woody allen

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yeah I agree it looks a little like he went with outdated, stock working class characters.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

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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.