woody allen

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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.

oh no! sirap notlih vs. ognir rrats FITE!! OH NO!!! (Eisbaer), Monday, 14 January 2013 17:45 (eleven years ago) link

"both Mel and Albert Brooks"

ah yes, both of the famed Brooks Brothers

space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, 14 January 2013 18:04 (eleven years ago) link

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

saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 January 2013 18:11 (eleven years ago) link

That Rosenbaum piece is monumentally OTM.

Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Monday, 14 January 2013 18:25 (eleven years ago) link

it is monumentally boring challops

space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, 14 January 2013 18:43 (eleven years ago) link

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.

I had such a fontasy (stevie), Monday, 14 January 2013 18:45 (eleven years ago) link

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

saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 January 2013 18:49 (eleven years ago) link

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.

Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Monday, 14 January 2013 18:54 (eleven years ago) link

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

I had such a fontasy (stevie), Monday, 14 January 2013 18:55 (eleven years ago) link

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

Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Monday, 14 January 2013 18:58 (eleven years ago) link

how is it boilerplate?? its a musical!!

zero dark (s1ocki), Monday, 14 January 2013 19:00 (eleven years ago) link

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

I had such a fontasy (stevie), Monday, 14 January 2013 19:04 (eleven years ago) link

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.

Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Monday, 14 January 2013 19:07 (eleven years ago) link

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

space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, 14 January 2013 19:35 (eleven years ago) link

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

saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 January 2013 19:55 (eleven years ago) link

one hot film every 30 year average

space phwoar (Hurting 2), Monday, 14 January 2013 19:59 (eleven years ago) link

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

the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 14 January 2013 20:00 (eleven years ago) link

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

saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 January 2013 20:02 (eleven years ago) link

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

berner herzog (fadanuf4erybody), Monday, 14 January 2013 20:11 (eleven years ago) link

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

saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 January 2013 20:14 (eleven years ago) link

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

berner herzog (fadanuf4erybody), Monday, 14 January 2013 20:29 (eleven years ago) link

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.

oh no! sirap notlih vs. ognir rrats FITE!! OH NO!!! (Eisbaer), Monday, 14 January 2013 21:18 (eleven years ago) link

i.e. it was very good

keef qua keef (Jordan), Monday, 14 January 2013 21:19 (eleven years ago) link

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.

I had such a fontasy (stevie), Monday, 14 January 2013 21:39 (eleven years ago) link

liking modern love

I had such a fontasy (stevie), Monday, 14 January 2013 21:39 (eleven years ago) link

you mean this one?

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

fit and working again, Monday, 14 January 2013 22:07 (eleven years ago) link

lol

zero dark (s1ocki), Monday, 14 January 2013 23:10 (eleven years ago) link

hahahahahaha

I had such a fontasy (stevie), Monday, 14 January 2013 23:22 (eleven years ago) link

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

Love this movie

Panaïs Pnin (The Yellow Kid), Monday, 14 January 2013 23:38 (eleven years ago) link

I think I own that shirt.

the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 14 January 2013 23:45 (eleven years ago) link

whatever works was actually the worst movie i have ever seen

difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 15 January 2013 01:15 (eleven years ago) link

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

difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 15 January 2013 01:18 (eleven years ago) link

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

difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 15 January 2013 01:19 (eleven years ago) link

A bird lives in a round stick.

Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Tuesday, 15 January 2013 01:23 (eleven years ago) link

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.

space phwoar (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 15 January 2013 01:45 (eleven years ago) link

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.

saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 15 January 2013 21:25 (eleven years ago) link

one month passes...

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.

Cunga, Saturday, 2 March 2013 00:00 (eleven years ago) link

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

The @glennbeck have raisin b-lls and rice crispy d-ck (stevie), Sunday, 10 March 2013 23:33 (eleven years ago) link

two months pass...
one month passes...

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

playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 30 June 2013 08:49 (ten years ago) link

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

flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Monday, 1 July 2013 08:09 (ten years ago) link

Me too.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Monday, 1 July 2013 14:04 (ten years ago) link

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

o rlly

A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 1 July 2013 14:07 (ten years ago) link

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

playwright Greg Marlowe, secretly in love with Mary (Dr Morbius), Monday, 1 July 2013 14:08 (ten years ago) link

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

chinavision!, Monday, 1 July 2013 14:23 (ten years ago) link

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

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Monday, 1 July 2013 15:09 (ten years ago) link

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.

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the (Treeship), Monday, 1 July 2013 15:32 (ten years ago) link

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

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Monday, 1 July 2013 15:33 (ten years ago) link

Like does anyone even use phony as a noun anymore?

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Monday, 1 July 2013 15:34 (ten years ago) link


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