Woody Allen: Funny or Serious?

It's a compilation of pieces that appeared in The New Yorker (mostly), yes? Like the others?

i still love that line from melinda and melinda, it's as good as any joke in any of his other movies

Woody was in my dream last night. He'd gained some weight, filling out his old man jowls a bit, grown a goatee, and put his hair into some wacky hippie braids. I told him he looked much younger and healthier.

new book is so, so, so s.j. perelman. which, you know, no one else on earth writes like that anymore, so more power to him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo2Lo28FNpg

(a very astutely crafted trailer)

http://7.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ktzpiwTH8r1qz6f9yo1_500.gif

peace god

That's literally nauseating.

Friends and I are working our way through a Woody Allen box set. "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex" wasn't as funny as I'd hoped, but the long riff on the runaway tit had me loling. "Manhattan" was both funnier and more serious than I remembered. Seems to be wiser every time I watch it, which maybe just means I get a little older every day.

Looking forward to "Love and Death" and "Stardust Memories," neither of which I've seen.

Two of my favorites!

"Manhattan," I understand, is the one film that Woody himself hates. He didn't want it released, iirc. It's probably my favorite Woody movie. I theorize that he hates it because it's too close.

Stardust Memories is awesomely ugly, has some of his funniest/most vicious imagery in it

Manhattan's neck-and-neck with Annie Hall as his best imho

wow, he hates manhattan? that explains his last 20 movies or so

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/sdm2.jpg

I detest that movie. That should have been Woody's face photoshopped over the Vietcong guy.

HOOS, presuming you haven't seen em, I'd watch Bob Hope in Monsieur Beaucaire before Love & Death, and 8-1/2 before Stardust Memories. Then you'll see exactly what he was goin' for.

SM was widely detested on its release but I've come to admire its balls; it certainly doesn't succeed like Annie Hall and Manhattan, but at least he was stepping outside his comfort zone with every other film (ie Interiors).

I agree that SM doesn't quite work, but I also agree about the vicious imagery. I like it a lot. But then, I'm a fan.

That image is violently overstated. He may have been trying Something Else, but he hadn't a clue yet.

still hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV2N4KSh3x4

I started watching Interiors and tbh I did find it kind of funny, the people are all so ridiculous, this peculiarly cold WASP-y self-absorption gone to rot

even so I didn't make it to the end. maybe later.

Sam Waterston as a Maoist is hilarious!

and Geraldine Page fluttering about a vase I could pick up at Pottery Barn for $9.99

haha yes to both

I think an underrated "serious" Allen movie is Another Woman.

you made this error earlier this year, Alfred -- Waterston plays a documentarian whose subject is a Maoist.

Maureen Stapleton's introductory scenes are very funny

you made this error earlier this year, Alfred -- Waterston plays a documentarian whose subject is a Maoist.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius),

my version is funnier

ok