are respected by jean luc godard? he's just a genius, there's no other comedian like that really.

he was good quite a long time ago

which is fine, most artists go off the boil, but they usually disappear and don't get to be continually indulged and work with the best actors etc

Maybe 20 years of quite tremendous work, plus the same again of perfectly decent work, it's not a bad run.

He's so very erratic now. I thought VCB was mostly great, and I found Whatever Works to be mostly so offensively dreadful.

I'd still see his next movie though.

I'm showing something to my class this morning (couldn't get to it yesterday). I usually show the universe-is-expanding scene from Annie Hall, which kills me, but 12-year-olds just don't get it. So instead I found the Gershwin opening to Manhattan on YouTube--not particularly funny, but it looks and sounds great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyaj2P-dSi8

it's pretty funny

Yeah...Manhattan had such a huge effect on me when I saw it in '79 as an 18-year-old. My opinion of it has changed drastically over time--I find parts of it unwatchable now. My biggest problem is this yin and yang (which shows up in the opening monologue) between a) wanting to be a blow against pretension of all variety, and b) being very pretentious itself. But that's just me; I know that a lot people continue to count it among their favourite films ever.

see i love that anxiety

The blow-against-pretension half does produce one joke I always love: the merger between Commentary and Dissent.

"comsent"

"baseball bats work with Nazis"

I don't know why, but the Nazi joke is specifically one of the ones that makes me cringe...First of all, wouldn't baseball bats be the worst possible strategy against Nazis? Wouldn't that be kind of playing to their strength? Not that setting up a debate with Roberts Rules would necessarily be the best strategy, but I don't think baseball bats'll get you very far. There's something that just seems really smug about that joke to me.

he had one of the most amazingly consistent runs (three decades! imho) of any American director. It's a shame his 00s movies sucked, but yeah history mayne otm things don't last forever. as Allen would mournfully note himself.

i guess i've only heard tapes of his stand-up but i'd kind of put the 1960s as his first decade of greatness -- tbh i prefer them to almost all of his movies

I don't like Manhattan much – underwritten and overphotographed.

The argument b/w Yale and Isaac in the classroom is just painful.

on the other hand Husbands and Wives was the Height of Sophistication when I was eighteen.

The argument b/w Yale and Isaac in the classroom is just painful.

aw man this cracks me up. you think you're god/well I have to model myself after somebody lolz

Yale: Psychobabble
Isaac: One-liner

(repeat for five minutes)

lol @ manhattan overphotoraphed

Yale: Psychobabble
Isaac: One-liner

(repeat for five minutes)

c'mon this is how all comedy-duo routines work! You have a straight man and then you have the punchlines

Yeah, it's not fair to pick on that scene, but it's symptomatic of the larger problem with the movie. He hasn't learned yet to write enough sides to the characters.

that would have to wait until madonna's part in shadows & fog

and the Greek chorus in Mighty Aphrodite.

He hasn't learned yet to write enough sides to the characters.

Same here. Overall, I find Hanna and Crimes and Misdemeanors better films. He starts to lose me with Husbands and Wives.

H&W is my favorite.

I was iffy when it came out, tried again a couple of years ago but didn't really get anywhere. I will, somewhere down the road, try again.

By the way, I played both clips for my class this morning. As predicted, mass puzzlement over the universe-is-expanding clip. Me: "But don't you see, he won't do his homework because he says there's no point...he's 10 years old and he's worried about the universe expanding...it's funny!"

I saw Husbands and Wives recently and I'd consider it a middling work - not bad but not great. a lot of the acting is top-notch and I always love Judy Davis doing her "I am CRAZY and UPTIGHT" schtick. but honestly thought the most satisfying moment in the whole thing is when Juliette Lewis tells Woody how sexist and pretentious and stupid his novel is, it's basically an internalized critique of Allen's entire ouevre.

Is it weird that Interiors is my fave Woody movie? Nobody else seems to like it

never seen it. scared of the Bergman homage

i finally saw manhattan this year and i was blown away... think its p much perfect tbh

my interpretation of Manhattan has changed almost 180 from when I first saw it as a teenager, but that has only deepened my appreciation of it

Is it weird that Interiors is my fave Woody movie?

Yes--I think even Sarris, probably Woody's biggest fan at the time, was perplexed. (I might not be right about that.) Many critics were merciless. But a conventional wisdom quickly developed that if he hadn't made Interiors, there wouldn't have been a Manhattan. Anyway, eccentric favorites are always interesting.

I'm exactly where Shakey Mo is on Husbands and Wives.

over photographed !

oh my eyes!

tone it down to 23 frames a second could ya pal

oh man i LOVE the argument in the classroom actually despite it having that slightly-under-rehearsed feel. it is a little underwritten Manhattan too in parts but i kinda like that about his stuff. i thought that's what a lot of people liked about it? you can tell he only does 2 or 3 takes or whatever and has the actors say whatever they want so long as the general gist comes across. i still think "i wanna make sure that when i.. thin out that i'm.. well thought of" is brilliant.

My thoughts: C/D - Woody Allen's "Husbands & Wives"

Yale: Psychobabble
Isaac: One-liner

(repeat for five minutes)

This is the only way to reply to psychobabble.

"Every (orgasm) I had was right on the money."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmnLRVWgnXU

i finally saw manhattan this year and i was blown away... think its p much perfect tbh

― Princess TamTam, Thursday, December 2, 2010 12:34 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm + i love the nazi/baseball bat joke.

jeez clemenza, it's a JOKE, in reply to a straight line about "a devastating piece in the Times"

Morbius--I know that it's joke. I did get that. It's just not, to my ears, a particularly good one, and I'm trying to explain why I don't think so. One of the things I reguarly try to do when I post on here is explain myself. I know your style is more the, uh, hit-and-run zing. (Are you saying that all jokes--good, bad, and otherwise--are beyond criticism?)

I mean, you've clarified why I hate that exchange: he makes the O'Donohue character look like a pompous fool by sticking the word "devastating" in his mouth, just so Everyman Woody can cut him down to size with talk of beating Nazis over the head with baseball bats. It's as corny as can be.

(Are you saying that all jokes--good, bad, and otherwise--are beyond criticism?)

If they're not funny, they deserve criticism. If they are, they speak for themselves -- loudly, and better than an NYT column.

Michael O'Donoghue does not have the "devastating" line, a woman does. MO'D talks mostly about the guy who "screws so great."

(There was a confrontation sequence w/ New Jersey Nazis cut from the film)

Okay, faulty memory. Are you sure it's the woman, though? I can picture the guy she's with, and I'm seeing him deliver the line. In any event, it doesn't change my objections to the joke. (Same scene: Tisa Farrow.)

it's not a woman who has that line either:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG0Y5Ki1GpY

The faulty memory is vindicated...Great line within the first 30 seconds: "Something's not flowing."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/woody-allen-pays-tribute-ingmar-95679

The younger generation is just basically film-ignorant. Not just about Bergman, but Antonioni, Truffaut, Kurosawa, Bunuel. Film is not part of their general literacy. But the Bergman films remain great. They are great films — just as are the Bunuel films, the Kurosawa films, all of the films of that great flourishing of European cinema — all those films were great, great movies. The Seventh Seal was great then, and it’s great now. They don’t know The Bicycle Thief; they don’t know Grand Illusion. And many, many of them don’t know Citizen Kane. If they do know it, they know it as something they happened to see on television. They don’t have the same general reverence — which I’m not criticizing them for — there’s no reason why they would or should. It’s just a different time. Their icons and their heroes lie in a different area.

woody more or less otm

megalol that that quote is immediately followed by:

The first Bergman I ever saw was that one because there was talk in the neighborhood that there was a nude scene. This was unheard of in any American film, that level of advancement.

Dennis Perrin:

"Watched Woody Allen's You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger last night. Message: realists are forever fucked and compromised, desperation can lead to horrible choices, and the only truly happy people are delusional and superstitious. Sort of like Bananas with an English accent."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2rCnTF1xlo

WHERE ARE THE JOEKS

The still looks like a Stillman outtake.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/06/woody-allen-top-five-books

this was a nice read

That was indeed a nice read, thanks! "Epitaph of a Small Winner" sounds very intriguing.

The comments on that article are moronic otoh, even by the usual standards of guardian commenters.

"If you become obsessed with films or baseball or your children -- or if, in my case, you're worried about how the third act is going to turn out -- you become focused on that and you don't think about the terrors of life. You become focused on something that's apparently meaningful, but it's no more meaningful than the outcome of the Yankees game. I'll say, 'Gee, the Yankees lost today,' and the non baseball fan will say, 'So what?' It's as meaningful as his life or my life. They're specks of light in an eternal void having no meaning whatsoever in a universe that's eventually going to not exist. In the end, like in Stardust Memories, we all get flushed. The beautiful ones, the accomplished ones, the Einsteins, the Shakespeares, the homeless guys in the street with the wine bottles, all end up in the same grave. So, I have a very dim view of things, but I think about them, and I do feel that I've come to the conclusion that the artist can not justify life or come up with a cogent reason as to why life is meaningful, but the artist can provide you with a cold glass of water on a hot day."

http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/2011/05/woody_allen_midnight_in_paris.php

given his 00s track record I'm really skeptical of this one. all of his movies have sucked since Match Point, which is an extremely long fallow period for him imho. have you seen this yet Morbz?

no. I've skipped a whole bunch of the recent ones, but am intrigued by The Purple Rose of Cairo comparisons.

(if I do see this, it will be early, bcz of spoilerrific plot apparently)

When French producers first approached Allen (who has directed five of his last six pictures abroad) about making a film in the City of Lights, he happily agreed. "But I had no idea for Paris at all -- none," he says. "So I asked myself: what do you think of when you think of Paris? Well, romance is what you think of -- at least it's what I think of. I'm not going to do a political thriller in Paris. If I was making a film in Berlin, a different thing comes to mind."

gives you some idea of how much of a "sense" of his "locations" this guy has at this point

very unkind to Vicky Christina Barcelona, SMC - not a "great" film but extremely enjoyable

I dunno, as Lubitsch said, I prefer Paris Paramount to Paris France.
xp

ugh, hated VCB.

im sure this movie will be wretched, but i liked this part of the interview:

Now, at age 75, with a career as a comic, writer and filmmaker that spans a half-century, Allen himself has become an iconic part of American cultural lore -- something that gives him more than a bit of pause. "I was thinking with great horror the other day that, since I'm a known person, a hundred years from now someone will make a movie about New York in my time, and I will be, let's say, not an important character in it, but a peripheral character," he says. "Someone will go into Elaine's, and there I'll be, played by some schlemiel, because I'm conceived of as a schlemiel, and he'll have glasses on, and he'll be a gloom-ridden recluse who shivers at the thought of going out into the country -- some execrable exaggeration of what people think I am. And that will be my hell. If I'm ever in a work of fiction as part of the atmosphere, they'll be doing to me the same unjust things as when I show Ernest Hemingway sitting at a bar talking the way he talks."

sure but further retreat into a robot-world constructed of old hollywood cliches and dostoyevsky glosses is not what our man needs right now

that said i just read too far into that nyt article and was spoiled and omg

ugh, hated VCB

^^^Morbz otm

don't hate, appreciate

there were no jokes, but then there was no drama either. it was just ... there. it seemed very aimless and misshapen to me.

totally

there was a lot of drama! especially when penelope cruz shows up! without cruz it would have been as you say. but no, you are the hater. of fun.

she was so bad she won her Oscar for it.

vcb is p lol

i mean that camera

she came across as an empty stereotype to me. the fiery, passionate, latin. she shows up, breaks some dishes, has some sex, yells = eh, whatever.

xp

vcb is easy to pick apart but very watchable. it's the only woody allen movie my gf has made it through iirc.

the american boyfriend in VCB was lolsy.

shakey mo i feel bad for you son

VCB was great fun. But oh my Whatever Works was offensively dogshit.

i havent seen VCB but i made the mistake of trying trying to watch Cassandra's Dream... i couldnt even finish it, it was so bad

jeez, even my editor liked this one.

'match point' was the last good one, yeah -- and it's not a patch on 'crimes and misdemeanors.'

woody's interviews are more entertaining than his films at this point.

match point incredible terrible and also bad

Woody on his next one -- Eisenberg! Inevitable.

“The new film stars Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Roberto Benigni, and myself,” he explained. “It’s a broad comedy of various interwoven tales. I’m in one of them. All of the parts are significant. There just happened to be a part that I could play. I can’t play the love interest anymore, and of course this is tremendously frustrating, because that’s really what I want to play. But that’s not as believable anymore. I have to play Pops, the backstage doorman at the theater or something like that. But in this one there is a part for me.”

Caught the new Ebert show for the first time, and both Lemire and Vashtevhnatvskiyy were over the moon about Midnight in Paris -- like "best since the '80s" raving.

match point incredible terrible and also bad

This.

xp i saw that too and i do not trust them

"best since the 80s" - no. But decent. Can we say "best since Deconstructing Harry"?

woody made some excellent movies in the 90s... husbands & wives, manhattan murder mystery, everybody says i love you...

mighty aphrodite!

“The new film stars Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Roberto Benigni, and myself,” he explained. “It’s a broad comedy of various interwoven tales

someone might be able to smack this down by naming an ensemble piece he made more recently that sucked - melinda & melinda? - but if this is anywhere close to deconstructing harry i can see it being a good thing, & it might be preferable seeing him dealing in vignettes, rather than seeing a single angle stretched to full length.

I can’t play the love interest anymore, and of course this is tremendously frustrating, because that’s really what I want to play. But that’s not as believable anymore

TRANSLATION: "I really wanna tap Juno, but I'll have to do through avatar Zuckerberg."

We have this argument every four years -- whenever Woody makes a film that doesn't inspire a public flogging.

Loved Scott and Zelda in "Midnight in Paris."

I have to say, having seen the "MiP" trailer, that I'm kind of loving Owen Wilson as the Woody surrogette.

He's great in it (though not nearly as dweebish as a true Woody-manqué) and I say that as someone who has never liked him in anything, ever.

there was an article about this in the NYT EVERY DAY last week. sheesh.

"sweet and lowdown" was the last WA i enjoyed

Can we say "best since Deconstructing Harry"?

I think we can, yeah. Although the tone is completely different. But the tone of Deconstructing Harry is different than any other Allen movie, IMO. This one is a lot more Purple Rose of Cairo. Owen Wilson is surprisingly great as the Allen stand-in. Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein is pitch-perfect casting. Adrian Brody as Salvador Dali is over the top, but what makes it work is that it's also not far off the mark. I think the scene where the Owen Wilson character pitches a movie idea to Luis Bunuel will be talked about for decades, at least in art and film schools. I won't give it away, but it's a genius gag.

Thinking about this the next day, and remembering how many big laughs are in it. Like Hemingway asking the coquettish young girl if she's ever shot a wild animal who was charging at her. As if the answer could possibly be "yes".

this was fun! and cute! his best in a while!

i like a lot of his more recent films, sweet and lowdown, match point, cassandra's dream; VCB was ok I guess but I preferred the others. this was excellent also, does seem to hearken back to the 80's; it's light, smart, funny. really good!

how old is Woody now? I was thinking, as it started, how like Bob Dylan he is; singular and never equalled, really the best as what he does.

think he's ten years older than b-dilly. and doesn't like him.

Woody was born 12/1/35

I've just recently pushed myself into the difficult 2000s period of my complete Woody Allen filmography watch-through. Small Time Crooks, Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending, and Anything Else...ugh. The latter two were just as limp as I'd been led to believe (although they contained the germs of better movies), but the first two were pretty much just bad. And were immediately preceded by Sweet and Lowdown! Which is definitely the last of his films that I loved. And then Melinda and Melinda was okay if not mind-blowing. So...what exactly happened to him during those four pictures he made at Dreamworks? Post-Bush and 9/11 malaise is only a valid scapegoat for half of that run. I'm looking forward to this last stretch, though, considering I've heard good things about at least half of his movies that I've yet to see. Oh, also: is Don't Drink The Water worth checking out?

P.S. I'm really looking forward to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF8pwbgTfPA

don't drink the water is a dumb clump of cliches that barely relate to each other but it is often hilarious. julie kavner's great; woody is in Tacky Mode, which is his better mode. there's a romantic subplot that is mgm-marx-level boring. it's shot with the husbands and wives shaky-cam for some reason. woody allen's total lack of interest in or knowledge of any kind of politics or history is a little more noticeable in a movie that takes place in an american embassy in the khrushchev-era ussr, but once you figure out the thing's a vaudeville cartoon you can forget about that. except possibly when some vague kind of middle eastern oil prince shows up traveling with an enormous harem of burqaed women who do nothing but ululate; that's pretty embarrassing. but yeah it's worth checking out.

there's some woody interview where he talks about one of the problems of the original play being that "we made it too funny" -- the audience's laughter wrecked the timing and made the underplotted play last forever.

This was clumsy. While Owen Wilson is by far the best Woody proxy cast yet, I didn't believe him for a second as a writer, even a third-rate one. Other than a funny gag involving Hemingway guzzling a bottle of wine and shouting, "Who wants to FIGHT?" and Adrien Brody as Dali, the actors playing the writers had to mouth a lot of the platitudes we most associate with them. Sharper dialogue would have made Kathy Bates an awesome Gertrude Stein, and Tom Hiddleston had the right profile if nothing else for Scott Fitzgerald.

Also: the Rachel McAdams half of the movie was spectacularly lame. I just have no patience anymore for Woody's hamhanded exposition (e.g. "Remember we have that private exhibit at the museum tonight. Paul is a Monet expert, you know").

There's no comparing this to "The Kugelmass Episode" or The Purple Rose of Cairo.

Wish he had made it more about the peripheral figures around Hemingway, Fitzgerald etc. rather than the writers themselves. When Belmonte showed up I thought it might head in that direction, but no.

"Kugelmass" is great. I was trying to remember the title of that story the entire second half of the movie.

Soto otm (except, Owen Wilson IS a screenwriter!).

I laughed twice, I think. Even among post-prime Woody, I'd take Small Time Crooks over this.

I've probably said it before itt, but VCB may have been a true classic if they'd just combined the two plots and made rebecca hall the one lead.

in owen wilson's defense no woody allen character written since he ran out of autobiography in 1991 is ever going to be buyable as a writer. still completely looking forward to seeing this though and almost went today.

i may have made up that year. whenever husbands & wives came out, after which he stopped putting details in his characters.

there are details in Deconstructing Harry! "First I want ya to tie me up, then beat me..."

(H&W was '92, DH '97)

Also: the Rachel McAdams half of the movie was spectacularly lame. I just have no patience anymore for Woody's hamhanded exposition (e.g. "Remember we have that private exhibit at the museum tonight. Paul is a Monet expert, you know").

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, June 11, 2011 12:51 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

hah, yeah. i was cringing through most of that robotic characters-explaining-their-relationships-with-each-other dialogue (which begins the second the movie opens). hes just a spectacularly lazy writer now. and director.

anyway this was cute and not completely unwatchable so that makes it a cut above for the woodster these days

The Sidney Bechet was nice. I didn't know what the film was about going in but I figured it would have something like that.

xp to morbs: oh that's right! and it has the scene with mariel hemingway as the furious anti-woody-allen mom.

I think my favorite part of Midnight in Paris was the wife of douchebag professor who very hesitatingly...didn't really mispronounce french things, but was afraid she would. that woman was very very good at doing that, the two times she did it. so good I can't mimic it.

yeah the versailles gag was good

Midnight in Paris will be his biggest hit since 1986.

David Thomson on its badness:

Midnight in Paris is very far from the worst film Woody Allen has made in the last 300. He has a conventional prettifying tourist’s eye for the great city. He pursues his old wintry habit of collecting attractive girls and then abandoning them—cast cute but then never give them real scenes, let alone emotions. He has a promising misunderstanding over a pair of earrings, but then tidies it away as if it’s going to require too much work. And the 75-year-old continues to survey his own pictures like a 22-year-old who is superior, lazy, and chronically immature. So the game is played, but no one cares—least of all Allen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvVbSxEZlDA

Even though IT IS WRITTEN that Eisenberg will play ^^^ in the next one, here's to hoping it's really Ellen Page.

oh boy -- the next one is titled The Bop Decameron.

(bop as in bebop, I'm guessing)

this movie is great but how hard would you have laughed if the credits had kicked open with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs3xXlXSOKk
huge missed opportunity

Ah, goldmine! This is what I was looking for when I started the other thread. Thanks, guys.

we should keep midnight in paris discussion to the new thread, that way if someone wants to talk about midnight in paris it he future they dont have to find this

Woody's Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris thread

with the emperor out of the way, all that remains is to kill don francisco. that will destroy his highness' stupid dreams of a treaty with spain! then i'll sail to austria, and form an alliance with the crown. not the king. just the crown.

Standup Comic: http://www.ibras.dk/comedy/allen.htm

so, he wrote another one-act comedy, as did Elaine May and Ethan Coen, and the reviews are mixed:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/ethan-coen-elaine-may-and-woody-allens-relatively-speaking

Tempted to scrounge up the dough, as an actor acquaintance is in two of them. Also: Richard Libertini! Julie Kavner! Marlo Thomas! GUTTENBERG!

I saw some interview he gave about this in the NYT and as usual his answers contained more funny jokes than his last 2 dozen movies

which just made me sad

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/theater/elaine-may-interviews-ethan-coen-and-woody-allen.html

Well, the play is sposed to be pure farce (w/ echoes of SoonYiGate) so perhaps it's worthy.

That's not really an interview so much as straight-up shticklach.

that interview is terrible, so desperate and unfunny :(

idk I thought it was p good

s1ocki, phaps you just don't like Jewish humor!

elaine may is almost 80!

She would know: Going out with Woody Allen was like being in a Woody Allen movie, Diane Keaton writes in an upcoming memoir. The Academy Award-winning actress starred with Allen in such favorites as Sleeper and Love and Death and got an Oscar for Annie Hall, in which her baggy-panted WASP meshed unforgettably with Allen’s patented schlemiel. Allen and Keaton dated for a few years and remain close.

“I was his endearing oaf. I had him pegged as a cross between a ‘White Thing’ and the cockroach you couldn’t kill,” Keaton, 65, writes in Then Again, which comes out next month and is excerpted in the November issue of Vogue, arriving at newsstands Oct 25. “We shared a love of torturing each other with our failures. His insights into my character were dead-on and hilarious. This bond remains the core of our friendship and, for me, love.”

Keaton writes that she met Allen in 1968 when they worked together in Allen’s stage comedy Play It Again, Sam, roles they re-enacted for the 1972 film version. Allen is the divorced neurotic who channels the spirit of Humphrey Bogart to help with his love life. The actress falls for him in the script and soon did the same in real life.

“How could I not? I was in love with him before I knew him. He was Woody Allen. Our entire family used to gather around the TV set and watch him on Johnny Carson. He was so hip, with his thick glasses and cool suits,” she writes. “But it was his manner that got me, his way of gesturing, his hands, his coughing and looking down in a self-deprecating way while he told jokes like ‘I couldn’t get a date for New Year’s Eve so I went home and I jumped naked into a vat of Roosevelt dimes.’

“He was even better-looking in real life. He had a great body, and he was physically very graceful.”

What do you think she means by "White Thing"?

I was hoping someone would know...

yep, Elaine May is old; she became famous over 50 years ago.

Rob: Imagine my surprise when I got your call, Max.
Alvy Singer: Yeah. I had the feeling that I got you at a bad moment. You know, I heard high-pitched squealing.
Rob: Twins, Max! 16 years-old. Can you imagine the mathematical possibilities?

Isaac Davis: She's 17. I'm 42 and she's 17. I'm older than her father, can you believe that? I'm dating a girl, wherein, I can beat up her father.

Woody Allen has officially changed the name of his latest film from The Bop Decameron to Nero Fiddled. A rep for Allen confirmed to EW that he changed the title after realizing that the previous one was garnering befuddlement instead of excitment.

“I couldn’t believe how few people had heard of The Decameron even in Rome,” Allen said in a statement after shooting in Rome all summer. ”And the few that did assumed the movie was based on Boccaccio’s tales which it’s not.”

Allen will lead an impressive cast that also includes Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page. But despite the impressive all-star roster, Allen noted that the title-change was necessary to create some buzz for the film. “Anyhow, I changed the title to Nero Fiddled, which is the first time I’ve changed a title since my last minute switch of Anhedonia to Annie Hall,” he said

Eisenberg is such an Allen clone surprised it took him this long to cast him

I won't be seeing this

more like delameron

brett ratner produced a 4 hr doc on woody to air in 2 parts on pbs 11/20 & 21

http://collider.com/brett-ratner-tower-heist-oscars-interview/123682/

maybe he just had a cold but he doesn't look/sound too good in this clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwsvhQytQFY

ya his voice is pretty rough

aw

man diane keaton was the prettiest

She was very! Hey, Tony Roberts. :) He used to work in my parents's old restaurant when he was a kid and was a customer for years as was his Dad Ken who was a famous radio announcer from back in the day. They were both awesome. I think Ken died a couple years ago iirc. /Suzy. Sorry.

"parents's"

oops

He was also in this gem: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102690/

i always think of him as "max" because he and allen call each other "max" in annie hall.

I C U AS AN ATTRACTIVE WOMAN DIANE

i was going to say something unkind about how female insecurity must be how woody allen got all his chicks but tbh i think he is cute in annie hall.

It's been too long since I've seen AH. I think I'll watch it this weekend.

have you heard the quote from DK in her new memoir where she says he has "an incredible body" or something

huh

. . . of work?

o_O sometimes i think maybe diane keaton is her character in manhattan who describes wallace shawn as a sex god or whatever.

xxp lol

Diane Keaton's new memoir, Then Again, digs into the origin of her romance with Woody Allen lo those many years ago. "He had a great body," she writes. "I was in love with him before I knew him. He was Woody Allen ... He was so hip, with his thick glasses and cool suits." The two became friends during the 1968 production of Play It Again, Sam, when "Woody got used to me," Keaton says. "He couldn't help himself; he loved neurotic girls." Put that on a shirt, Urban Outfitters. She also non-admits admits that Annie Hall is about their romance.

that last sentence is not news

He was so hip, with his thick glasses

proto-ilxor looking dude

I'm sure this would have been posted on one of the many other Woody Allen threads, but just in case:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/woody-allen/about-the-documentary-film/1865/

Will definitely watch.

well the vid up there is from the show.

I saw Tony Roberts about 5 years ago in midtown, fittingly, on his phone.

so he's turning Bullets over Broadway into a stage musical.

i want to disapprove but who am i kidding i will save my pennies for that

Rosenbaum in 1990:

“Why are the French so crazy about Jerry Lewis?” is a recurring question posed by film buffs in the United States, but, sad to say, it is almost invariably asked rhetorically. When Dick Cavett tried it out several years ago on Jean-Luc Godard, one of Lewis’s biggest defenders, it quickly became apparent that Cavett had no interest in heating an answer, and he immediately changed the subject as soon as Godard began to provide one. Nevertheless it’s a question worth posing seriously, along with a few related ones — even at the risk of courting disbelief and giving offense.

Why are American intellectuals so contemptuous of Jerry Lewis and so crazy about Woody Allen? Apart from such obvious differences as the fact that Allen cites Kierkegaard and Lewis doesn’t, what is it that gives Allen such an exalted cultural status in this country, and Lewis virtually no cultural status at all? (Charlie Chaplin cited Schopenhauer in MONSIEUR VERDOUX, but surely that isn’t the reason why we continue to honor him.) If we agree that there’s more to intellectual legitimacy than name-dropping, what is it in Allen’s work as a comic Jewish writer-director-performer that earns him that legitimacy — a legitimacy that is denied to, among others, Elaine May and both Mel and Albert Brooks?

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=21337%EF%BB%BF

For me it might have something to do with the fact that I find Jerry Lewis movies unwatchable.

CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS offers another case in point. A film that professes to address the rampant amorality and self-interest of the 1980s gives us an ophthalmologist (Martin Landau) who arranges to murder his mistress and gets away with it and a socially concerned documentary filmmaker (Allen) who isn’t rewarded for his good intentions. But both characters seem equally motivated by self-interest, and we are asked to care much more about Allen’s character as a fall guy than about the murdered mistress (Anjelica Huston). Landau’s masochism about his initial feelings of guilt are matched by Allen’s masochism about being a loser. There is a lack of ironic distance on this aspect of both characters, and if the film is genuinely attacking self-interest, it is seriously handicapped by being unable to see beyond it.

I don't agree with this at all - I thought the point of the parallel stories was partly to question the goodness of the "loveable loser" -- Allen's character is shown to be petty and mean, and what separates him from his double seems come more from his lack of power than any supposed good intentions.

"of the 1980s"

piece was written at the conclusion of the '80s dawg

and that is the decade when the national "narrative" endorsed such a philosophy very shamelessly.

Yet Allen is often treated in the press as if he were even more important than (Bergman and Fellini).

haha was this really the case or is this just another vaguely dumb thing in this article? also is this guy like a respected critic and stuff, i'm very confused

At peak Woody respectability, say '86-92, it's not much of an overstatement.

A film that professes to address the rampant amorality and self-interest of the 1980s gives us an ophthalmologist (Martin Landau) who arranges to murder his mistress and gets away with it and a socially concerned documentary filmmaker (Allen) who isn’t rewarded for his good intentions. But both characters seem equally motivated by self-interest, and we are asked to care much more about Allen’s character as a fall guy than about the murdered mistress (Anjelica Huston).

i think this really misreads the movie tbh. Always thought Allen's self-interest is pretty clear.

exactly

I mean that's the whole point of the screening room scene where he's made a doc comparing Alda's character to Mussolini, isn't it?

BTW the mistress is also quite selfish - she's ready to destroy a family out of possessiveness and jealousy.

mia farrow clearly makes the right decision in that movie

Yet Allen is often treated in the press as if he were even more important than (Bergman and Fellini).

haha was this really the case or is this just another vaguely dumb thing in this article? also is this guy like a respected critic and stuff, i'm very confused

― thomp, Friday, 20 July 2012 17:27 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbh throwing out bergman & fellini just as ~serious filmmakers & stylists~ is p weak & makes me want to rep for allen, who's very varied, inventive, structurally interesting, thoughtful, &c. i guess some of his stuff being comedy pigeonholes him outside of a certain canon but he's important.

A little something about a familiar house.

I wouldn't have thought they'd used some interiors for scenes.

Great that they did, though. Still have a fondness for that film.

saw a double feature of manhattan and the purple rose of cairo on 35mm last night; prob gonna die sometime this week. this is i think the first time i've seen the former (and i've seen it many many many times, thanks to a high school crush on mariel hemingway) with the brightness properly calibrated.

in purple rose i like when someone insisting on the necessity of getting jeff daniels back into the movie before they turn off the projector says "ya want an extra guy running around?!"

i heard louie ck got a part in his new movie? will probably go see it if so. how many times have i been shocked that woody allen's new movie is great? (ummm, first time was purple rose of cairo, then again on manhattan murder mystery, then a third time on deconstructing harry) all had long stretches of bombs between so i'm always hoping i'll hear the new one is surprisingly awesome.

don't hold your breath

I will see it cuz it was shot in my neighborhood tho

almost headed up to see that same double feature, dlh! just a few blocks from my apartment. now I really wish I had :( should probably check the runtimes for the rest of the week.

The problem is that Woody's weaknesses have gotten worse, and he's so impervious to change in his dotage that he seems incapable of pleasant surprises.

(There's a reason Chaplin made one reviled film in his 70s.)

Saw the Manhattan showing on Friday. Won't get a chance to see any of the others, I don't think, since I'm out of town til Friday.

Hannah and Her Sisters and Sleeper out on blu-ray this month, in MGM's apparent campaign of releasing the Allen classics two at a time.

I watched To Rome with Love recently. Some of the scenarios and characters in it were really good, but it felt that by pulling all the stories together, it created nothing more than the mad ramblings of an old man. If Allen had concentrated on one idea rather than three or four ( I especially like the Baldwin, Esinberg scenes) it could have made a rich, brilliant film. It's a shame, it feels like Allens losing his ability to weave a good yarn, and is using his film budget to pitch half baked storylines.

Last night I listened to this interview with him from 2007 or so. One funny detail: he's pretty adamant in saying that he has stopped writing comedies and now wants to focus more on serious drama. This right before Midnight in Paris...

If we agree that there’s more to intellectual legitimacy than name-dropping, what is it in Allen’s work as a comic Jewish writer-director-performer that earns him that legitimacy — a legitimacy that is denied to, among others, Elaine May and both Mel and Albert Brooks?

w/ the exception of annie hall and manhattan, IMO mel brooks's best work holds its own against woody allen's. plus i give mel brooks brownie points for standing by david lynch at the beginning of lynch's career.

albert brooks is a pompous bore who is loved only by similarly pompous & boring boomers.

"both Mel and Albert Brooks"

ah yes, both of the famed Brooks Brothers

Woody had a humor piece in the NYT yesterday; i'm scared to read it.

That Rosenbaum piece is monumentally OTM.

it is monumentally boring challops

Would Elaine May have had a better rep if she were any way as prolific a film-maker as Woody, or hadn't made Ishtar (which I'm not saying is anywhere near the disaster its rep paints it as, but which is a pretty widely reviled financial flop)? Has Woody made a movie as bad as Life Stinks, Dead And Loving It or Robin Hood? Have Albert Brooks' movies ever really been more than great ideas that aren't taken the distance they deserve (thinking Lost In America here in particular)?

By the same token, has Woody made films as purely and brilliantly comic as Young Frankenstein? I'm not sure either.

Mel Brooks made six watchable-to-very funny films from 1968-77, and as always his fine TV-writing and comedy-album (2000YOM) career is nearly forgotten. As a filmmaker, oeuvre looked at in toto, he can't touch Woody Allen, who didn't go into the dumper until the mid-late '90s.

Zelig > Young Frankenstein

Has Woody made a movie as bad as Life Stinks, Dead And Loving It or Robin Hood?

Celebrity, Deconstructing Harry, Everyone Says I Love You, and Anything Else, just off the top of my head.

See, I *loved* Everybody Says I Love You...

Eh, there's a charming moment or two, but for the most part it struck me as boilerplate at best.

how is it boilerplate?? its a musical!!

Yeah, ghosts doing a song'n'dance number to 'enjoy yourself' in an undertaker's is pretty far from boilerplate to me!

That's the problem: Woody seemed to think just doing a musical -- regardless of quality or intent -- would somehow force himself out of his cliches. It didn't.

I mean, Albert Brooks?! What is he even doing in the discussion?

bcz Lost in America is one of the great comedies of the last 30 years?

one hot film every 30 year average

as opposed to Woody's average of six cold films for every lukewarm one

i hope ppl make fun of you guys when you are really old Jews.

Modern Romance is great you fucking savages

and if you're gonna mention bad Woody, mention Hollywood Ending which is an all-time piece of shit

It has some funny blindness gags. (yeah, i know) The last film was as bad as any i've seen.

still haven't forced myself to watch that one, looked too similar to Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

whatever works was also terrible -- larry david & evan rachel wood should be very ashamed of themselves for appearing in it.

vicky cristina barcelona was little more than an 70-something's dirty dream of directing softcore lesbian porn featuring Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz.

i.e. it was very good

bcz Lost in America is one of the great comedies of the last 30 years?

for a great comedy it's not very funny. i remember like modern love a lot, though.

whatever works, yes, that is an egregiously terrible film now i think of it.

liking modern love

Original poster:
http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/Modern-Romance-Poster.jpg

New poster for Blockbuster era:
http://www.movieposterdb.com/posters/09_10/1981/82764/l_82764_694d11b4.jpg

you mean this one?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OXNdGwoZL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

lol

hahahahahaha

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/RealLifeposter.jpg

Love this movie

I think I own that shirt.

whatever works was actually the worst movie i have ever seen

lost in america is a total classic tho. "in that movie, santy claus came, and he fixed everything. we don't have santy claus."

there was macy's, gimbles -- but santy claus.

A bird lives in a round stick.

Woody Allen made at least a handful of films that are better than anything either Brooks ever did, and he can piss on celluloid and call it comedy for the rest of his life for all I care.

so I got a couple chuckles outta this, but relying on "Fox News" as a punchline... he's writing for elderly Democrats and ILXors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/hypochondria-an-inside-look.html

Gothamist grossed out by "hickey" riff.

every time I catch "Manhattan" it looks like Mariel Hemingway has gotten even younger than the last time I saw it. Some sick Dorian Gray black magic curse or something.

http://i.imgur.com/CPeahRf.gif
i made a gif

http://www.theonion.com/articles/woody-allen-extremely-busy-updating-woodyallencom,32352/

One of the things Allen is shrewdest about is money. His films typically cost about $18 million to make, which is next to nothing these days. Most of them go on to make a modest profit—if not in the United States, then when they're shown worldwide—and once in a while he has a hit on the order of Midnight in Paris. It's a fairly foolproof formula, even if it seems to have little appeal to the studios now, who would rather make bigger bets in hopes of bigger payouts. Allen's modest budgets enable him to retain total control of his films, something that's seldom granted to directors anymore, and to be flexible when it comes to probably his greatest strength as a director: casting memorable actors in memorable parts. "I'm not in the hit-flop business," he explained. "I make a film and if it's a big hit it's not going to do anything special for me. If it's a disaster it won't ruin anything, because I'll already be working on the next. The people who play the hit-flop game suffer a lot when they have the flops. I don't, but then I don't get the highs either."

..."You know in a mental institution they sometimes give a person some clay or some basket weaving?" he said. "It's the therapy of moviemaking that has been good in my life. If you don't work, it's unhealthy—for me, particularly unhealthy. I could sit here suffering from morbid introspection, ruing my mortality, being anxious. But it's very therapeutic to get up and think, Can I get this actor; does my third act work? All these solvable problems that are delightful puzzles, as opposed to the great puzzles of life that are unsolvable, or that have very bad solutions. So I get pleasure from doing this. It's my version of basket weaving."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323469804578523611076250442.html

i've always identified w/ that aspect of woody's worldview/personality.

Me too.

"there is no such thing as a really bad Woody Allen movie"

o rlly

kinda curious about the Great Recession angle on the new one, vs my better judgment.

looks like he's really nailed that down-and-out, working class, living-on-the-cheap feel of San Francisco in 2013

yeah, no one not rich lives anywhere in san francisco anymore

it looks a bit less farcical, more substantive, than his most recent films. whether this is a good thing, idk. the working class tuffs seem embarrassingly hackneyed and i am afraid that they are a bad omen.

yeah I agree it looks a little like he went with outdated, stock working class characters. Hoping maybe that's a deliberate choice?

Like does anyone even use phony as a noun anymore?

idk. in "to rome with love" he proved that he cannot write convincing dialogue for educated millenials. they were all obsessed with psychoanalytic buzzwords like "repression" and basically sounded like twentysomething intellectuals from the 70s and i don't think this was deliberate.

still, i am going to see this as soon as it comes out. i am loyal to the woody allen brand and unlike alfred and a few others on this board i did find midnight in paris enjoyable.

I don't care so much about generational veracity in his films -- he seems to have stopped finding out about "new stuff" in 1972 (earlier for music) -- but the reheated concepts and dialogue have been mostly deadly.

I would see this one. The plot/concept actually appeals to me. I like when he writes against Hollywood redemption cliches in human relationships (e.g. Crimes and Misdemeanors) and it seems like that's where this one is going.

when I saw the trailer I kinda figured "huh, so it's san francisco from the 70s"
of course I'll see it, cuz I wish I lived in sf in the 70s

"who will see this" roll call

I don't think there was Virgin Airlines in the 70s.

Watched Stardust Memories again the other night - I imagine it to be one of the more maligned movies of his classic era, but I still love it. It's a great mess.

it's still sf in the 70s
xpost

has there been a post-peak poll? say from after, i dunno Bullets Over Broadway or somesuch? if not i'd like to see one.

wasn't his peak in like 1973 though?

or, charitably, 1986

Crimes and Misdemeanors was like 89 or so. That is a high point if not "the" peak

I like the original thread topic though. My goal for the year is to date someone way smarter than me. I think that would be cool.

smarter than Woody at any rate

Everyone Says I Love You would be my fave post-peak Allen film, but yeah, I mostly watch new Woody Allen films now in the same way that I sometimes watch newer episodes of The Simpsons: knowing they're not likely to be all that great, but still being able to catch the occasional glimpse of the old spark.

I'm sure Woody's smart

xpost

Put another way, new Allen or Simpsons still > any Edward Burns or Family Guy.

Midnight in Paris is bad Hallmark television.

This was shot in my neighborhood, yknow, the one with the poor people, and I actually saw woody in action so I sort of have to see it. It will probably be bad tho.

i agree with treeship about 'crimes and misdemeanors,' it's prob my favorite. light-years better than 'match point,' for sure.

Match Point is Crimes and Misdemeanours with kids.

(and s&m)

and grade school symbolism and performances

It brings up an important moral question though: is murder okay?

...if the director's made a reprehensible film?

i'm sad he likely doesn't have another Deconstructing Harry in him.

i loved everybody says i love you. and i loved vicky cristina barcelona. whatever works was execrable though, and midnight in paris was incredibly flawed, if charming in moments.

i walked out on two of those films.

i don't really understand how movies like whatever works even happen. that movie, and a few others, are so horrendously bad that even slight, silly films like to rome with love are masterpieces by comparison.

one thing i will say about whatever works though, is that larry david's suicide attempt -- where he just impulsively runs and jumps out the window -- is lol because it looks totally unlike how window jumping suicides are usually represented.

I wish I could find a full clip of the magic show from Scoop -- one of my favorite recent Woody Allen scenes in an otherwise fine but not amazing movie.

lol i love that movie, realizing full well that it is a very flawed, somewhat lazy film. the part about how in england he still drives on the right side of the road but then swerves to the left when he sees oncoming traffic was classic, causing him to die in a car accident during the film's climax, was classic.

ugh, typos.

yeah i liked that one too.

it was enjoyable and light, not super memorable for me but nothing I regretted seeing

"this guy? a serial killer? i would be very surprised if he has killed even one person."

we've got to put our heads together if we put our heads together there'd

be a hollow sound

Party at Woody's place:

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-XV554_mag071_G_20130613142614.jpg

^c'mon I'd never leave my screening room.

Marshall McLuhan predicted books would become art objects at some point. He was right.

My mother taught me a value — rigid discipline. My father didn’t earn enough, and my mother took care of the money and the family, and she had no time for lightness. She always saw the glass a third full. She taught me to work and not to waste time.

If you’re born with a gift, to behave like it’s an achievement is not right.

I love Mel Brooks. And I've had wonderful times working with him. But I don't see any similarities between Mel and myself except, you know, we're both short Jews. That's where it ends. His style of humor is completely different. But Bob Hope? I'm practically a plagiarist.

It’s been said about marriage ‘You have to know how to fight.’ And I think there’s some wisdom to that. People who live together get into arguments. When you’re younger, those arguments tend to escalate, or there’s not any wisdom that overrides the argument to keep in perspective. It tends to get out of hand. When you’re older, you realize, ‘Well, this argument will pass. We don’t agree, but this is not the end of the world.’ Experience comes into play.

http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/woody-allen-0913

I agree with most of those, but this --

A corned-beef sandwich would be sensational, or one of those big, fat frankfurters, you know, with the mustard. But I don't eat any of that stuff. I haven't had a frankfurter in, I would say, forty-five years. I don't eat enjoyable foods. I eat for my health.

-- is the saddest thing.

I agree, especially since at most he'd be endangering the films we'll see from 94-year-old Woody.

Also his characterization of his mother suggests that The Floating Light Bulb, his '81 play, is significantly autobiographical.

I haven't had a frankfurter in, I would say, forty-five years.

: (

That robert weide doc mentioned upthread is on iplayer at the moment, v. highly recommended if you haven't seen it.

How Woody Became a Hack

... how could such a hurried, unrehearsed process not show up in the work? Watching post-2000 Allen films, nothing stands out so much as the lack of specificity in the performances. Sometimes the cast even sounds like it's running through a first-day table-read. Most actors will tell you that creating a fully rounded character is a process. Without adequate time to let that evolve, you are more often than not going to get performances heavy on emoting and archetype, light on originality and depth. (Perhaps this is the reason so many of Allen's male leads ape his famous inflections -- it's the only thing they have to latch onto.)

...Now consider this, from the book Directing Actors, by Judith Weston:

Woody Allen, in a 1994 New York magazine article, disclosed that the reason he uses one wide shot for most of his whole scenes is partly because it's quicker and cheaper, but mostly it is for the actors, because it is a way to "let them talk," and to allow overlapping.

It's the "quicker and cheaper" I'm interested in. Since 1977, Woody Allen has made at least one picture a year, an incredible streak. But consider what it takes to conceive, write, and direct a quality film, one that has something new to say and does it well. Could anyone produce such a movie on this tight schedule? Is it any wonder that Allen's camera setups are expedient, the themes repetitive, the acting cardboard, the characterizations clichéd? If Woody Allen were churning out genre potboilers, an assembly line approach might still yield a passable final product. But he's not; he continually attempts to wrestle, either comedically or dramatically with the deepest questions about the human condition. That takes time, effort, and most of all thought -- if you don't put these into it, if you're on automatic pilot, you're going to get a work that is basically stillborn.

http://www.kqed.org/arts/movies/article.jsp?essid=124365

his kid (maybe) is pretty funny - http://gawker.com/mia-farrow-says-woody-allens-son-may-actually-be-frank-1440233819?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

thread about ronan

What The Waht...

He then went home to change his bloody clothes and ate lunch at Wendy's before seeing a Woody Allen movie at Hollywood Hits, a theater not far from his Danvers home which he shares with his mother and two younger sisters, according to police.

http://news.yahoo.com/teen-raped-popular-teacher-killing-her-indictment-states-235247146--abc-news-topstories.html

well..

http://www.eonline.com/news/498566/mia-and-ronan-farrow-slam-woody-allen-s-golden-globes-tribute-via-twitter

O'Hehir triages the films into 4 periods:

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/11/making_sense_of_woody_allens_confusing_career/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/27/the-woody-allen-allegations-not-so-fast.html

more discussion on that one in the mia thread

Mia Farrow's son -- Ronan Seamus Farrow -- really creeps me out!

pardon me, the ronan thread.

ah, thanks, i am interested in discussion

it's Broadway's feelgood hit of the spring!

http://bulletsoverbroadway.com/

Woody has weighed in on Gaza, I know you were all waiting.... also Colin Firth-Emma Stone film is imminent.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/18/woody-allen-on-magic-in-the-moonlight-the-crisis-in-gaza-new-york-city-and-those-allegations.html

NY Times profile felt like a journalist distancing himself from his assignment. "Woody has always lived in a world of illusion," etc., etc.

a new ranking, entirely respectable; #2 often my favorite. Happily nothing from the 21st century nor Bullets over Broadway.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2014/21/the-10-best-woody-allen-movies

years since 1969 where woody allen failed to release a new directorial effort:

1970, 1974, 1976, 1981

poll

life expectancy increased in each of those years

in '70 Woody was wrapping up the Broadway run of Play It Again Sam, in '76 he had the lead role in The Front, '81 he had a play produced at Lincoln Center

nice sidestep by woody in the daily beast interview when asked about lena dunham

feel it is more likely woody allen is the sleepy grampa he is describing there than that he is pulling jedi mind tricks on journalists

he definitely knows who lena dunham is

i mean, she writes and directs a show called Girls, amirite?

and she called him a monster and a lousy filmmaker etc last winter

an interview centering on filmmaking technique, esp cinematography/editing

http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/simply-do-it-talking-with-woody-allen-about-directorial-style

Cannot believe how much uncritical press (ie not mentioning Dylan Farrow) this guy is getting right now.

are you serious

Yes?

NYT article had like one blithe paragraph in the middle, Chi Trib article (http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-woody-allen-magic-moonlight-20140723,0,4313909.column) has a couple of dismissive paragraphs

I'm not defending the press, to be clear, just that I dunno why anyone would be surprised that some unpleasant allegations are conveniently swept under the rug when it comes time to promote the latest work of one of the most famous and widely regarded white male American film directors, now in his dotage.

"now"

America happy to be entertained by murderers, child abusers, wifebeaters, racists etc. why would they stop now

lol Alfred, I did actually sweat the wording of that a little

xp

Before the last round of scandal, it's hard to imagine Allen not on the cover of Arts & Leisure when a profile comes out.

Keep in mind that Woody Allen is the same age as the people who still pay for print subscriptions.

nothing actionable or proven, so let's go on with the show fuckit

I'm sure that calculus is also foremost in the mind of the press - should they keep harping on these allegations knowing full well nothing will ever come of them, or should they keep feeding the well-oiled promotional machine that pays their bills. not a tough choice really.

it's weird how people announce their surprise that people are surprised

like why doesn't your cynicism extend further

I assume everyone is more cynical than I am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-_Akm40RJQ

back to the lost cause of Simon Abrams' ebert.com interview:

When I see cool films, no matter how beautiful they are, there's something off-putting about them. I have all my characters—or 99% of the characters—dress in autumnal clothes, beiges, and browns, and yellows, and greens. And I have [production designer and long-time collaborator] Santo Loquasto make the sets look as warm as possible. And I like the lighting to be very warm, and I color-correct things so that they're very red.

Sometimes, the cameraman will be shocked. Sven Nykvist said "My God, their faces will all look like tomatoes!"

And I said "Well, let's try it." He got to like it.

WA also says Brando was terrible at being funny... dunno, The Freshman

I particularly liked the section about editing Annie Hall. Ralph Rosenblum's book is one of my favourites.

^^^ me too

That was a cool interview, nice to hear Woody's thoughts on style, and a great Willis quote:

Gordon always used to paint with light. He'd do the fundamental lighting, and then he'd say "Ok, I've got the lighting basically done. Now I'm going to paint for a while."

re Farrow accusations do you think it's something journalists should address?

Also it seems to me (maybe something I picked up on the Blue Jasmine thread) that there's some antagonism towards recent Woody films on this board? I found Blue Jasmine and Midnight in Paris very very good, Whatever Works, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Match Point very good and the rest of his post 2000 production really enjoyable.

imo its not per se that reviews need to hand-wring about the morality of liking a new emma stone movie, so much as their prose should be informed by the fact that their subject may not be an awesome guy just cuz he's consistently brought the middlebrow chuckles

i hated whatever works to death

that nyt piece about what a charming trickster woody is a pretty stunning example of how NOT to write about a successful filmmaker accused of molestation by their daughter

re hating Whatever Works to death, I've often had people tell me about Woody-films they absolutely could not stand (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris, Melinda and Melinda) and it's kind of weird to me because the good ones I don't see how anyone can dislike and the minor works are so innocuous and fun so why hate but then again hey that's just taste for you

I'm probably not good at seeing the whole Farrow case clearly because I like Woody Allen's movies a loooot but what would be a good moral stance on the thing then? Not having an opinion on it seems the most sensible thing to me - I'm glad that's what I did with Conor though I know that's not a fair analogy.

his minor works have become unwatchable, they don't even function as movies it's just a bunch of random shit on the screen. they're almost offensive in their tossed-off-ness. Of his post 2000 output I would rate them as follows:

Curse of the Jade Scorpion - v funny. didn't buy him as the romantic lead but whatever.
Hollywood Ending - the best part about this film was when it was over
Anything Else - Excruciating. Horrible, horrible cast.
Melinda and Melinda - Pointless. Drama wasn't dramatic and the comedy wasn't funny.
Match Point - P good, a nice change of pace.
Scoop - Awful.
Cassandra's Dream - Couldn't bring myself to watch a retread of Match Point.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona - omg wanted to murder every cliched character in this laugh-free apocalypse of trite bullshit
Whatever Works - Whatever definitely didn't work.
Midnight in Paris - another painful retread of earlier ideas, didn't really find any of the caricatures funny but did perk up when the multiple levels of fantasy started to accrete. of course then the movie ended.
To Rome With Love - Couldn't bring myself to watch a retread of Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Blue Jasmine - Probably his most interesting since Match Point, although there were still all sorts of false notes and head-smacking stupid choices. But it hummed along smoothly, some quality acting, looked great.

thing is that when people say they don't have an opinion is they're usually saying "i'm going to pretend i didn't hear that and continue valorizing someone for their creative efforts irrespective of serious accusations about their character".

like, just accept woody is a potentially a reprehensible human being. if it bums you out to the point that you don't wanna watch Sleeper again, fine. if you still can, fine. it's only when you sing girl scout songs to woody at the golden globes or otherwise public heroify him that people really give a fuck.

i think morally your only obligation is to not search for reasons to dismiss or ignore a potential victim of abuse just because you really wanna watch sleeper again and can't otherwise.

I agree w all that

@croupier that makes a lot of sense, thx!

Also your ratings are hillarious Οὖτις, I'll keep them in mind next time I'm discussing Woody's work.

I think this IMDB plot summary is a good argument for Hollywood Ending's virtues: A director is forced to work with his ex-wife, who left him for the boss of the studio bankrolling his new film. But the night before the first day of shooting, he develops a case of psychosomatic blindness. Hehe.

I was thinking I had seen Hollywood Ending but had it confused with Celebrity.

Celebrity is a mess but there's some funny scenes in it

i forget really why i hated whatever works - i think i found the characters unlikable and facile to a ridic degree. i remember being really disappointed though as i'd loved vicky cristina barcelona, and it was the first woody i watched in nyc.

characters totally unbelievable one-dimensional stereotypes, no plot/central conflict, no jokes, majority of the movie feels like it takes place in a basement, where do I start

whatever works is basically a vampire movie

i seem to remember thinking it hated its female characters in a way woody movies usually don't, but again, i can't remember it very clearly.

i think the last woody i unreservedly adored was everybody says i love you

Finally, Boris hosts a New Year's Eve party, at which everyone is seen in their new relationships: Marietta with Leo and Morgenstern, John with Howard, Melodie with Randy, and finally Boris with Helena. Melodie and her parents had, each one separately, completely shed their former southern conservative mindsets and wholeheartedly adopted the liberal New York way of life and values. (John tells that his former membership in the National Rifle Association had been but a sublimation of his repressed homosexuality). They are now all the best of friends, and at midnight heralding a new year they kiss and Boris tells the audience that you just have to find all the enjoyment that you can, that you have to find "whatever works."

the smug condescension of this whole fucking scenario

Blue Jasmine is pretty much the worst film of 2013.

nah

(John tells that his former membership in the National Rifle Association had been but a sublimation of his repressed homosexuality)

gee alfred someone might think you were being hyperbolic

I wanted to throw up on every old lady applauding after my screening, or find out what computer classes they had taken to finf good reviews.

dude its been more than a year, you gotta get a doctor to check out that rash the line about computer classes gave you

computer classes thing was almost as funny as the implication that anyone in SF would take even the slightest notice of a woman on the street talking to herself

Eh I'm just hyperoxygenating because the movie made me a little bit sick.

it was the first woody movie i'd seen since deconstructing harry and was definitely dreading worse than what i got.

you dodged a bullet

NYT pans the new one and alludes to allegations fwiw

Shakey, as someone who grew up memorizing Woody's standup records and going to the ;80s films on opening day, i am amazed that you've seen 5 of the recent films that i skipped.

and i hafta wonder why the hell u keep seeing them

same reason you lined up for the '80s films

gold vs shit

that's what you think

The trouble with pathological productivity is ratios.

oic shakey actually didnt see 2 of the films he listed

btw Alfred "computer classes" is your new "boat shoes," u can stop now

Zelig, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio Days, Hannah, bits of Crimes -- dat's dat. The '00s are worse, of course, but he always made shit.

btw Alfred "computer classes" is your new "boat shoes," u can stop now

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius),

"U" was new when Prince used.

I thought Vicky Cristina Barcelona was almost great. Would have been a lot better if both stories were combined for the Vicky character imo.

In my defense my wife wanted to see the ones with larry david and the butterscotch stallion, I was ready to give up before that

Xp

actually September was his first shit film, and it's a diamond compared to stuff like VCB

no one who likes showbiz can dislike Broadway Danny Rose

I thought Vicky Cristina Barcelona was almost great. Would have been a lot better if both stories were combined for the Vicky character imo.

― Matt Armstrong,

and if the voice-over wasn't of the "She walked into the room and sat down and drank wine" variety.

possibly his biggest piece of misogynist tripe

and if the voice-over wasn't of the "She walked into the room and sat down and drank wine" variety.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, July 26, 2014 2:38 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I could never figure out what he was thinking with that extremely obnoxious voiceover, but I thought it worked in a strange way. Very odd movie.

re: smug condescension in Whatever Works plot, maybe the irony doesn't translate well in a wiki summary but as I recall "John tells that his former membership in the National Rifle Association had been but a sublimation of his repressed homosexuality" was delivered with a lot of self-mockery - it's an outrageous caricature!

I don't get why anyone would dislike Blue Jasmine. It's a good story, well plotted and told, it's funny and sad, relevant too, all actors give great performances, it looks good. I can see why it wouldn't be your favorite movie, but I don't see why you'd bother hating it.

Misogynist tripe? Come ooooooon Woody's been writing great female leads for decades.

Agree that VCB would have been better without voice over, goes for almost every voice over in history imo

i haven't seen vcb since the theater but that voiceover was so spectacularly weird it's easily the most interesting thing in a woody allen movie since kenneth branagh made himself a living uncanny valley.

i have also only seen whatever works once but i'd literally never had such a bad reaction to a movie; iirc it's 90 minutes of a woody-infested larry david viciously insulting dumb girly hick evan rachel wood, who responds by calling him a genius over and over again until his arc concludes. (evidence for protag's genius even thinner here than usual: he knows the word "physics" but unless i have forgotten does not demonstrate knowledge of the premise of even one dostoevsky novel.) the upsetting part is how totally continuous its badness is with woody's prior goodness: he's spent decades reading cliff's notes to (increasingly) younger women in exchange for permission to feed on their adoring vivacity. (the scene in crimes and misdemeanors where he's pressing the coffee-table book about "old new york" on his little niece, holding it open in front of her, turning the pages for her, talking over her even tho the only thing the script is allowing her to say is "that's great uncle cliff", has the quality for me now of when tarantino cuts to someone's foot, only, you know, monstrous.) even the best woody actresses (keaton, davis, weist) are transcending, a little bit through writing but mostly through performance, misogynistic cliches as brittle psychobitches or tasteless bobbleheads. when he is (by is i mean was) at his best as a writer he does have the gallantry not to imagine a blissful future for his teacher-student relationships, and to recognize his own solipsism: no way tracy's coming back from london, and there will never be a more vicious or accurate parody of Late Woody than the play at the end of annie hall. but his characters these days are so desiccated that i don't think scarjo and evan rachel wood could unshrivel them even if they had judy davis' chops.

Misogynist tripe? Come ooooooon Woody's been writing great female leads for decades.

if your idea of a great female lede is a crazy talking to herself and slurping a vodka martini as if she learned it watching other movies. To be a Great Female Lede in a Woody Allen movie is to be insane.

Yup, there's stupid male fantasies in Woody's movies - but does that equal misogyny? Brittle psychobitches and tasteless bobbleheads are not the words I'd use to describe the two types of female leads in Woody movies, but I know what you mean. I didn't see it as an issue and don't they correspond well enough to the neurotic pseudo-intellectual (Woody) and the easy going jock friend (Tony Roberts)?

It's also sad that the intelligent characters don't get to engage in a lot of intellectually stimulating dialogue - but then again maybe the intellectual cliche was more of a 70s/80s thing in Woody's films? In BJ there's some pretty good dialogue imo, not because it's cool but because it's direct and deals with good questions without being to black/white on them:

Jasmine: Oh, for chrissake. What's wrong with your self-esteem? There's men who'd never think about ripping the phone out of the wall.
Ginger: Hey, leave him alone. You're always picking on him.
Jasmine: No, you choose losers, okay? Because that's what you think you deserve. That's why you're living like this and that's why you'll never have a better life.
Ginger: I'm- I'm living- I'm living like this because you married the biggest loser of all...and went your own sweet way... while he pissed away my one big chance to make a better life.
Chili: Come on, let's not ruin our celebration, okay?

Sure, it's a bit obvious but I think it works.

It's been too long since I saw WW for me to really comment on it, but I saw it several times and found it nice and funny, even a bit clever, and so did the different people I saw it with. I think the movie is pretty self-aware in its use of cliches, but could be wrong.

By that definition to be a great male lead in a Woody picture would also mean to be "insane", but I'm not sure that's a fair way of characterizing, say, Mia Farrow in Purple Rose.

Oh sorry, I guess you were only referring to Cate Blanchett in BJ. I thought her depiction of Jasmine was great - very loyal to a character that's not that likeable or sympathetic, she had me emotionally involved. Don't you think it's a good idea to write leads with mental disorders?

It's not a good idea for Woody Allen to write leads with mental disorders.

Okay, I guess you really didn't like it. I thought it seemed pretty honest, but maybe it's not a point that can be argued.

I wrote this at the time.

dlh's post reminded me of this awful claptrap:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/03/thus-ate-zarathustra

i was mortified by the laziness and the tone deafness of that when it appeared, so dumb and weak and not remotely nietzsche-ish, just a hack jeer at a philosopher from someone who hadn't read him. and since then i've always noticed when his films have similar glib magpie displays that bank on the ignorance or impressibility of the viewers, it's rotten slothful writing.

That review was a good read, even if I can only (mostly) agree on the two first paragraphs. I don't feel like I owe Woody anything, but every year he makes a movie I enjoy and sometimes he makes a movie I fall in love with - I wish Bob Dylan was that productive. Still I think I understand your points, and totally agree that it's weird to defend late Hitchcock, Frenzy is so bad.

I didn't understand the premise of BJ as "if you’re a woman and poor, it sucks if you don’t have a man; if you’re a woman and rich, it sucks if you don’t have a man; if you’re a woman who was once rich and is now poor, it sucks if you don’t have a man." The main (female) characters (all the males are supporting, right?) are looking for love, maybe in vain, but actually I thought the movie was as much about social classes, the financial crisis and mental disorders as it's about the question of being with the one you love or loving the one your with (but as quoted dialogue was supposed to demonstrate, the subject is not simply treated as cliche, it's fleshed out in realistic characters having realistic arguments).

I think the failed socialite is also beautifully and tragically depicted in Jasmine's final iteration of her life story, the words (to "Blue Moon" and to the monologue of Jasmine's story) no longer refer to anything:
I used to know the words.
I knew the words.

I don't get the criticism of Woody not writing academically correct philosophical dialogues. There's bits of that in Love & Death (as parody) but really what's the use? If I want to read a book on philosophy, usually that's what I do. Not sure how well it works when done in earnest (Dinner with Andre? Waking Life? Godart?). Maybe it stems from an idea that the characters are supposed to seem really clever when they philosophize? I'd think that's a bit misguided but who knows. The real philosophy in Woody's films seems more connected with the overarching plots and less with the philosophical references in funny/silly dialogues.

Damn, I don't want to be a Woody apologist but I sure got caught up in this one.

lol i misspelled godard

Misogynist tripe? Come ooooooon Woody's been writing great female leads for decades

namely, the 70s and 80s decades. Let me quote myself:

"his reputation as someone who created lively comedic and dramatic characters for Keaton, Mia Farrow, and even Gena Rowlands is hard to square with the flagging auteur who extravagantly wastes the talents of (actresses).... Women in his films are now mere bystanders when they aren't basket-case man-eaters or Mediterranean whores.... Allen no longer seems able or willing to surprise and challenge his audience. Not only does the late-career renaissance of a Huston or Buñuel seem beyond him, but movies like this (To Rome with Love) put him in danger of comparisons with Chaplin's final, disastrous film, A Countess from Hong Kong, or Bob Hope robotically reading jokes for decades of his dotage. Basta, Woody, basta."

Bob hope line hittin him where it hurts there morbz

Yes. His penchant for hiring actresses and giving them nothing to do puts the lie to his I-deliver-my-movies-on-a-tight-budget schtick. If anyone could have played the Claire Bloom, Helena Bonham Carter, and Patricia Clarkson characters, why hire them when nobodies would be cheaper?

don't big name actors pretty much do these Woody movies for peanuts?

scale

kenneth branagh made himself a living uncanny valley.

thank you for this fantastic description of an unwatchable performance

yeah alfred that is a bizarre criticism

what is?

Yes. His penchant for hiring actresses and giving them nothing to do puts the lie to his I-deliver-my-movies-on-a-tight-budget schtick. If anyone could have played the Claire Bloom, Helena Bonham Carter, and Patricia Clarkson characters, why hire them when nobodies would be cheaper?

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, July 26, 2014 9:48 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Those women contributed more to their resumés than Allen allowed them to for their roles.

they're also why his movies make money

i mean, with his casts, they're almost certainly profitable before they even start to shoot.

Alfred forgot about the box-office staying power of Claire Bloom

why of course that's why Philip Roth married her.

Will use this as a first-day intro for the six art classes I'm teaching this year; I should have started using it years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o

I'm starting to feel like Woody Allen has raised the terrible male fantasy happy ending to its own artform: the way it happens at the end of Magic In The Moonlight is almost an abstraction.

I think it's my favourite film of his this century.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/woody-allen-to-write-and-direct-his-first-tv-series-at-amazon-20150113?utm_campaign=woody-allen-to-write-and-direct-his-first-tv-series-at-amazon-20150113&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Facebook&utm_content=woody-allen-to-write-and-direct-his-first-tv-series-at-amazon-20150113

Sounds great

for me to barf on

maybe he should do a show where he drives around with bill cosby, roman polanski, etc. looking for prostitutes and it'll be like that comics getting coffee in cars seinfeld thing

this is going to be bad

"I have no ideas and I’m not sure where to begin."

I actually find a wisp of hope there, if true.

I always got the impression that Woody Allen didn't even watch TV?