woody allen

oscar nominations

allen has definite brand/ethos at this point, if you're buying into it.

it's amazing how humorless he seems in interviews over the past 20 years.

he claims he's too old to cover up his real opinions with comedy these days

It's an NYC thing - see also Paul Simon.

Woody's next 50

https://twitter.com/timheidecker/status/745053520013975554

If he'd retired in the early 2000s when he was at his critical nadir and would've been mourned less profoundly. Funny how after Match Point, Vicki Christina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris, and Blue Jasmine his new bad movies are forgiven.

there are so many of them, who can keep track

all those I named run from eh to terrible

no argument there

are those the best movies he's made since his 'comeback'? i was able to get some enjoyment out of midnight in paris and vicki christina barcelona but purely in the most superficial way - hot babes in two of the most beautiful cities in the world - the movies were fairly terrible. i don't think i've seen any of the others. i think the last one that actually laugh (as opposed to just mutter 'heh' once or twice) was small time crooks and that was purely cuz of elaine may. it's kind of surprising cuz even though i don't think he was ever a great filmmaker his 90s wasn't a particular falloff, if someone said they preferred it to his 80s i wouldn't think they're crazy. when this kind of falloff w/ artists happens alot of times it's due to them finally exhausting some reservoir of material they had filled years before (to an extent i've kind of wondered if this happened w/ prince after i found out how much of the material on graffiti bridge, his last pre-jughead album, dated to years earlier). it could also just be due to old age, onset of dementia meaning he loses a certain sharpness. maybe a loss of certain collaborators too? this was a factor in hitchcock's decline and seems to be an obvious explanation for what has happened to tarantino.

The new one is a nothing.

And, let us note, several of his all time box office champs have been released in the last decade.

like, 1992-2005 was a long drought compared to how well he's done

it's kind of amazing considering how often some of his movies barely get theatrical releases now. he does serve an under served market though, generally if you're of the age where the idea of going to a movie based on a comic book or that's a remake of some thing you were too old to be interested in the first time around is patently absurd then he's yr guy. this was true to an extent during the 90s also (will never forget the old ladies walking out of the showing of deconstructing harry i went to after one too many cunts) but he had more competition, now really his only competition are those movies where helen mirren or maggie smith engage w/ the service industry some place where it's sunny.

re box office, meh, inflation

ppl have said for years he films his first drafts now (or dusts off a decades-old script like the Larry David one)

e box office, meh, inflation

the inflation's only noticeable with MIP. Compare their budges w/their American and European returns and you can see he's making at worst a modest profit.

His output has always been uneven; it's inevitable when you make a movie a year. I kinda like the gamble aspect of seeing a Woody Allen movie. There's a comfort to seeing them, because ~60% of them are perfectly fine and pleasant to watch, but there's still that added thrill because there's a a 10% chance you'll see something truly great and surprising (and also a 30% chance you'll see something pretty awful).

That's more math than my brain likes to do during and after a Woody Allen film.

I've always heard that Woody Allen films on a very small budget, and most of the actors that work with him do so at a greatly reduced fee, just for the prestige of working with him. It's easy to believe he's making a profit, because tickets cost more, and his fan base hasn't really gotten smaller. Older maybe, but not smaller -- and I feel like a lot of younger people are still discovering him, and watching his movies. (At least the ones who aren't posting about how he's a pedophile on the internet)

At some point, probably years after he dies, his movies are going to get a reappraisal, and I wouldn't be surprised to see several of the late works held up as minor classics (if only due to the odds per above). The last one I saw that I can really get behind was Sweet & Lowdown, and before that Deconstructing Harry, and before that Husbands & Wives. The most recent one I actually saw was the Larry David one, and it wasn't good.

Having seen everything through Melinda and Melinda (and never any further, for reasons I couldn't explain), they were all at least watchable with the exception of maybe Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (which was boring) and September (which I don't remember a thing about).

Totally agree about Sweet & Lowdown. Probably in my top five.

Having seen everything through Melinda and Melinda (and never any further, for reasons I couldn't explain

Melinda and Melinda was truly awful, which could explain it. That and the Jason Biggs one were the absolute nadir.

Jason Biggs one is so painfully shitty. Tarantino loved it lol

I honestly don't remember a whole lot about that one, either. Wasn't it called Christina Ricci Wears That One Thing In That One Scene So Who Even Cares About The Rest Of The Film? Something like that?

That's it.

Sweet & Lowdown was another old script fwiw

...and it's kinda-sorta 'inspired' by La strada.

what does she wear? just tell me so I don't have to watch the film

Seems like she spends alotta time in just panties and a camisole arguing w/Jason Biggs about one thing or another.

...or maybe it was a tanktop.

it was a Woody Allen mask

Anything Else is weird...Allen's "9/11" movie or something. His "mentor" character is this paranoid has-been who keeps impressing upon Biggs to protect himself, going so far as to taking him to a a tactical/military surplus store in Jersey to buy a gun and survival stuff.

Not that you can tell from the trailer (oh, and it's a extra short-sleeved t-shirt)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIAuRc7TrrM

Tarantino is a big fan of that one

Already mentioned soz

He would love it.

The Woodman Unleashed:

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

The ad campaign for Anything Else seriously downplayed Woody in favour of making the film look like a Biggs/Ricci romance, and it (sorta) worked: when I saw it, the theatre was packed with a teen/early-twentysomething crowd that whittled down to next-to-nothing during the film's first hour or so.

Gemma Jones is superb in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, one of the most moving performances in an Allen film (it's also the last film Vilmos Zsigmond shot for Allen)

omg I've never even heard of that film :-o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgbvKsblWY4

Stay with it.

via Keyframe:

Woody Allen’s new comedy series for Amazon, Crisis in Six Scenes, starring himself, Elaine May and Miley Cyrus, will premiere on Amazon in September as part of a “month of comedy” that’ll include Tig Notaro’s One Mississippi and the third season of Transparent, reports Erik Adams at the AV Club. According to Amazon, Crisis is set “in the 1960s during turbulent times in the United States when a middle class suburban family is visited by a guest who turns their household completely upside down.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNLUUfFLlQ0

'i thought I might have narcolepsy, my doctor said it was the book'

p funny imo

vinny delpino is working a lot huh

Curious about the Amazon series, especially after seeing Cafe Society over the weekend. First new Woody Allen I've seen since Whatever Works -- and it's a lot better than that. A lot of familiar themes for him, but the acting and dialogue (!) were both good/believable, and for the first time, maybe ever with him, I could actually see another movie with the same set of characters, following them along. Liked the ending too. Wuddya know!

I thought Irrational Man was much better than Cafe Society, but I liked the milieu of the former more. I could go the rest of my life without seeing another movie about the golden age of Hollywood. I love Joaquin Phoenix and he was great in Irrational Man, but I have a huge Jesse Eisenberg problem. He's just the worst.

yea irrational man is the only one of the last ~10 or whatever that I even considered watching

Midnight in Paris and Blue Jasmine were both great, too, obv widely acclaimed, but Irrational Man is my favorite of this decade. Cafe Society isn't bad, it's just OK, and really the worst thing about it is Eisenberg. If he doesn't bug you, don't worry...

"great" -- you can't meant that

haven't seen Blue Jasmine, but pals advised me that's the first recent one to hit after Cafe Society

I think its respectability makes it a menace. The bad ideas and received wisdom are lethal.

Midnight In Paris was unbearably corny.

the only part I liked about Midnight In Paris was the conceit that everyone romanticizes the past, even the people living in the romanticized past. the rest was p terrible.