Woody Allen

[Aunt Peg]

At the time of their releases Annie Hall & Husbands & Wives were seen as semi-autobiographical. Annie Hall more so for Diane Keaton than Woody Allen though.

[Blutarsky]

According to blu-ray.com, Allen’s Orion/MGM films are being released now by Sandpiper Pictures.

[Ribs]

Just the TT titles, not all of them - so, once again, it appears the new transfers of Annie Hall and Manhattan are to remain unreleased.

[hearthesilence]

I see Sandpiper's Blu-rays are not only up on Amazon but marked down to $20 (33% off). Still not that cheap, but given what prices were on the Twilight Time editions several months ago, they're all much more affordable now.

[swo17]

All of these titles were included in the Arrow boxes, correct?

[hearthesilence]

I think so. FWIW, they even recycled the same Twilight Time artwork, including the atrocious one for Purple Rose of Cairo.

[starmanof51]

I think so. FWIW, they even recycled the same Twilight Time artwork, including the atrocious one for Purple Rose of Cairo.

lol, that's the only one of this batch I kind of like.

[relaxok]

Finally got around to watching Wonder Wheel. The whole Amazon fiasco left a bad taste in my mouth and I’ve been slow to check out things of that era (still no Rifkin’s Festival), but tossed it on today.

All in all, very disappointing. I feel like this would have worked better as a stage play with a few different nice Coney Island sets, but for the most part they wasted the location entirely - the setting is a beach and boardwalk amusement park and it almost all takes place in a stage-like set in their apartment. The camera barely moved and some scenes went on forever.

By far the worst part of the film was Timberlake. The lifeguard writer character was bizarre to begin with and the script doesn’t do him any favors but he was just woefully miscast. You can tell he’s trying but he’s just not pulling it off.

Juno Temple was serviceable. She doesn’t have much to do besides seem needy.

Jim Belushi was really chewing the scenery which was okay to me for a sort of carny character - but the transition from being furious his daughter showed up to falling all over himself to help her and pay for school etc was on a dime and out of nowhere. It almost felt like some crucial scenes were edited out.

So now you get down to Winslet. Not some of her finest work - especially when you put it up against something as nuanced as Mare of Easttown. She’s pretty one note, a ball of stress and worry and you don’t get any sense that she is even really enjoying her time with Mickey. There are no stakes to their relationship..

It’s rare for WA films to not charm me at all, to evoke no emotions in me and to not feel for any of the characters - but here we are — there was just no nuance and nothing felt real. None of this would ever happen.

Even on the technical side I was not feeling it - it was lit garishly and completely over the top with the saturation.

Feeling around a 3/10, one of his weakest films.

[Stefan Andersson]

Allen´s pre-Annie Hall films are no longer with MGM, they reverted to Allen and are now being released by Sandpiper Pictures:
Bananas
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex
Sleeper ( Not available at Sandpiper) Available as Import from Arrow
Love and Death

Source: https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... ua.383228/

[ChunkyLover]

Sandpiper are licensing from MGM.

[beamish14]

Debut novel due out this fall

[Lowry_Sam]

Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns Allen's appearance at Moscow film festival.

[TMDaines]

Man unwelcome in a lot of places heads to the world's cess pool. "Only good feelings for Moscow", indeed.

[The Curious Sofa]

I never thought he would go down the Steven Seagal route. He is certainly doing his best to ruin his reputation even with those who believe the child abuse allegations were a set-up.

[pistolwink]

I like the implied juxtaposition of "artistic conversations" and... the movies Woody Allen has made over the last 10–15 years. Quite a conversation.

[Maltic]

Can't wait for the MosFilm follow-up to Rifkin's Festival.

[relaxok]

I like the implied juxtaposition of "artistic conversations" and... the movies Woody Allen has made over the last 10–15 years. Quite a conversation.

I’ll go to bat for a few including Cafe Society.

[nicolas]

I like the implied juxtaposition of "artistic conversations" and... the movies Woody Allen has made over the last 10–15 years. Quite a conversation.

Yep, he’s given us some of his best during that time. Midnight in Paris, Blue Jasmine and Coup de Chance are all brilliant and To Rome with Love is excellent. Magic in the Moonlight and Irrational Man aren’t that far below either.

[hearthesilence]

At this point, he's clearly disinterested in a comeback, otherwise he'd get a publicity team to cultivate his public image rather than doing things like this:

Woody Allen, appearing as a guest on Bill Maher‘s Club Random podcast, says he’s not a “Trumper” but can attest to the president’s acting ability.

“I’m one of the few people who can say he directed Trump,” Allen says. “I directed Trump in a movie.”

That movie would be Allen’s 1998 Celebrity, in which Trump, playing himself, appears onscreen for 11 seconds to tell an interviewer that he’s planning to purchased Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in order to tear it down and replacing it with a “very, very tall and beautiful building.”

Not exactly a stretch, acting-wise, but Allen was impressed, saying, “he was, a pleasure to work with and a very good actor. He was very polite…and hit his mark and did everything correctly and had a real flair for show business.”

Maher jumped in to offer his usual warnings about getting criticized for saying nice things about Trump and how different the president is in private. “If you think you were canceled before…”

Allen responds, “Well, you know, I’m a Democrat. I voted for Kamala Harris. And I take issue with him, you know, on 95 percent of the things. Maybe 99 percent. But as an actor, he was very good. He was very convincing and very, you know, he has a charismatic quality as an actor.

It's not an endorsement of the Trump administration, just the opposite, but it's not something that's likely to go over well either.

[criterionsnob]

And Criterion Channel just added Shadows and Fog today. Is this the first time one of his films has been on the channel?

[The Curious Sofa]

I like the implied juxtaposition of "artistic conversations" and... the movies Woody Allen has made over the last 10–15 years. Quite a conversation.

Yep, he’s given us some of his best during that time. Midnight in Paris, Blue Jasmine and Coup de Chance are all brilliant and To Rome with Love is excellent. Magic in the Moonlight and Irrational Man aren’t that far below either.

A someone who thinks Bullets Over Broadway was Allen's last great film and Match Point his last good one, I wasn't convinced by any of these. I haven't seen To Rome with Love and Coup de Chance but doubt they'll rekindle my passion for his work

[crimlaw]

The ‘singing in the shower’ opera scenes in To Rome with Love were very amusing.

Comedy is so subjective.

[Lowry_Sam]

And Criterion Channel just added Shadows and Fog today. Is this the first time one of his films has been on the channel?

I don't think so, but offhand I can't remember which have been on. It's in the Jodie Foster collection which interestingly includes The Beaver but not Silence Of The Lambs. Make of it what you will.

[hearthesilence]

The Beaver was probably very easy to license and Jodie Foster might've even asked them to include it. Remember, when it was released, Mel Gibson was a complete pariah, and even though the film was aesthetically like a middle-brow Hollywood movie, it was financially-speaking a complete indie production with investors and producers who had a lot more on the line. Foster even gave rare public appearances to promote it (including a screening and talk at Lincoln Center), but to no avail. It tanked, but she made it clear it was a personal project that meant a lot to her. I think it's the last time she's directed and starred in a film as well, though she's directed plenty of stuff since then, mostly for television.

[Lowry_Sam]

A someone who thinks Bullets Over Broadway was Allen's last great film and Match Point his last good one, I wasn't convinced by any of these.

I used to see every Allen film in the theater up until Small Time Crooks (2000) after which I stopped going and figured I could catch them when my library got the dvd. I recently have been catching up with is post 2000 works. I found a bunch (many that get seem to get praised most often) to be just okay (7/10, not bad but not compelling enough to own on disc): Vicky Christina Barcelona, Blue Jasmine, Magic In the Moonlight, Wonder Wheel, Rifkin's Festival. For me it feels like Allen is just rehashing previous formulas (central character is either a grad student, an artist or a writer who travels to europe and who's work and/or private life is upset by someone who is either a business person who challenges their world view (or the opposite personality type, a less structured/ working class person who throws their life in to chaos). I found another bunch to be extremely annoying, usually in how formulaic they seem. The one film from the 2nd half of his career that surprised me & I would rate higher than the rest (8/10) was the one that I heard the least about (in fact I didn't know it existed until I searched for all the Woody Allen dvd's at my library): Cassandra's Dream. Not sure why people hated this one so much, but for me I found it refreshing because Allen strayed from his comfort zone.