Alice, the 20th film Woody Allen directed, is about – what a shock! – relationships, infidelity, love, etc.
The plot can be found on its Wiki page.
Alice is an okay film.
The movie seems overlong, though.
And, by Woody standards, it is. His movies are usually about 90 minutes in length. At one hour and 46 minutes, Alice is is creeping up on two hours.
It’s possible the cast was just so big that he had to keep writing to accommodate everyone.
Check it out: Continue reading
Crimes 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
New 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
Another Woman, Woody’s 17th turn behind the camera, is another film about relationships.
And infidelity.
And awkward, uncomfortable moments.
The movie opens with the shot of the inside of a house, a corridor. Empty.
Then, voice-over narration – this time, from a woman, whom we discover is Marion (Gena Rowlands, 1930- ), a professor of philosophy on sabbatical writing a book. Marion’s apartment butts up against the office of a psychiatrist and she discovers that she can hear the sessions going on next door.
One voice from the psychiatrist’s office – sounds like Mia Farrow to me – causes Marion to listen more intently, and then begin to question her own life’s choices.
The cast is amazing:
Gena Rowlands … Marion
Mia Farrow … Hope
Ian Holm … Ken
Blythe Danner … Lydia
Gene Hackman … Larry
Betty Buckley … Kathy
Martha Plimpton … Laura
John Houseman … Marion’s Father
Sandy Dennis … Claire
David Ogden Stiers … Young Marion’s Father
But this is another very intense film about break-ups and regrets and living lives of quiet desperation, usually with the wrong person, that requires Continue reading
September, 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
Radio Days, the 1987 movie written and directed by Woody Allen, is “one big stroll down memory lane” (my wife’s words) told through witty and poignant voice-over narration provided by Woody, and visuals of a young boy growing up in the years just before and during World War II whose constant companion is the radio.
There are many guest stars in Radio Days, some of whom appeared in previous Woody movies.
This is an interesting movie from a nostalgia perspective. But I couldn’t get wrapped up in the story.
Radio Days isn’t a bad film. It’s just not one of my favorites.
Next up: September.
Hannah 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
The 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.
The 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
Broadway Danny Rose, the 13th film directed by Woody Allen, is the story (told mostly in flashbacks) of Danny Rose (Woody Allen), a failed-nightclub-performer-turned-ne’er-do-well theatrical agent who now handles clients like balloon folders, bird acts, and a has-been nightclub singer named Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte, 1938- ) who finally gets a chance to perform for Milton Berle – but only wants to if Danny can get Tina Vitale (Mia Farrow, 1945- ), his lover, to attend the show.
When Danny tries to convince Tina to go to Lou’s show, Tina’s would-be suitor, a member of the mob, thinks Danny is Tina’s lover and puts a hit on him.
Danny and Tina run for their lives.
Do they survive? Does Lou? Does Danny ever make it big? Who ends up with Tina Continue reading
Zelig out-Forrest Gumped Forrest Gump – a full 11 years before that Oscar-winning movie.
The story is about a man named Leonard Zelig, a person who – out of an intense need to be liked – can take on the characteristics and even the appearance of those around him. Doctors refer to him as “a human chameleon.”
One of the doctors is played by Mia Farrow.
Zelig goes from obscure and unknown to national celebrity, but then falls out of favor and becomes an outcast again.
Told in documentary format (complete with narrator), Zelig is a combination of the aforementioned Forrest Gump and a movie called Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, a Steve Martin movie that takes film clips from classic old films and seamlessly weaves them into the noir-ish story of a hardboiled detective. Zelig does that, too, using vintage film clips, black and white footage made to look old and contemporary interviews (in color) with people today who were supposedly part of the story back in the 1920s and 30s. Even Scott Fitzgerald makes an appearance, in the clip of him sitting outside at his writing desk.
If one didn’t know this was a Woody Allen movie, one might think it a real documentary of a historical figure.
Not quite.
But that’s the overall effect.
Zelig, released in 1983, is inventive, creative, and just strange enough to make it riveting.
It’s an excellent film.