woody allen

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