Woody Allen

[Highway 61]

Why is there a common misconception that the majority of Woody Allen's have "good transfers" on DVD?

My theory is that while they're mostly unrestored, people are happy that they appear unmanipulated. When rereleases of the big titles do come, a color/contrast debate is almost inevitable, especially since Allen is not going to be involved whatsoever.

[AWA]

As with Manhattan Murder Mystery before it, I found it a thoroughly enjoyable comedy with smarts and substance to spare, making me wonder why so many people seem to pick MMM as the cutoff point before Woody went downhill.

I think the consensus - and bear in mind that I think consensus is an idiot - is that his films went downhill from Celebrity on. Everyone Says I Love You got great reviews, as did Deconstructing Harry, but Celebrity was just savaged.

Actually, in retrospect I think his mid 90's films have aged well but it would be a bit of revisionist history to say that Deconstructing Harry - or even Everyone... or Mighty Aphrodite ... got good reviews upon it's release.

See MetaCritic.com for the real story... note how the original critic reviews land it with an average-at-best score of 61/100 while fans there rate it 9.2/10 (and, by and large, I think most Woody fans agree these days that Harry is one of his major pieces of work and probably the best, most significant... and original / unusual film post Husbands And Wives).

The truth of the matter is - Woody's 90's films are pretty good, even the worst of them - Alice, Shadows & Fog, Mighty Aphrodite and Celebrity - are all good enough that if they were released with anyone else's name on them they would have been critically adored. And the reviews of such films as Harry make a very strong case that the critics have been trying to have at Allen now for 15 some odd years, saying his best films were "way back when", even though time is doing a lot to make a mockery out of most of those critics.

Woody's output in the early part of this decade certainly helped that notion, as four or five straight films were not amongst his best, but under their noses he's become pretty good at developing a Hitchcockian method of suspense in his films(esp Match Point, Cassandra's Dream and Scoop, all his latest, but also going back lighter brushes of it in parts of Small Time Crooks, Manhattan Murder Mystery, etc).

So ... at any rate... my point being is that "sevenarts"'s blog covering Woody's career in chronological order is, to me, unveiling what most fans of Woody already know and what most critics might discover if they did the same - when rewatching all of Woody's films, especially in chronological order, long past their release date, you find that the films outlive their criticisms and the trends they (often) ignored that, at times, made them unfashionable with the critics. I look forward to seeing how sevenarts' blog carries through the last stage of Woody's ongoing career. Even if it is preaching to the choir

[sevenarts]

I watched Don't Drink the Water tonight. Not very characteristic of Woody at this point in his career, it betrays its origins as one of his early plays. I haven't seen the original film version that Woody hated so much, but this one is funny if lightweight. The banter between Woody and Julie Kavner is hilarious, Dom DeLuise is brilliant as a magic-obsessed priest (he's got "a hobby besides God"), and even Blossom is pretty good though the romance bits between her and Michael J Fox are fairly extraneous. Not top-notch Woody, but a fine entertainment.

[Polybius]

Do people really say that 80s Woody is bad? Broadway Danny Rose, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Another Woman, and obviously Crimes and Misdemeanors -- I'd rank all those as among his best. I definitely prefer these films to the "early, funny ones," at least, though I'd throw in some of the late 70s films as great ones as well.

That pretty well covers my opinion, also.

I would single out Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days and Crimes as films that stand close to Manhattan and Annie Hall. Maybe a step lower, but no more than one.

If he really got turned down by Tom Hanks, I hope he eventually recognizes that for the stroke of luck that it was.

[Antoine Doinel]

Finally got around to watching Another Woman tonight and I thought it was a fine, if unexceptional, chamber drama. I thought it was a fascinating premise, but unfortunately two major things prevented the film from being truly great in my eyes. For an already short film, I felt the dream sequence, in addition to being overbearingly Freudian (even for Woody) was just far too long. Moreover, Mia Farrow's character is disposed of rather shabbily

Spoiler

suddenly she stops treatment and goes on a trip (a bit bizarre given she looked like the baby was going to spring out of her stomach)

when her use in the script is finished. These two clumsy sequences I felt hindered an otherwise elegant, powerful film. And I loved the use of Satie in the score. It was perfect.

[AWA]

Longtime Woody supporter and producer Charles H. Joffe has died.

[domino harvey]

I've got some good news for fans of the OOP Everyone Says I Love You. It's one of my favorite Allen films and I'd always regretted not picking up the non-anamorphic R1 disc before it went out of print-- and though everyone on the internet, including the usually reliable DVDCompare, claims the UK R2 DVD is non-anamorphic widescreen-- I went ahead and picked up the R2 anyways. Imagine my surprise when I pop it in and it's anamorphic. The transfer looks beautiful and costs less than five pounds right now on Amazon.co.uk

[Antoine Doinel]

I caught up with Wild Man Blues tonight, an intriguing, if slight "documentary" about Woody Allen's European tour with his jazz band. I use quotes because it's not really about his band, or about Allen or even about his films, though the film touches on them from time to time. It's really just following Woody around for a few weeks, and in that sense, the film is really only for more dedicated Woody fans (which I guess I am). The most eye-opening portions of the film are really about the relationship between Soon Yi and Woody, which at the time of the film's making was a controversy and is something, that even until now, plagues Woody at least among the American press. But Kopple does show why their relationship works; she really keeps his ego in check and I think her unfamiliarity with his work is necessity (at the time of the film, she hadn't yet seen Annie Hall and didn't seem aware that Woody is not in many of the dramas he directed). If anything, the film is worth it for the last five or ten minutes with Woody's parents --- it really puts his neuroses into perspective.

[sevenarts]

Continuing my chronological journey through Woody's films, tonight I watched Mighty Aphrodite. Not one of his best, but still very funny, at least once Mira Sorvino enters the film after about 20 minutes of rehashed self-recycling. Sorvino's performance is really a wonder, echoing bits and pieces of past performances by Mia Farrow, Jennifer Tilly, and Marisa Tomei, but on the whole adding up to something completely her own. That voice! I also loved pretty much everything with the Greek chorus, which was just hilarious, especially when they call Zeus and get his answering machine.

[domino harvey]

Mira Sorvino is one of the greatest crash and burns in Oscar history. She was only good in one more movie, made I believe right after this, the supremely awful Norma Jean and Marilyn. Sorvino's Monroe is absolutely brilliant in how she single-handedly rises above the material to undermine the whole film, which for this garbage was a Herculean task. Sorvino's very very obvious contempt for Monroe and the film she is in shows in her portrayal-- Sorvino just plays the entire role as if it came from a different movie critiquing the film she's in. It's almost worth suffering through the hour she's not on-screen to see it. Sorvino was obviously very talented and intelligent, so I'm guessing she must've really pissed off her agent something fierce to so colossally blow her career post-win.

[King Prendergast]

Mira Sorvino is one of the greatest crash and burns in Oscar history.

At least she hasn't stooped to doing underwear commercials now like Cuba Gooding

[AWA]

Continuing my chronological journey through Woody's film, tonight I watched Mighty Aphrodite. Not one of his best, but still very funny, at least once Mira Sorvino enters the film after about 20 minutes of rehashed self-recycling.

It will be interesting to see your take on all things Woody from this point on, as Mighty Aphrodite is where signs of things loosening up for him started if you ask me.

Next is Everyone Says I Love You, which is on scale with Mighty Aphrodite as a good, enjoyable film that sees Woody playing with a device (this time a musical format) while recycling some older themes (the spying on a psychiatrist's office from Another Woman).

And then you get one my absolute favorites when he snaps out of it and suddenly regains his cutting edge (this time with a rusty blade), Deconstructing Harry, which I would say is one of his absolute best, even if he recycles some editing ideas from Husbands & Wives.

[Svevan]

Deconstructing Harry is not only well-written and funny, but has a great visual presentation, similar to Husbands and Wives documentary aesthetic. Love the scene where the cops pull up.

[Antoine Doinel]

Allen forced to honor a promise to make an opera because he thought he would be dead.

[Sanjuro]

Actually, in retrospect I think his mid 90's films have aged well but it would be a bit of revisionist history to say that Deconstructing Harry - or even Everyone... or Mighty Aphrodite ... got good reviews upon it's release.

I'm pretty sure I saw Deconstructing Harry before I was a Woody Allen fan and was just taking advantage of my short time in London by going to see as many movies as possible that got fairly good reviews. What did Sight & Sound have to say about it at the time?

[Antoine Doinel]

Some douchebag (c'mon, just look at his picture!) over at the always irritating Guardian film blogs takes a illtimed photo of Woody and uses it to drag out "Allen is an old, perverted, no longer relevant guy" argument.

Seriously, what is the hiring process for these blogs?

[thirtyframesasecond]

Even as a Guardian reader, I'm increasingly fed up with most aspects of the newspaper. Their cultural output is severely declining, most of the blogs are completely uninspiring (there's an awful self-validating blog about Noel Gallagher insulting Guardian journalists), and the writer's aren't very interesting.

Most hilarious of all was a recent travel blog to be written by a gap year student who it emerged was the son of a travel writer who has written for the Guardian in the past. Cue ferocious responses from the Guardian's readers, pithy rebuttals by the paper and the whole idea scrapped.

[Tom Hagen]

The A.V. Club's Scott Tobias interviews Woody on Vicky Christina Barcelona (spoilers) and other topics.

[AWA]

Great new interview with Woody from the Village Voice where he mentions he intends to return to film in Europe next year (now that "Whatever Works" is completed), humorously paraphrases the criticisms and praise he's likely to get for the Larry David starring film "Whatever Works", directing opera and, of course, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

[sevenarts]

Everyone Says I Love You. Lots of fun, even if not every one of its musical numbers actually comes off, and even despite some niggling doubts about details here and there. Mostly, just a joyous tribute to the musical, with at least two jaw-dropping numbers: the jewelry store song-and-dance with its patterned choreography, and the final dance by the banks of the Seine between Woody and Goldie Hawn.

[Antoine Doinel]

Woody Allen's opera stint has debuted and seems to have been warmly received.

And there was laughter from the audience when the performance began with black-and-white credits being projected on to a movie screen.

[kinjitsu]

Anthony Tommasini in the NY Times and Mark Swed in the LA Times

[Dylan]

Woody Allen's opera stint has debuted and seems to have been warmly received.

And there was laughter from the audience when the performance began with black-and-white credits being projected on to a movie screen.

That's great. Does anybody know if he did the same thing with his plays?

[tavernier]

And there was laughter from the audience when the performance began with black-and-white credits being projected on to a movie screen.

That's great. Does anybody know if he did the same thing with his plays?

I don't recall that at the few plays of his I've seen off-Broadway.

[Gregory]

I just watched Celebrity as part of a slow process of watching the remaining Allens I haven't seen (a few from the mid-'90s and Hollywood Ending are about all that's left). I find myself siding with neither its defenders nor those who say it's among his worst. It's main flaw is that it doesn't do anything strikingly new or better than in his other work, so it would probably seem better to those unfamiliar with his body of work. Some of the scenes were almost generic Allen, such as the breakup/divorce scene, or the middle-aged man naively pursuing a much younger woman (this is handled differently in Manhattan, of course).
The other thing that bothered me was Branagh's performance. It seems like his idea of reading Allen's dialogue is doing an impression of Allen's verbal mannerisms, especially in the first part of the film. I know he's sort of an Allen stand-in and was trying to fill the shoes of an established screen presence, but he really should have put something more of his own talent into the performance. The way he channeled Allen at times made it like some sort of puppet show. Aside from these criticisms, the film seemed well done.
I can't relate to a couple of zedz's observations about the film, and I point these out just because they seem interesting in terms of discussion. One was that there were two Allen stand-ins crowding the film. This might seem like a dumb question, zedz, but who did you have in mind as the second? I would guess either Mantegna, as the other main male character, although he didn't seem to fit the bill to me at all, or Judy Davis with her neurotic performance, which I thought was a bit different from his persona.
The other observation I wanted to address was that almost all the jokes were lame. I did notice several that weren't really funny, such as the banana-fellatio bit, or Branagh having to go searching for echinacea for Theron. As much as I enjoyed Theron's performance, that whole part felt too much like a consciously inserted "situation" meant to be funny and establish Branagh's character as a sympathetic loser. Aside from that, I didn't find many actual "jokes" read the film as a comedy at all. The high school reunion scene anchors it as a serious film, and in any case it seemed like there were intentionally fewer punchlines than in most of his work. It would have been interesting to see this in the theater to see if people were really laughing at things like his girlfriend/editor throwing the manuscript of the book he loved into the water. Well, that's probably a long enough post about Celebrity. Probably no one's even still reading by now except possibly Dylan.