Day 185: Anything Else

51T0H078P2LAnything Else is a trifle.

It’s an interesting movie with not one but two quirky characters – Woody Allen, who plays a sixtysomething comic and Jason Biggs, who plays his protege, an up-and-coming young comic.

According to its entry on IMDB, Anything Else is:

A contemporary romantic comedy set in New York city about the relationship between an older guy and his younger protege. The older guy guides the younger through a messy and hilarious love story.

I don’t know about hilarious. But it’s mildly amusing.

Woody Allen … David Dobel
Jason Biggs … Jerry Falk
Fisher Stevens … Manager
Anthony Arkin … Pip’s Comic
Danny DeVito … Harvey Wexler
Christina Ricci … Amanda Chase
KaDee Strickland …Brooke
Jimmy Fallon … Bob

But it’s a trifle. And life’s too short to trifle with trifles.

Even a trifle about relationships from Woody Allen.

Even when the lead actress is hottie Christina Ricci.

Well, okay. Maybe Anything Else is worth trifling with.

Day 182: Small Time Crooks

41AS92MD04LWoody Allen was 65 when Small Time Crooks, his 31st film as writer and director, was released.

In some ways, this movie feels like a throwback to the zaniness of Take the Money and Run.

It’s about a hapless crook (in this case, a bank robber named Ray) who plots the perfect crime – he rents an empty pizza shop a few doors down from a bank and plots to dig a tunnel to the vault and make off with the money.

As you might expect, the plot doesn’t pan out the way Ray predicts.

It’s a lean cast that makes the most of its talent:

Woody Allen … Ray
Tracey Ullman … Frenchy
Michael Rapaport …Denny
Tony Darrow … Tommy
Sam Josepher … Real Estate Agent
Jon Lovitz … Benny
Elaine May … May
Hugh Grant … David
Elaine Stritch … Chi Chi Potter

Of course, Wood plays Ray playing Woody.

This is my 10th favorite Woody Allen movie.

Woody was 65 when Small Time Crooks was released.

Day 175: Bullets Over Broadway

51W6CN4Y3FLBullets Over Broadway is the 24th film Woody Allen directed.

This time around, he co-wrote his movie with Douglas McGrath.

Released in 1994, this “crime-comedy” – according to its entry on IMDB – is about:

In 1920s New York, a struggling playwright is forced to cast a mobster’s talentless girlfriend in his latest drama in order to get it produced.

It’s a heck of a cast:

John Cusack … David Shayne
Dianne Wiest … Helen Sinclair
Jennifer Tilly … Olive Neal
Chazz Palminteri … Cheech
Mary-Louise Parker … Ellen
Jack Warden … Julian Marx
Joe Viterelli … Nick Valenti
Rob Reiner … Sheldon Flender

And there are some great performances.

However, this movie is loud, talky, and frenetic, even by Woody Allen standards. Shouting appears to be the preferred method of delivering lines. And, when that fails, bullets from a Tommy gun help punctuate a scene.

The end result is loudness. Times 10.

For example, Continue reading

Day 170: Crimes and Misdemeanors

51BH1MKN2ELCrimes and Misdemeanors is a captivating, brilliant, ironic, and thoroughly depressing movie about an opthamologist (Martin Landau, 1928- ), his mistress (Angelica Huston, 1951- ), and a married documentary filmmaker (Woody Allen) who is infatuated by another woman.

The theme of the movie comes early on, in a scene in which Juda Rosenthal (Landau) delivers an acceptance speech for some kind of award:

“I remember my father telling me, ‘The eyes of God are on us always.” The eyes of God. What a phrase to a young boy. What were God’s eyes like? Unimaginably penetrating, intense eyes, I assumed. And I wonder if it was just a question that I made my specialty opthamology.”

“Eyes” is the theme of Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Staring eyes. Watching eyes. Jealous eyes. Failing eyes.

Once again, the movie is about relationships, infidelity, love, death, religion, God…you name it. It’s Woody through and through.

But it’s a Woody more focused and Continue reading

Day 169: New York Stories

513334WT37LNew York Stories is not strictly a Woody Allen movie. It’s actually three famous directors – Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola – creating a trilogy of movies about their beloved New York City.

So each director gets, roughly, 1/3 of this 1989 movie’s two-hour length, give or take.

The first movie is “Life Lessons,” directed by Martin Scorsese, is about an abstract painter (Nick Nolte, 1941- ), who is obsessed by a pretty young ex-girlfriend (played by the very sexy Rosanna Arquette, 1959- ) and Procol Harum, whose music (especially “A Whiter Shade of Pale“) provides much of the soundtrack.

The second movie is “Life without Zoe” by Francis Ford Coppola. According to its entry on Wikipedia, “Life Without Zoe” is about,

Zoë (Heather McComb) is a schoolgirl who lives in a luxury hotel. She helps return to an Arab princess a valuable piece of jewelry that the princess had given to Zoë’s father (Giancarlo Giannini) and had been subsequently stolen and recovered. Zoë tries to reconcile her divorced mother, a photographer (Talia Shire), and father, a flute soloist.

Woody Allen’s segment of New York Stories is called “Oedipus Wrecks.”

According to Continue reading

Day 167: September

41QX6GHNP2LSeptember, the 16th movie Woody Allen Directed, opens with a push in shot of the interior of a home.

Then, we hear two people – a man and a woman – speaking French.

The two people are revealed to be Howard (Denholm Elliott) and Stephanie (Dianne Wiest), sitting on a couch. Howard is teaching Stephanie the language.

According to its entry on IMDB, this is what September is about:

At a summer house in Vermont, neighbor Howard falls in love with Lane, who’s in a relationship with Peter, who’s falling for Stephanie, who’s married with children.

Sounds like typical Woody Allen.

It’s a great cast, one that includes some of my favorite actors:

Denholm Elliott (1922–1992) … Howard
Dianne Wiest (1948- ) … Stephanie
Mia Farrow (1945- ) … Lane
Elaine Stritch (1925- ) … Diane
Sam Waterston (1940- ) … Peter
Jack Warden (1920-2006) … Lloyd

I wasn’t familiar with Elaine Stritch prior to September. So I looked her up. Here’s what her bio says about her:

A brash, incorrigible scene-stealer now entering her sixth decade in a career that has had many highs and lows, veteran Elaine Stritch certainly lives up to the Stephen Sondheim song “I’m Still Here”. Having stolen so many moments on stage that she could be convicted of grand larceny, this tough old broad broaching 80 with the still-shapely legs, puffy blonde hairdo and deep, whiskey voice isn’t quitting anytime soon – or so it seems.

Why haven’t I seen her in anything else? Born in 1925 in Detroit, Elaine was Continue reading

Day 165: Hannah and Her Sisters

5191TZS18DLHannah and Her Sisters, the 14th film Woody Allen directed, was awarded the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

I can see why. It is a very consistent, compelling movie.

From its entry on Wikipedia:

Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begins and ends with a family Thanksgiving dinner. The film was written and directed by Woody Allen, who stars along with Mia Farrow as Hannah, Michael Caine as her husband, and Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest as her sisters.

The story is told in three main arcs, with almost all of it occurring during a 24-month period beginning and ending at Thanksgiving parties hosted by Hannah (Mia Farrow) and her husband, Elliot (Michael Caine). Hannah serves as the stalwart hub of the narrative; her own story as a successful actress (a recent success as Nora in A Doll’s House) is somewhat secondary, but most of the events of the film connect to her.

Part of the film’s structure and background is borrowed from Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander. In both films, a large theatrical family gather for three successive year’s celebrations (Thanksgiving in Allen’s film, Christmas in Bergman’s). The first of each gathering is in a time of contentment, the second in a time of trouble, and the third showing what happens after the resolution of the troubles. The sudden appearance of Mickey’s reflection behind Holly’s in the closing scene also parallels the apparition behind Alexander of the Bishop’s ghost.

An interesting exchange occurs in a segment titled “The Hypochondriac.”

The scene is with Mickey (Woody Allen), a TV writer and Ed Smythe (J.T. Walsh), a Standards & Practices representative. Gail (Julie Kavner) stands nearby, offering support for Mickey.

Mickey: Why all of a sudden is the sketch dirty?

Smythe: Child Molestation is a touchy subject with the affiliates.

Mickey: Read the papers. Half the country’s doing it.

Smythe: Yes, but you name names.

Mickey: We do not name names. We say the Pope.

Smythe: That sketch cannot go on the air.

This subject – child molestation/pedophilia – is one that recurs in Continue reading

Day 164: The Purple Rose of Cairo

41WAWC1EV0LThe Purple Rose of Cairo, the 14th film directed by Woody Allen, is my third favorite movie by this American icon.

When Jeff Daniels visited our city 6-7 years ago to promote his latest CD, I brought the insert from the DVD for him to sign.

He did.

Haydn231The Purple Rose of Cairo is an incredibly inventive film within a film – a movie about a movie named “The Purple Rose of Cairo” that Cecilia (Farrow) watches with such awe and reverence and longing that the characters on the screen come to life for her and one – Tom Baxter (Daniels) – steps off the screen to rescue her from her brutish husband Monk (Aiello), from whom she escapes by watching romantic movies.

Eventually, the other characters in “The Purple Rose of Cairo” movie who are on the screen (in black and white because it’s supposedly an old Hollywood movie) find themselves off script, and even talking to the audience.

Brilliant.

The movie features some of my favorite actors (Daniels, Herrmann, Wood, for example), including several from Hollywood’s Golden Age Continue reading

Day 160: Stardust Memories

51E2F6Z0KDLIn Stardust Memories, Woody Allen gives us his version of Federico Fellini‘s 8-1/2, which it parodies.

A black-and-white film about – surprise! – death and the (mostly futile) meaning of life, Stardust Memories is the story of a director named Sandy Bates (Woody Allen) who decides he’s tired of being funny and – at the urging of his handlers/studio execs – attends a retrospective of his work that pushes him to confront far more serious aspects of life.

“I look around the world and all I see is human suffering,” Sandy tells his handlers.

Full of odd camera angles, shadows, surrealistic imagery, grotesque faces, sometimes in extreme close-up, and uproarious laughter in inappropriate places, Stardust Memories was directed by a middle-aged (45-year-old) Woody – and it shows. This is his most introspective, self-conscious, and anhedonic film to date. And forty-five is about the right age to think such thoughts. So why not?

Frankly, this movie is the cinematic equivalent of rock stars (like Robert Plant) who leave a wildly popular band and then seem to show nothing but disdain for what he accomplished, which is a massive slap in the face to the band’s fans.

In this movie, Woody seems to say to everyone – especially critics – that comedic filmmaking is bullshit and his fans are asshats for thinking they’re otherwise.

Somewhere along the way during Continue reading

Day 158: Interiors

41PDMR1B9PLWoody Allen’s 1978 movie Interiors – his first serious drama – opens with shots of interiors of homes, just sparse, empty rooms.

A woman we soon come to know as Joey (Mary Beth Hurt, 1948- ) appears and walks over to window. She stands, silently, peering out.

Then, a woman named Renata (Diane Keaton, 1946- ) appears on screen. She, too, looks out a window. She raises her hand to gingerly touch the glass. It’s a pretentious gesture that is hard for me to accept coming from Keaton, who I had just seen as Annie, a ditzy actress, in Annie Hall.

Then, a man we later learn is named Arthur (E.G. Marshall, 1914–1998) is seen from behind. He’s wearing a suit and he’s looking out a window in a high-rise office building. He’s speaking.

The overall effect of all of these images and scenes is one of loneliness, alienation.

Then, a man we later learn is named Mike (Sam Waterston, 1940- ) appears on screen. He’s sitting, alone, at a kitchen table speaking into a tape recording, saying something about Marxist-Leninist ideologies. We later discover he is married to Joey.

A woman named Eve (Geraldine Page, 1924-1987), whom we later learn is an interior designer married to Arthur, rings the doorbell, interrupting Mike. She enters Continue reading