woody allen

he's always denied anything but competence at best in cinematic chops

...giving credit to Ralph Rosenblum, Gordon Willis etc

as compensation for his wizardly sexual technique

he hasn't made a decent film in 15 years

Match Point is remarkable

remarkably stilted

oh here we go

which is funnier:

Extreme close up of ball hitting net in Match Point?

Cate Blanchett taking "computer classes" in Blue Jasmine?

his old stuff is very funny and he's made at least a couple great films, but imo it's a stretch to rank him w/ welles, chaplin, keaton, ford, et al

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, May 12, 2016 10:11 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is true. if i had to pick a great film by him it would only be annie hall

but i wouldn't rewatch any of them

He got better at directing for much of the '80s ... he's always denied anything but competence at best in cinematic chops

i like that thing he started doing in the 80s (actually first instance is prob during the "that's a healthy piece of towel paper" scene in manhattan) where everyone would leave the frame but the camera would remain static, and you'd just stare at a wall for a while while people psychoanalyzed themselves offscreen, and eventually they'd come back. a vaguely godardian flourish. very cinema. he still does it. last time i saw it i heckled the screen, but i do like it.

the ones i used to think were great, at least, were annie hall and crimes and misdemeanors, but haven't rewatched either in a long time. annie hall seems like it would hold up well.

otm, love that lil trick

oddly I noticed they did this exact schtick in an episode of "Cheers" I was watching from '83.

xp

Annie Hall holds up very well, it's expertly paced/edited

just watch louie, y'all, you get all the NYC love letter shit and neuroses with more jokes and no qualms about whether or not the artist did something sexually heino- oh, shit.

annie hall is a great movie. crimes and misdemeanors is what spock would call fascinating.

which is funnier:

Extreme close up of ball hitting net in Match Point?

Cate Blanchett taking "computer classes" in Blue Jasmine?

Not sure what the angle is on this question, but I remember the theater I was in gasping/laughing when the ring hit the rail near the end of Match Point. There's definitely more entertainment value in that movie than anything he's done since.

not intentionally

i like that thing he started doing in the 80s (actually first instance is prob during the "that's a healthy piece of towel paper" scene in manhattan) where everyone would leave the frame but the camera would remain static, and you'd just stare at a wall for a while while people psychoanalyzed themselves offscreen, and eventually they'd come back. a vaguely godardian flourish. very cinema. he still does it. last time i saw it i heckled the screen, but i do like it.

― le Histoire du Edgy Miley (difficult listening hour),

I saw this first in Annie Hall and distrusted it -- too arch, too static, what a neophyte director thinks is suggestive or something. Form and content disconnect.

Annie Hall: that shot early in the picture of the Manhattan side street into which Alvy and Max enter discussing VAH-GNAH.

the formal gimmicks in annie hall (subtitles, splitscreen, snow white, mcluhan, passerby interviews, stoned ghost annie, fourth wall violations) are so terrific and natural you can understand why people talked about him a while like he was a Cinematic Voice. the movie feels really free; it keeps doing whatever will help it get itself across.

i can't remember where the staring-at-a-wall thing is in AH! feel like there might be something like it in annie's apartment but iirc the camera stays on keaton throughout her narcoleptic-uncle monologue (thank goodness). maybe we linger on the national review a moment in the spider scene. anyway of course it disconnects form and content.

xp oh right that. always thought they were in that from the beginning, just invisibly distant, but maybe not. it's kind of a different thing because instead of the characters exiting/re-entering you're just disoriented for a long time from the start of the scene. find the annie hall shot anxiety-provoking and the other thing just kind of calmingly dull. also lol i ripped off the annie hall shot once in a noir parody so yeah it is def the kind of thing a n00b thinks is cool

(there's no reason for you to be disoriented in that scene, no.)

always thought they were in that from the beginning, just invisibly distant, but maybe not. it's kind of a different thing because instead of the characters exiting/re-entering you're just disoriented for a long time from the start of the scene.

yeah this is different. they are in the shot from the beginning.

to be fair everything about woody screams neophyte, though. even as a human being, he doesn't know what to do with his thoughts, limbs, and penis

I don't mind the other formal play in AH at all, and because it was the first Woody I watched it raised my expectations about subsequent work. But the Great Cinematographer holding those shots is an annoying tic to me. Part of what I dislike about Manhattan is how Willis, the B&W, Gershwin, etc aim for romance while the script and one-note perfs by everyone except Hemingway and (in bits) Keaton bring the sourness.

the formal gimmicks in annie hall (subtitles, splitscreen, snow white, mcluhan, passerby interviews, stoned ghost annie, fourth wall violations) are so terrific and natural you can understand why people talked about him a while like he was a Cinematic Voice. the movie feels really free; it keeps doing whatever will help it get itself across.

it was the first Woody I watched it raised my expectations about subsequent work.

Yeah, Annie Hall could be my favourite movie of all time but nothing else I've seen by him really comes close, although I've enjoyed various films.

that he still has some inexplicable audience to fawn over him in his dotage is weird and gross

― Οὖτις, Thursday, May 12, 2016 1:26 PM (2 hours ago)

ah, we all deserve at least that

Ewwwww grossssssssszzs

Sorry I'll take it to the relevant thread

annie hall is a great movie. crimes and misdemeanors is what spock would call fascinating.

― le Histoire du Edgy Miley (difficult listening hour), Thursday, May 12, 2016 5:25 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao and otm

Love and Death, as i'm sure i've said before, is a very funny Bob Hope movie, to bring in another rather terrible person i've been a big fan of (and who was lousy for the last 40 years of his life, so Woody has something to shoot for).

ugh you ppl and your movies

I can't think of a director whose work has diminished so much when you go back to it. Even Annie Hall looks bad and idiotic now. I thought I liked Crimes and Misdemenours but I tried to watch it recently and had to switch it off. It's truly awful. I'll still rep for Deconstrucking Harry although that's pretty vile too.

did you guys get caught up in a woody allen re-eval cycle because his on reminded the world he raped his daughter?

Love and Death, as i'm sure i've said before, is a very funny Bob Hope movie, to bring in another rather terrible person i've been a big fan of (and who was lousy for the last 40 years of his life, so Woody has something to shoot for).

Finding myself in total agreement with Morbz 0_o

Part of what I dislike about Manhattan is how Willis, the B&W, Gershwin, etc aim for romance while the script and one-note perfs by everyone except Hemingway and (in bits) Keaton bring the sourness.

I've never particularly liked manhattan and I think this really gets at why

i don't know what it takes to qualify as a "great american filmmaker", but by my count, woody made 6 or 7 great movies and a bunch of good ones over a 25 year film career. of course, that career ended in the mid 90s, and he's tarnished it by zombieing on for another two decades, but he still deserves mention with altman and sturges, if not keaton & khaplin.

eh he's Arthur Hiller

that's too far

he hasn't been anywhere as formally interesting as Jerry Lewis, let alone Altman

(btw an 'Arthur Hiller film' about to be released by Criterion)

Read that as Arthur Hitler

I mean he's Hiller now.

... changing the name to Arthur was wise too.

Cate Blanchett taking "computer classes" in Blue Jasmine?

lol @ this

I recall thinking Vicky Christina Barcelona was good but after midnight in paris I just 100% ignore when he puts out a movie now

Mr. Hilter

THE CHARACTER WOULD SAY "COMPUTER CLASSES" JUST LIKE WOODY

The contrast btwn the lush look/sound of Manhattan and the characters' baseness seems like an obviously intentional irony.

I'll take that as criticism.

I enjoyed "Midnight in Paris". His last decent one since "Sweet & Lowdown"

he hasn't been anywhere as formally interesting as

okay, but that's only one of the 10 interestings

one-note perfs by everyone except Hemingway and (in bits) Keaton

well this just leaves woody allen and michael murphy, unless you're talking about dennis the genius, or bella abzug

oh i'd forgotten streep was in it. more like one-scene perfs