A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#201 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:10 am

What a great read, thanks for posting! Too bad the pandemic impacted what was intended to be an actual theatrical release of the film in the states, but the fact that he's openly talking about wanting to release Allen's next film in the U.S. is incredibly heartening to hear. I love his attitude toward the social politics around it too.

So much excellent news here, and now I feel compelled to support Signature Entertainment by picking up all their stuff.

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swo17
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#202 Post by swo17 » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:13 am

You're going to love this one

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Calvin
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:12 am

Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#203 Post by Calvin » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:35 am

This is a personal favourite from Signature's catalogue:

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Essentially, they're one of those distributors who specialised in releasing straight-to-bargain-bin-DVD total dreck that folk might pick up with their grocery shop, some of which eventually made it to Poundland. Of note, they have released Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Paul Schrader's Dog Eat Dog and Dying of the Light, and Takashi Miike's First Love.

As well as A Rainy Day in New York, they now appear to have taken over the rights to the films Allen made from Bullets Over Broadway to Small Time Crooks but there's no sign of a physical release (and I haven't had any response on social media or e-mail to my enquiries). They could do us a real favour by releasing a Blu-Ray of Sweet and Lowdown.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#204 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:48 am

Wow, looking at their output is really... something. I guess I don't have to worry about reinforcing their position on not caring about what people think of their release choices

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Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#205 Post by Ribs » Wed Jul 01, 2020 11:56 am

I mean, this was basically an inevitability for this movie, it's what happens to most movies that don't get sold but have something marketable (in this case mostly the cast, which is still appealing even if they had removed Allen's name from it entirely) after a year, it goes to one of these companies that just grind out titles. They're still planning a theatrical release for the Fall (presumably a very limited run, but maybe Allen makes it contractual it has to be bigger), which is better than I had expected.

The idea they're sitting on the rights to almost all the Allen movies that have become pretty hard to come by is pretty exciting, too. Would be nice to see those put out in more conventionally accessible editions that don't require importing from a raft of countries.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#206 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:09 pm

The news about being open to Rifkin's Festival is also promising for future films, considering Allen seemed to be pretty down in a recent interview, declaring that his next may be his last with no one willing to release his work.

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HitchcockLang
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#207 Post by HitchcockLang » Thu Jul 16, 2020 2:42 pm

To answer my own question above for anyone else who may be wondering. I got the German blu-ray and it worked just fine in my Region A player. No menu option to remove subtitles, but they came right off with the subtitle button on my remote.

My wife and I enjoyed the film. It felt like comfort food. It wasn't a particularly startling work of brilliance but it felt like Woody Allen. I did take issue with some of the uncomfortably unsubtle writing that felt a bit unpolished, particularly in the script's efforts to force feed its jokes to the audience. For example:
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When Chalamet's character refers to his girlfriend as a debutante and exclaims, "she came out!" and Gomez's character replies with, "She came out. Is she gay?" It's not a brilliant joke to begin with but I think it would have worked better without Gomez repeating "she came out" to drill an already unsubtle pun into our heads. A simple off-the-cuff "She's gay?" would have been a bit more successful, I think.
Or
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When Law's character starts telling himself to breathe and Fanning's character starts breathing, this actually made me chuckle a bit, but when Law's character had to articulate, "Me, not you," it sucked all the humor right out of the scene for me.
Or
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When Chalamet has to articulate that Fanning has been loved "spiritually, emotionally, and physically," rather than letting that just sit under the surface for audience to discover for themselves.
Ultimately, an audience likes noticing or discovering or articulating elements of a film for itself. It makes a filmgoer feel smart even if it doesn't take an enormous leap to get there. When a script spells everything out in this way that grossly underestimates its audience, it makes the film feel a bit hollow.

On another topic, regarding all the hate people have had for Chalamet's character's name (Gatsby Welles),
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I found the revelation that his mother was living a life of caricatured intellectualism in an effort to erase her identity as a sex worker to make the name ring true. Like of course she would name her son Gatsby.
Ultimately, I had a good time watching it, but it's not rocketing to the top of my list of favorite Allens anytime soon. I found Chalamet's character exceedingly unlikable and his performance (especially in the voice over) to be wooden and awkward. I found Fanning's character to be quite charming. I often felt like who the movie wanted me to root for and like was always at odds with who I was actually rooting for and liking. But still, glad I got to see it finally and it's not nearly as bad as all the anti-Woody reviews would have you believe. Just don't expect Manhattan, or even Midnight in Paris.

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domino harvey
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#208 Post by domino harvey » Mon Aug 17, 2020 1:42 pm

FYI, though the UK Blu-ray's packaging says the aspect ratio is 1.85, it's actually the correct 2.00

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FrauBlucher
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#209 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed Sep 09, 2020 7:44 pm


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Fiery Angel
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#210 Post by Fiery Angel » Thu Sep 10, 2020 9:39 am

I just bought the UK Blu, so of course this gets released stateside.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#211 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Sep 10, 2020 9:46 am

So did I, but it's not like WA's films are loaded with extras to differentiate releases and the price winds up being about the same, so worst case scenario you paid a dollar more to see it 1-2 months earlier

I thought Signature Entertainment was in control of stateside distribution- did something change or am I in the dark about their relationship to MPI?

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Ribs
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#212 Post by Ribs » Thu Sep 17, 2020 11:17 am

US Theatrical release set for October 9, "select theaters nationwide."

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#213 Post by The Narrator Returns » Sat Sep 19, 2020 3:06 pm

I can generally at least find something to like in Woody Allen movies (and I think Rifkin's Festival from the trailer looks alright), but I thought this was awful. This has the worst collection of performances in any Allen movie, most of its all-star cast dutifully phoning it in and Chalamet and Fanning outright embarrassing themselves (Fanning is such a good internal actor, I've never seen her this labored and broad before); Selena Gomez is about the only one I have anything positive to say about. The words that these people have to say are the mustiest, most out-of-date one-liners of Allen's career, I don't know whose ribs are still getting tickled by Yasser Arafat jokes. And what happened to the expressive visuals of the previous two Storaro collaborations? This is the blandest work I've ever seen Storaro deliver, there's hardly any interesting color usage anywhere in the movie and the compositions are flat and occasionally completely thoughtless (any comedy in the scene at Diego Luna's apartment is sapped out by the baffling use of stilted wide shots to film it). This really feels like a movie Allen made only because he had to make a movie that year.

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knives
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#214 Post by knives » Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:44 pm

Put me in the camp that loved this. I actually accidentally thought Allen himself was doing the voice over Chalemet so perfectly is Woody Allen as wasp. That’s, for me, kind of the pleasure of Allen doing a Hong like reworking of the past even more so than the usual. Fanning is basically remaking Scoop by way of Irrational Man for instance and somehow merely changing actors brings a powerful verve to it and lets one understand what makes the Allen quality so worthwhile.

Also the irony of watching this on Prime is too delicious for me to survive.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#215 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:09 pm

knives wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:44 pm
Also the irony of watching this on Prime is too delicious for me to survive.
I can't decide if I find that yielding awesome or the hypocrisy infuriating

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knives
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#216 Post by knives » Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:39 pm

I imagine it’s at most hypocrisy. Probably whoever okays films just doesn’t care about company politics and the organization is just indifferent.

Also Selena Gomez just steals this film and proves once again why she should have a bigger acting career (yes, I know she focuses on music). It’s not my favorite of his movies at the moment, but damn does she make it feel great. Same thing with Luna who plays off Fanning in a perfect sort of way.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#217 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Apr 18, 2021 11:07 pm

I think it's one of his best films and a perfect encapsulation of Allen's wise later years, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. It's also one of three WA films on my 2010s list, but two equally-undervalued films are ahead of it (well one that isn't here, one that definitely is- though I think we share a two-man club on favoring that black sheep too)

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knives
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#218 Post by knives » Sun Apr 18, 2021 11:16 pm

I suspect I know which two pieces of magical we irrationally love you’re referring. I suspect as I sit with it and especially that ending, one of Allen’s best and most sweet, I’ll argue myself into loving it more. It definitely shows an Allen free of bitterness hoping for the best the future can hold which is an approach I’m glad to be getting now.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#219 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Apr 18, 2021 11:26 pm

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knives wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 11:16 pm
It definitely shows an Allen free of bitterness hoping for the best the future can hold which is an approach I’m glad to be getting now.
It's perfect timing when you watch his recent interviews and read the memoir. You can really see this change in spirit as he begins to accept and embrace his existential situation moving closer to his greatest fear.

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John Cope
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#220 Post by John Cope » Mon Apr 19, 2021 4:46 am

Ultimately I liked this quite a bit, though it took me awhile to warm up to it. In fact, I think it may be one of Allen's best and most vital films, which I didn't expect at all (right up there with Wonder Wheel, my other post-Match Point favorite). The humor is more low key than ever, more low key even than in much of his recent work though I've never exactly considered him to be laugh out loud hilarious (except maybe in some of his earliest films); it's less funny than fitfully amusing. It's a pleasant enough pastiche of familiar Allen motifs though and for awhile I thought that was all it was. But slowly I recognized a lot more in it.

What makes it especially special, I think, is the rather remarkable way in which Allen uses it to address himself directly in a way that is, while not entirely a hostile critique, far more bold and honest than I would have ever expected. I have a kind of contentious relationship with much of Woody's work; for instance, I really hate Vicky Cristina Barcelona as the apex of what I dislike most which is his endless and transparent desire to be accepted as properly within a certain cultural sphere with all the attendant reference points to indicate that. There's just something sickeningly desperate and shallow about that. But here, for the first time I can really recall, he lets his guard down and, through his proxy characters, allows for an acknowledgement of the specifics behind that need as well as allowing for the way in which it can all be critiqued or dismissed by the unsympathetic. Over and over again the Chalamet character is taken to task by others for his shortcomings while he acknowledges over and over again that the principles which motivate him are, at base, far more romantic ones than theirs and that he has no real interest in or patience with the more rarefied realms he is supposed to want to be part of. So, it's a wistful giving up of those pretensions actually which is quietly startling. And a proxy can be found in the Schreiber character, too, a director of acclaimed films who longs for a muse to inspire him and who does not hide his vulnerabilities. This is all handled with the light touch of light romantic comedy so it never comes across as ponderous and the admissions regarding privilege are almost casual asides, softly muted and conflicted but nevertheless informative and revealing.

Maybe this is why the film is situated within the context of younger characters. At first, as has been said by some ad nauseam, these characters seem openly incongruous and anachronistic, but that is of course part of the point and not some mistake. I doubt Allen cares much or at all as to whether any of this reflects someone else's reality (as the Gomez character says, "Real life is fine for people who can't do any better."). He's long since gone beyond that and to fixate on it utterly misses the point. These are incongruous characters by nature; that is simply who they are and they are not conceived to be representative of anyone beyond themselves and their own slightly out of time wistful longing, all of this evidencing a naive romantic sincerity most recognizable among the young and more open. And composition of characters like that is itself an admission by the artist. In a key early scene Chalamet's character is confronted during his walk by an old associate from school whose crassness contrasts starkly with his own poise; that sets up the series of contrasts, disappointments and renewals throughout. There's a poignancy to what is revealingly exposed in this film which is more moving than funny but resonates as uniquely honest in its truth and, yes, real in the best and most thoroughgoing of senses.

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knives
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Re: A Rainy Day in New York (Woody Allen, 2019)

#221 Post by knives » Mon Apr 19, 2021 6:29 am

In that context as well I find it interesting that Allen makes the world outside the WASP, the working class Jewish world of his youth, a matter of gambling which of course is what Mamet did as well in House of Games. It’s interesting to see that metaphor be the natural arrival point for such a self reflection.

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