Day 186: Melinda and Melinda

51KJBK5TF9LMelinda and Melinda opens with four people sitting in a restaurant talking about plays, and the essence of comedies and tragedies…and which one is better.

Then, the people tell a tale of the same incident, from different perspectives, to prove their point.

As with many of Woody’s movies from the 1990s through the mid 2000s, this one isn’t really firing on all cylinders. Its cast was not stellar. And the story was not crisply told.

This is the 35th movie Woody wrote and directed. It was released when he was 69.

Day 183: The Curse of the Jade Scorpion

51FB1Y08H4LThe Curse of the Jade Scorpion, the 32nd movie Woody Allen directed, is my sixth favorite film by this legendary American director.

It is a great comedy, with lots of Woodyisms (stammering, gesturing, nervously cracking jokes), and a fun storyline.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion is about a “dinosaur” insurance claims investigator (Allen) who becomes the unwitting accomplice of a hypnotist (David Ogden Stiers) who plants subliminal suggestions into his mind, as well as in the mind of a new addition to the insurance company (Hunt).

Like all great screwball comedies from Hollywood’s heyday, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion pits a man and a woman against one another who, at first, fight like cats and dogs. As time goes on, however, they fall for one another.

Jade Scorpion also features leggy, sexy, sultry Charlize Theron playing a leggy, sexy, sultry Veronica-Lake like floozy who comes on to Woody’s character.

Woody was 66 when this film was released.