woody allen

how people like Diane Keaton were constantly trying to foist shit like CSN records on him.

do you blame Woody

touch your children

Just watched the first episode of his Amazon show. Seemed a bit boring -- stiff, stage-like dialog (ie, not how people actually talk), wooden characters, set in the 60s for no apparent reason. Not even very funny. It was about to queue the next episode, but maybe I'll save it for later...

stiff, stage-like dialog (ie, not how people actually talk)

weird

yes naturalism is the only way to go. jeezus what year is it where you live D? is the Group Theatre putting up something new?

still, reviews hv been tepid

i was just joking about the late style, not rebuking dominique -- i like e.g. david lynch stilted, but late-woody stilted is a lot of stilt. often reminds me of the play at the end of annie hall.

can't rly imagine this being good, but looking forward to it.

Is there any way to watch this without forking out $ for amazon prime?

we're going downtown to see some folk music

there was a massacre of civilians in vietnam

we're living in such exciting times, when things are constantly changing

woody allen in this is an apolitical postmodern novelist whose life's ambition is to be j.d. salinger despite having been born, evidently, around 1888

elaine may and miley prove timing will not save us

Peter Labuza
‏@labuzamovies

Many are comparing Allen's CRISIS IN SIX SCENES to Roth's American Pastoral but better is Kaufman/Hart's You Can't Take It With You.

Both are essentially one house domestic comedies about how political rhetoric gets exchanged on the margins from conviction to fashion.

yeah, cute, those had writing, tho

Vadim Rizov
‏@vrizov

CRISIS IN SIX SCENES: sure, this has value. Imagine Woody forced to make a 2.5 hour film, leading to weird new places.

He's not used to working that long, so he has to scramble for new ideas and things get interesting. Predictably, some of this is dull.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd hear Frantz Fanon quoted in a Woody Allen movie.

but that's what woody allen movies do, quote

get wilder dreams imo

elaine made me lol at "who's... sherman mayo"

that's abt as politically sophisticated as we're getting

woody's char keeps talking about being 4F, i guess in ww1? unclear if the movie knows it'd be ww1. don't think that classification system was used in ww1 but while making your roth-esque historical satire why should you have to look up anything that's not on the back cover of the wretched of the earth or inside your tiny head

Woody's character could be a hard-living 60yo?

hope to watch this in next 2 weeks, btwn baseball

(i don't expect much besides Elaine)

Watched one episode and holy shit that was terrible.

makes the wonder years look like demons

This review otm https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/12/cafe-a12.html

Watched Interiors for the first time in a dog's age (35mm); i've never hated it, and it's really funnier than ppl give it credit for (eg, Maureen Stapleton's introductory scenes; her son manages an art gallery in a Vegas casino).

There's a one-shot closeup scene of Geraldine Page watching TV, and we hear televangelist hokum. (Marybeth Hurt also says at one point that Mom's depression is being eased by "her Jesus Christ bullshit.") Interesting choice.

Diane Keaton is better than I remembered given her banal dialogue, but Richard Jordan and Sam Waterston are defeated by their hectoring, one-note mate characters.

that might be the only "peak period" film of his I've never watched. I kinda hate Waterston

Sailing perilously close to R. Kelly in SNA.

Woody could have really done something with the "Trapped In A Closet" scenario back in the '70s.

Sam Waterston as a Maoist!

Keaton is more moving here than in MANHATTAN.

well she's much icier and unsympathetic as written in Manhattan.

Not sure SW is established as a Maoist, just someone who's making a documentary about Maoists.

Watched Cafe Society, thought Carell and Jeannie Berlin had some funny moments, and damn Kristen S is purty. Eisenberg as the Woody Simulacrum is just depressing at this point. Subplot with the sister, her Marxist husband and the iced neighbor was like a mashup of Radio Days and Crimes and Misdemeanors. The burnished glow Vittorio Storaro gave the sets and locations was pleasing, but damn what is the point with these treadmill scripts?

there is no point

He's filmmaking out of habit at this point

And probably for the last twenty or so years

I watched the first episode of Crisis in Six Scenes in can't remember something that made me want to crawl out of my skin so badly

still rather liked that, the first 2 at least

still felt kinda sorry for Paulie Walnuts showing up for 3 lines in CS

The fascinating part is that his last five or six movies have, for the most part, made small to comfortable profits.

It seems like the fans he alienated in the '90s and for most of the '00s through Match Point have returned and stayed put.

he still does good biz overseas, relative to budget

"The Remarkable Laziness of Woody Allen"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/woody-allen-wonder-wheel/537876/

looking forward to reading but can I just say lol @ that cartoon

seems pretty plausible to me -- and really, for someone who's made it through a few of these movies over the last 20+ years, not much I hadn't already thought at some point. His movies now really do seem more like compulsions than works of art, with anything like "intent" or insights into life/people.

I mean, obsessive perfectionism isn't always necessary to produce great art. Schoenberg (and Pollock?) created some of his greatest works very rapidly with minimal revision. The incuriosity seems like the bigger problem. Happens to lots of old guys. I think the quality of his recent movies that I've seen is not that different from idk latter-day Eric Clapton albums or something. I liked To Rome With Love btw!

It's kind of a model of management: do the part you do, delegate the rest, and it comes down to who you hired.

idk latter-day Eric Clapton albums

(which I usually find pleasant enough but rarely spend much money on them or listen repeatedly)

Cafe Society is actually kinda good, though I think it has everything to do with Vittorio Storaro.

It looks nice; it's not good.

WA's late period encapsulated by dusting off his Mostel script for Larry David.

WA's late period encapsulated by dusting off his Mostel script for Larry David.

that movie was so unenjoyable

Yeah, I would say that's Allen's worst film - it looked so cheap and stagebound, and Larry David isn't any kind of actor (or, he doesn't get any support/direction from Allen).

It looks nice; it's not good.

Huh?