Tag Archives: woody allen

Reading Documentary led me to watch THE MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA (1929) in which Russian director/cameraman Dziga Vertov chronicles a day in the life of the USSR: trolley rides, industrial workers, sports competitions, a magician at a kids’ party, young women with parasols and crowds rushing two and from work. Vertov hoped to create an international language of pure visuals, without the use of intertitles; an impressive job, though constantly filming his camera crews at work undercuts the realism.

Given Woody Allen’s nostalgic streak I’m surprised the 1950s-set WONDER WHEEL (2018) isn’t a Radio Days-style tribute to Coney Island’s past. Instead, it’s a Tennessee Williams-style psychodrama in which lifeguard Justin Timberlake narrates how he came to have an affair with Kate Winslett, only to have the arrival of her stepdaughter Juno Temple (fleeing her mobster spouse) throw everything into chaos. Not only does Timberlake fall for Temple, Winslett’s husband Jim Belushi finds himself siding with his estranged child over his wife, all of which culminates in tragedy and heartbreak. A hamfisted drama with characters who are way too self-aware and dialog too self-consciously theatrical; Timberlake explains that away as his fallible memory but it still doesn’t work. And like Blue Jasmine this has echoes of Allen’s affair with Mia Farrow’s daughter and not in a good way (once again everything would have been fine if the Mom wasn’t such a bitch).“What power — to tell a tragic story about the human condition and how we have to lie to ourselves to live!”

#SFWApro. All rights to image remain with current holder.

I began watching Woody Allen’s films back in 2011 with What’s Up Tiger Lily? and with Cafe Society this week I’ve sort-of finished. Only sort-of, because Allen’s still making movies — Big Wheel comes out later this year — and I wasn’t able to get most of his 1990s output without paying for DVDs (why neither my library nor Netflix has ’em, I know not).

What got me to work through his filmography (and to keep going despite charges he’s a child abuser) was how much his films changed over the years, from the sketch comedy of Take the Money and Run to more sophisticated comedies to rom-coms to pretentious dramas like Crimes and Misdemeanors. It’s a remarkable spread. Even if the films weren’t always to my taste (and little of his 21st century stuff was), the effort was worthwhile.

CAFE SOCIETY (2016) is one of those 21st century films that flopped for me. It starts off reasonably well as Jesse Eisenberg arrives in 1930s Hollywood and falls for uncle Steve Carrell’s secretary Kristen Stewart, unaware that Stewart is also Carrell’s mistress. Unfortunately this gets resolved mid-movie, leaving us watching Eisenberg rising to success and marrying well back in New York, which wasn’t terribly interesting, and his mobster brother’s subplot which isn’t interesting at all. I get the feeling Allen was shooting for more of a 1930s panorama than just the romantic plotline, but whatever the reason, it was a bad call.”Today we discussed the sixth psalm — oh lord, do not punish me in anger.”

I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG (2008) stars Kristin Scott Thomas (above right; all rights to image remain with current holder) a woman newly released from prison after 15 years for killing her son, and moving in with her sister, much to the discomfort of everyone, including the brother-in-law worrying child-killing might turn into a pattern. This is so low-key, and Thomas so emotionally withdrawn for much of the film that it took me a long while to warm up to the film. Ultimately though, it was worthwhile. “We think we know everything nowadays, but we don’t know the source of a river.”

LA BUCHE (1999) proves the French can do Christmas Family Gathering Films as well as Americans, though not any better—I stopped watching midway through, but that was more the Christmas Eve time crunch than a failing in the film.

While I enjoyed Allen’s early crime comedy Take the Money and Run, serious crime films (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point) are not his strength. Case in point, the noir wannabe CASSANDRA’S DREAM (2007) wherein ambitious working-class brothers Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell try to touch up uncle Tom Wilkinson for some financing, only to learn that he expects a favor in return (“I cannot afford to have him testify, and he isn’t amenable to reason.”). While this has all the ingredients to work, Allen’s style is too naturalistic to really work with the material. Hayley Attwell (the MCU’s Peggy Carter) plays McGregor’s lover. “If you look at anything up close, you reveal all the ugly imperfections!”

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA (2008) transfers the typical Allen romantic entanglements and neurotics (as the title women, both Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johannson are versions of the Frustrated Intellectual Woman Diane Keaton played so often) to Barcelona, where they get to bed artist Javier Bardem despite his crazy ex Penelope Cruz turning up. Unfortunately the pretty locations and pretty people are bogged down in pretentious intellectual discussion about feelings, making this so tedious I’d double-bill it with the nigh-unwatchable September. “She speaks my language—you and I would be at each other’s throats in a moment.”

NEW YEAR’S EVE (2011) was an earlier entry in the same Grand Hotel cycle as Christmas Eve, showing various characters (many of whose stories intersect as we reach the finish) dealing with various crises and challenges on Dec. 31. Can Hilary Swank pull off the Times Square ball drop? Will Josh Duhamel reach New York for his midnight kiss with a mystery woman? Will Jon bon Jovi and Katherine Heigl ever reconcile after he dumped her a year earlier? Will holiday cynic Ashton Kutcher and backup singer Lea Michelle connect when they’re trapped in an elevator? And what about single mother Sarah Jessica Parker and terminally ill Robert deNiro? Not groundbreaking, but enough pieces work that the whole thing gets a thumb up. “It’s not a kick, it’s a core tenet of my being!”

THE FEMINIST AND THE FUZZ (1971) are pediatrician Barbara Eden and sexist cop David Hartman, who despite finding each other Obnoxious and Irritating agree to become roommates in one of the few affordable apartments in San Francisco — he works nights, she works days, so obviously there won’t be any problems or complications, right? Actually more annoyingly sexist than I remembered it in having Hartman be consistently right about everything, where Eden, like most feminists of the era, is irrational about everything and flies off the handle (and her feminist friends, led by Jo Ann Worley, are even worse). However I did like Eden’s explanation of how going from shy nerd to sexy turned her feminist (“The only thing that made men back off was when they realized how smart I was.”). Well cast, with John McIver as the clueless landlord, Harry Morgan as Eden’s father, Julie Newmar as a hooker and a pre-fame Farrah Fawcett as Hartman’s Playboy bunny girlfriend. All rights to the image remain with current holder.  “Like the little old lady said, you have bulges.”