Woody Allen

[dwk]

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

Off the top of my head I can remember three: Bananas, Annie Hall(this has been on at least 2 or 3 times) and Hannah and her Sisters. Also, not directed by him but featuring him as an actor, Fading Gigolo was on the channel.

There may have been 1 or 2 others, but I can't recall what.

[Lowry_Sam]

I wanted to say Bananas, Annie Hall & Crimes & Misdemeanors, but for more mainstream releases I often confuse with what's been on Kanopy.

[beamish14]

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

Off the top of my head I can remember three: Bananas, Annie Hall(this has been on at least 2 or 3 times) and Hannah and her Sisters. Also, not directed by him but featuring him as an actor, Fading Gigolo was on the channel.

There may have been 1 or 2 others, but I can't recall what.

I thought The Front was as part of a Martin Ritt collection

[relaxok]

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

A favorite of mine since i rented it circa 1993.

Not everything in it works but I think the atmosphere is just beautiful and haunting.

[ChunkyLover]

As someone that really doesn't like his 80s/Orion output (except for "The Purple Rose of Cairo"), I actually quite enjoyed "Shadows and Fog" when I watched it earlier in July.

[ryannichols7]

I love Shadows and Fog and if it wins some new fans being on the channel I'll be pleased

so I tried to watch that Maher interview because I was like what the hell, Woody never does interviews and it's cool seeing him on camera now (he looks great by the way, though I do see this in Bechet's Instagram stories), but jesus, how does anyone watch Maher? I thought Marc Maron was terrible about cutting off his subjects, but wow

anyway on a more positive note, I do love Cafe Society and think it'll probably go down as his last really good movie - I happen to think Eisenberg and Stewart are excellent in it

[Finch]

Trump's truth social account (probably someone other than him since he appears to have had a stroke of some kind, hence the 7 day silence and uncharacteristic avoidance of the press) shared the Variety piece about Allen wanting to work with Trump again. Lol.

[relaxok]

anyway on a more positive note, I do love Cafe Society and think it'll probably go down as his last really good movie - I happen to think Eisenberg and Stewart are excellent in it

It single handedly made me a fan of hers, now I will check out anything she’s in..

[MichaelB]

I do need to catch up with a handful of recent ones - bizarrely, I've seen literally everything up to and including Bullets Over Broadway, and then it's just Deconstructing Harry (which I liked) and Match Point (excruciatingly tone-deaf to these native London ears).

(Up to the mid-90s I had professional reasons for keeping up with him - I helped run a cinema in North London where he was a major cash cow - but thereafter I had multiple partners who absolutely couldn't stand him, very much including my wife.)

[The Curious Sofa]

I always found Brits are unusually defensive about how films portray their accents and social nuances, but if one sets aside questions of authenticity, Match Point holds up as a strong film. Originally intended to be set in the Hamptons but relocated to London through BBC funding, its story of ambition and chance fits the city’s cultural and class landscape well, even if some details may jar. Having lived in London for over three decades myself, I actually enjoyed how it used London locations as a modern city.

[MichaelB]

I always found Brits are unusually defensive about how films portray their accents and social nuances,

No defensiveness here - I just thought it was shockingly lazily written, with characters purporting to be Londoners uttering dialogue that no actual Londoner would ever consider uttering, to the point where it really became unintentionally funny at times, and of course massively distracting. (The accents were fine; it's the words that they were attached to that was the problem.) It was doubly frustrating because I went to see it in the first place after it got rave reviews Stateside as being a spectacular return to form - but its reception on my side of the Atlantic was distinctly more tepid, and it rapidly became obvious why.

Compare and contrast with Gosford Park, where Robert Altman was honest enough to admit that he was very much the outsider in that particular milieu, which is why he had Julian Fellowes on hand not just as screenwriter but also on set to advise him of the various, as you put it, "social nuances" - which was especially important given Altman's willingness to let his actors improvise. And Jerzy Skolimowski arguably owes his entire film career to Andrzej Wajda not being deluded enough to think that he could write convincing dialogue for young people in their early twenties - coincidentally, the two of them were at the same writer's retreat circa 1959, where Skolimowski was writing a play and Wajda was wrestling with what became Innocent Sorcerers, and when Wajda realised that Skolimowski was the age of his characters he asked if he'd give the script a going-over. And one thing led to another and... well, that's why we don't talk about Jerzy Skolimowski the playwright.

But one of these days I might actually do what I've been talking about doing for ages and watch it dubbed into another language, because that might improve things considerably.

[Maltic]

I remember coming across UK reviews for Match Point and them being sniffy about "the Tate Modern" and so on. I'd almost call it a formative experience, given my age at the time and the particular development stage of the internet. My tastes were still formed by Danish broadsheets. Match Point was a film I thought you were supposed to like, along with Babel, Paris je t'aime etc.

Re: Altman, the Grand Ole Opry folks didn't like Nashville.

[The Curious Sofa]

I don't remember the same outcry about Allen's subsequent London set movies (I've only seen Cassandra's Dream and I don't remember anything about it), so he either listened to critics of Match Point or the British stopped caring. I always thought there was something off about most the films he shot in Europe, Everyone Says I Love You is the only one of those I like.

[Walter Kurtz]

My take on 2008-2019 Woody Allen that I’ve seen-----

Vicki Barcelona: Penelope Cruz is a treasure isn’t she? Give her a career Oscar for best female actor with a handgun. (And give Val Kilmer a special Oscar for twirling those creamers!)

Midnight in Paris: My favorite film of all time. That has never changes since the night I saw it. I love Paris in the rain… or the sunshine I love Hemingway. I love the idea of Bunuel. I love Fitzgerald. I love architecture. I love Giverny. I love art. My two favorite short-riff/performances by male actors are in this movie--- Corey Stoll as EH and Adrian Brody as SD. Da-LEE! Da-LEE! I love both Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard. I very much like Lea Seydoux. I love what the movie says about us and nostalgia… it strikes a fucking deep chord.

For the last 15 years or so I’ve considered Barry Lyndon the greatest film of all time. But I don’t care about that anymore. The greatest should be my favorite. Fuck objective. The only mind I live in is mine... so my favorite IS the best. And that’s MIP.

At any rate… MIP and BL are doppelgangers for me. They are both picaresque journeys where the protagonist learns some truths about the world and themselves in the end. They are both two legs of Minkowski’s geometric visualization of Einstein’s Special Theory. BL travels more in space than time. And MIP travels more in time than space.

Doppelgangers in spacetime.

To Rome With Love: Penelope Cruz was in this so it can’t be all bad… and Allen would be repeating himself (even more than he already does) if he handed her another one.

Magic in the Moonlight: Nothing there for me.

Irrational Man: I liked this movie a lot. Probably because I love philosophy.

Café Society: I liked this movie a lot. I’ve been in situations something like that too many times. Stewart never looked more winsome. And I had to deal with assholes like the guy Carrell played all the time. Or used to before I took a long (permanent?) leave.

Wonder Wheel: I loved the garish choice of over-saturation. Good choice for the Island. Nathan’s dogs are great, aren’t they?

Rainy Day: I love NY in the rain. Not so much this film, though. But still, CP is a treasure.

PS: I hated Match Point. I just don’t get the attraction for ScarJo or Meyers. And I love tennis, having been at the USO, Wimby and RG finals.

Thus: 1--MIP 2--IR 3--CS

[MichaelB]

The thing about Match Point is that it was heavily hyped in the UK as a spectacular return to form, with US reviews cited as evidence, so expectations were duly pitched much higher.

But pretty much every other 21st-century Woody Allen film has opened over here to a collective shrug - much of the time I'm not even aware of them opening at all, although I daresay most of them have had token releases.

A more recent example of a film that had a sharply different reception on either side of the Atlantic was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which seemed to go down much better in the UK than the US, presumably because this time we're the equivalent of Americans watching Match Point. Certainly, I don't think I've seen any of my British friends downright loathing it with the intensity displayed by several of my American ones.

[Walter Kurtz]

Match Point sucked (see above) and Billboards was great. And I live in WEST London. AKA LA.

[The Curious Sofa]

A more recent example of a film that had a sharply different reception on either side of the Atlantic was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which seemed to go down much better in the UK than the US, presumably because this time we're the equivalent of Americans watching Match Point. Certainly, I don't think I've seen any of my British friends downright loathing it with the intensity displayed by several of my American ones.

Good call. I loathe Three Billboards with all my heart and while Match Point gets the details wrong, that movie is it's inauthentic on every level. Martin McDonagh doesn't understand a single thing about the US and the Midwest. That said, I think it also has major problems beyond being inauthentic. Match Point isn't a movie I love, but I still like it better than most movies Allen has made in the 21st century, which is showering it with faint praise more than an outright endorsement.

[domino harvey]

Was the depiction of the Midwest a big factor in American criticisms of Three Billboards? I don’t remember that being the sticking point (and also worth noting it was broadly well received critically here). I didn’t like it because the script sucks, I don’t care where it takes place

[Never Cursed]

Was the depiction of the Midwest a big factor in American criticisms of Three Billboards? I don’t remember that being the sticking point (and also worth noting it was broadly well received critically here). I didn’t like it because the script sucks, I don’t care where it takes place

At the very least I remember people taking warranted offense to Frances McDormand telling a story to a Catholic priest making his rounds, and to Woody Harrelson's Australian(?) wife

[hearthesilence]

Most people I know from the Midwest who didn't like Billboards complained more about elements that have nothing to do with cultural detail.

[Mr. Deltoid]

The thing about Match Point is that it was heavily hyped in the UK as a spectacular return to form, with US reviews cited as evidence, so expectations were duly pitched much higher.

But pretty much every other 21st-century Woody Allen film has opened over here to a collective shrug - much of the time I'm not even aware of them opening at all, although I daresay most of them have had token releases.

I remember Blue Jasmine getting some of the best reviews of his late-period, mainly due to Cate Blanchett's astonishing performance. I haven't seen the film since it was in theatres here (UK), but I remember enjoying it a lot. Actually, I'm itching to revisit this whole period again after reading the last few pages of this thread. I enjoyed Midnight in Paris when it came out, along with Café Society and Melinda & Melinda (even if I can't recall anything at all about it, now!)

[dwk]

....
Vicki Barcelona:
...

This is the other Woody Allen film that streamed on the Criterion Channel. I knew there was another one.

[TVC15]

Trump's truth social account (probably someone other than him since he appears to have had a stroke of some kind, hence the 7 day silence and uncharacteristic avoidance of the press) shared the Variety piece about Allen wanting to work with Trump again. Lol.

Had a stroke but was golfing over Labor Day weekend and spoke today about Space Command. Got it

[tolbs1010]

Vicki Barcelona: Penelope Cruz is a treasure isn’t she? Give her a career Oscar for best female actor with a handgun. (And give Val Kilmer a special Oscar for twirling those creamers!)

She is, though her Oscar for this is another example of how meaningless the award is. The movie itself is absolute garbage. Woody's male fantasy notions in a different setting with no laughs, no charm, incredibly stupid dialogue and ridiculous character motivations. Easily my least favorite Woody Allen film from this era and among the worst he has ever made.

Midnight in Paris: My favorite film of all time. That has never changes since the night I saw it. I love Paris in the rain… or the sunshine I love Hemingway. I love the idea of Bunuel. I love Fitzgerald. I love architecture. I love Giverny. I love art. My two favorite short-riff/performances by male actors are in this movie--- Corey Stoll as EH and Adrian Brody as SD. Da-LEE! Da-LEE! I love both Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard. I very much like Lea Seydoux. I love what the movie says about us and nostalgia… it strikes a fucking deep chord.

You list everyone in your favorite movie of all time except the lead actor. No love for Owen carrying the film on behalf of the everyman? I agree that Corey Stoll is great as EH.

The comments here are making me want to watch Cafe Society, which I initially dismissed based on Eisenberg and Stewart in the lead roles. I need to give the 'kids' a chance.

I loathe Three Billboards with all my heart and while Match Point gets the details wrong, that movie is it's inauthentic on every level. Martin McDonagh doesn't understand a single thing about the US and the Midwest. That said, I think it also has major problems beyond being inauthentic.

Your loathing of this film is shared by me and many others, including a few big McDonagh fans that I know; I also have enjoyed his work, generally. I'll add that having characters give writerly speeches about various hot-button topics rarely works. Paddy Chayefsky pulled it off a few times in his career, but the speeches were germane to the film's themes. Frannie Mac has a couple in this that are grandstanding asides by McDonagh, and they took me completely out of the movie. It's hard to make good actors like McDormand and Rockwell look bad, but McDonagh did it. And of course they both won Oscars. Woody Harrelson gave the best performance in the film, but maybe it's just because his character was a bit more believably drawn. Woody H. is also a treasure and a gold statue isn't needed to prove it.

[dwk]

Trump's truth social account (probably someone other than him since he appears to have had a stroke of some kind, hence the 7 day silence and uncharacteristic avoidance of the press) shared the Variety piece about Allen wanting to work with Trump again. Lol.

Had a stroke but was golfing over Labor Day weekend and spoke today about Space Command. Got it

There is no evidence that he was golfing this weekend. There were pictures of him propped up in his club, but no video of him actually out on the course.