woody allen

one thing that was new to me was how quickly, in 1992, the media accepted woody allen's self-serving version of what happened: headlines reading "woody's in love" and shit like that.

There was the lazy guff about autobiographical connections between his romantic life and Husbands and Wives, perhaps to sell an uncommercial film (and still one of his best for those who can still watch him).

Speaking of, several Woody films - including my personal fave Crimes & Misdemeanours - are basically about how there's no morality to existence, you can do heinous shit and not get punished for it at all. Which I realise isn't a thought he came up with himself.

https://www.journaloftheplagueyear.ink/blog/the-germaphobe

I've never been a Woody Allen fan, but I'm also not comfortable making inferences based on the themes or subject matter of his films. There's well enough gross stuff on its own.

I agree in broad terms but woody spent his career inviting us to blur the line between him and his onscreen persona

and it's not like you have to do "reading" on Manhattan, it's the text not the subtext

I know, it's gross. It just seems a precarious road to go down, whether in film, music, literature, whatever. As does the contrary, for that matter. Cosby was a family man, etc., a role model, "The Cosby Show," and so on.

I think we can think about how artist's work dovetails with their personal lives without then jumping to the conclusion that any artist whose work expresses troubling themes must be a bad person in real life

What I found interesting years ago was the non-stuttering, focused guy he was in serious interviews.

I don’t think it changes anything about Allen’s terrible behavior (including trying to paint Farrow as a monster in the press), but white ladies who adopt a bunch of babies from other parts of the world give me pause, and, as Lily says, there’s no reason not to believe Moses’s account of his own experience growing up in that family.

I think some of the stuff from Moses is at least a little suspect. He was clearly enamored with Woody and he may not have had a great relationship with Mia. You can kinda surmise that Mia had her own issues as a parent, but his take that she was the real monster seems at odds with the other (nine?) kids and he seems essentially estranged from the entire Farrow clan. And according to Ronan, Woody was not above bribing his kids to publicly back him. And that major minor authoritative detail Moses dropped about there not even being a train set in the attic was contradicted by police reports.

Some stuff in this was new to me. Woody had to see a therapist about his inappropriate behavior towards Dylan. And that Yale clinic stunt punctuated with a press conference out front “clearing” him was transparently bogus and ridiculous. Some of those taped phone conversations were chilling. Mia point blank asking him, multiple times, where he and Dylan disappeared to for 20 minutes that day and his repeated blank non-answer of “just wait and see, all that will come out, just wait and see” “why can’t you tell me now” “the truth will come out” etc.

Stacking the accusations (which seem entirely credible) with his public handling of it reveals a genuinely fucked up human being. Woody’s charming persona in press conferences seriously dropping this *cough cough* “the wild imaginative vindictiveness of a woman scorned” bullshit delicately stepping around the fact that this scorning was you fucking her (and borderline your) daughter since she was in high school. Also you’re here in the first place because you’ve been accused of sexually abusing another daughter, this one 7 years old. The one you’ll sue for sole custody of shortly.

Fuck Woody Allen tbh. I suspect he’s not a good guy.

he should be shot. i'm extremely bitter about how his fans have behaved over the years tbh

This sent me down a rabbit hole that led to my discovering that Woody Allen has been featured on postage stamps in Togo and Mozambique https://t.co/ol1p2RzXF7 pic.twitter.com/TWO8JcRnhW

— Screen Slate (@ScreenSlate) July 21, 2021

Sorry for the huge embed, but that Mozambique stamp is too good

the eyes on the Togolese one...

i almost want to torrent his new film because i suspect it would be enjoyable in a "so bad its good" manner but i probably won't bother.

A Rainy Day in New York? It's on Prime. There's actually another one, filmed afterwards, called Rifkin's Festival. It has only been released in Spain.

Not even released in Togo, that's how bad it is.

yes, rifkin's festival was the one. i wouldn't even want to watch on prime as i wouldn't like to boost the analytics.

The film-after-next will be his 50th! Not including What's Up Tiger Lily?, which barely counts. Wonder what delights he has in store for us?

i watched a few minutes of Rainy Day. It's bad. Rifkin's is supposed to be okay.

I sadly know enough movie bros who believe in some shade of Woody Allen Innocent and even they couldn't find a way to defend Rainy Dar or Rifkin's.

https://www.thewrap.com/woody-allen-rifkins-festival-box-office/

Woody Allen has posted the lowest box office opening weekend of his career with his 49th film, “Rifkin’s Festival,” grossing just $24,000 on Friday and Saturday from 26 theaters, according to box office sources.

Most of the theaters screening the film are owned by Landmark Theaters, whose flagship Los Angeles location posted the highest single theater total for the film with $2,300. Other theaters outside of Landmark’s circuit screening the film include the Quad Theatre in New York City, where the film grossed $1,600 over two days.

wondered if this was an RIP. almost is.

Also, in a thankless move but as someone who has often spoken his view of truth to power, Wallace Shawn writes about why he took the role in Rifkin's Festival.

woody allen and twiggy. i feel vindicated in never liking this fraud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2VCbxVVDQk

The Twigster destroyed him.

The film-after-next will be his 50th! Not including What's Up Tiger Lily?, which barely counts. Wonder what delights he has in store for us?

A French-language 'Sinister Thriller'...and then retirement from film to write books and short pieces.

https://variety.com/2022/film/global/woody-allen-retirement-1235375939/

I thought this was going to be about Rosie O-Donnell on Howard Stern:

In the case of Allen, the film was 1999's Sweet and Lowdown, with Sean Penn and Uma Thurman. "I had done an HBO special where I said everything about him," O'Donnell told Stern. (Spoiler: She did not have good things to say about Allen.) "And then I got on my show. So it's the first year of my show and I get a call and they said, 'He wants you to be in (Sweet and Lowdown). I said, 'Please send him my HBO special.' And the woman said, 'Oh he's already seen it.' And I said, 'Send it anyway with two words: F--- and no.' And I sent it to him."

According to O'Donnell, Allen's team persisted in asking after her to play a role despite her comments. "They called back and said, 'He really wants you to do it. He'd like to talk to you about it,'" she recalled. "I said, 'I'm not doing it. I'm not working for him or with him and being associated with him.'"

Allen also was reportedly surprised when Mia Farrow didn't want to star in Manhattan Murder Mystery after the allegations emerged.

Cosmic levels of self-absorption, zero self-awareness.

Guess we'll never get to see some of these.

Woody's next 50: pic.twitter.com/ZGI6ZW2fgY

— Tim Heidecker (@timheidecker) June 21, 2016

He’s retiring to spend more time marrying his family. https://t.co/CLW0SOsYRe

— Ariel Dumas (@ArielDumas) September 18, 2022

Allen's people now saying the original source misquoted him, and that he has no plans to retire from filmmaking.