Movie Review: Wonder Wheel

Wonder Wheel ** / *****

Directed by: Woody Allen.

Written by: Woody Allen.

Starring: Kate Winslet (Ginny), Justin Timberlake (Mickey), Jim Belushi (Humpty), Juno Temple (Carolina), Jack Gore (Richie), David Krumholtz (Jake).

 

For the most part, I have been on the side of “separate the art from the artist” whenever things come up – about Roman Polanski, Nate Parker, or of course, Woody Allen. The #MeToo movement that has sprung up recently is a great thing, and I do believe we are all better off with men who abuse their power exposed to the world. Yet, I’m still basically saying the same thing – separate the art from the artist, because once you go down that road, where do you draw the line? In the case of Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel, I really do wish I could do that – separate the man Allen is, from the film he made – but I really, really can’t this time. Allen has made a film about a washed up actress (Kate Winslet), well on her way to destroying her second marriage because of her infidelity, who when she finds out her current lover would rather have her step daughter than herself, does something horrible to exact her revenge. Somehow, by the end of this thing, the dude who wants to leave Winslet for her stepdaughter has the moral high ground! I mean, Allen has to be trolling us here, right?

 

But I digress. Even if you are able to separate Allen from his work this time around, the sad truth is that Wonder Wheel is another of those late Allen films that feels half baked. There are some nice moments delivered by Winslet – especially in the final act, when she really goes off the deep end, and the cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (who also made Allen’s last film, Café Society, look spectacular) really is wonderful. The dialogue doesn’t even have as many tin eared clunkers as recent Allen films, and the story is relatively streamlined – cutting out a lot of the distracting subplots recent Allen films have had. As the Allen surrogate, Justin Timberlake has a charm all his own – he isn’t trying to “do” an Allen impersonation – which is mainly a good thing (it worked wonders for Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris).

 

And yet, the movie really just kind of sits there for an hour, waiting for the fireworks of the last act. As Ginny, the overworked waitress/mother/wife to Humpty (Jim Belushi), Winslet really is quite good. The role isn’t that far off from Cate Blanchett’s in Blue Jasmine – and Winslet shows enough here to make you wish her role was half as good as Blanchett’s was. As Humpty, Belushi really is quite bad – no matter how dark the movie gets, he seems to be playing everything for laughs – like he’s part of a 1950s sitcom or something. I did like that Timberlake doesn’t try to do an Allen impression, but he doesn’t have all that much to do at times here, and his motivations shift from scene to scene for no reason. Juno Temple is a delight as Carolina, the stepdaughter, although a little bit more depth would have helped – so she hasn’t just playing the sweet ingénue.

 

Allen making a disappointing film is nothing new. He’s been hit or miss since the late 1990s, even as he maintains his one a year pace. But Allen making a film that Wonder Wheel somehow feels more disappointing than he has in the past. Part of it, yes, is that you sit there and cannot believe that Allen has essentially made a film about how he’s the wronged party. But it’s also because he wastes so much good stuff here – Winslet, Storaro in particular – which is used to make nothing more than this testament to his own self-delusion.

Movie Review: Cafe Society

Café Society

Directed by: Woody Allen.

Written by: Woody Allen.

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg (Bobby Dorfman), Kristen Stewart (Vonnie - Veronica), Jeannie Berlin (Rose), Steve Carell (Phil), Blake Lively (Veronica Hayes), Parker Posey (Rad), Corey Stoll (Ben), Ken Stott (Marty), Anna Camp (Candy), Paul Schneider (Steve), Stephen Kunken (Leonard), Sari Lennick (Evelyn Dorfman), Woody Allen (Narrator).

 

We all know that late Woody Allen – when that era started differs for some, but for me it’s everything after 1997’s Deconstructing Harry – varies greatly in quality, with the hits, misses and mediocrities generally coming in equal numbers over the last 20 years. Café Society is his third miss in a row – something that even in this late period, hasn’t happened too often (again, that can depend on who you ask, but for me the only other 0-3 streak came from 2001-2003, with The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending and Anything Else – and that is even with me somewhat enjoying the latter two, at least more than most). What makes Café Society a bigger disappointment than either Magic in the Moonlight (2014) or Irrational Man (2015) is that this one at least the potential to be something special. Magic in the Moonlight is another one of his “magical” comedies – he’s always made those, and even in his peak years, they were often among his lazy misfires (A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy or Alice for example) – and Magic in the Moonlight felt like one of those as well. Irrational Man was Woody in Crimes and Misdemeanors/Match Point mode – which is always one of my favorites – but the fact that it was rather dull and lazy didn’t faze me too much – after all, he has perhaps returned to that well too often anyway – and even that won’t dull just how good Crimes & Misdemeanors is (for my money, it’s his best film ever). But Café Society really did have the potential to be something special. Its Allen’s best looking film in years – legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro convinced Allen to shoot digitally for the first time, and the result is beautiful, using different color palettes for New York and Los Angeles, and making the always beautiful Kristen Stewart even more so. The story itself – one of unrequited or at least ill-timed love, should be right up Allen’s alley – the final shots should hit you in the heart, and make you weep. But it doesn’t. Like so much of Allen’s late output, it feels like Café Society needed another draft at the screenplay stage – to clean up the dialogue that either rings false, or feels like Allen quoting himself (or worse, like an untalented writer quoting Allen), to excise unnecessary scenes and subplots, and in general, to make a better, leaner movie. Café Society is more disappointing than most of his late misfires not because its worse, but because it should have been great – something the likes of Magic in the Moonlight, Irrational Man (and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, To Rome with Love, etc.) were never going to be.

 

The movie is set in the 1930s, and centers on Bobby Dorfman (Jessie Eisenberg) – a Jew from New York, who moves out to Hollywood to work for his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell) – a big time agent. Dorfman ends up falling in love with Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), Phil’s assistant, unaware that Phil has been having an affair with her, and plans on leaving his wife for her – although he’s been gun shy on actually doing that. Bobby and Vonnie are well suited for each other – they both Hollywood is shallow and laugh at all the phoniness they see around them – and Vonnie, during a break with Phil, actually does fall for Bobby herself. Then Phil wants her back – and, well, Phil is rich and successful, and Bobby has no idea what he’s going to do with his life – except go back to New York. That’s where much of the second half of the film takes place – with Bobby in New York, running a nightclub owned by his gangster brother, Ben (Corey Stoll) – and making a success of himself, even getting married and having children. But neither Bobby nor Vonnie can shake the feeling that perhaps, they should have ended up together.

 

As Dorfman, Eisenberg gets better as the movie progresses. In the early scenes in the film, Eisenberg falls into the trap that so many actors do when they are cast as the “Woody-surrogate” character, and try to do an impression of Allen. This rarely works, and is often more distracting than anything else (one of the reasons Owen Wilson worked so well in Midnight in Paris is that even though he is clearly the Woody surrogate in the movie, he is in no way trying to imitate Allen – he is his regular Owen Wilson-like self, and it works beautifully). It’s a distraction to see Eisenberg try to be Woody, I think, because it resembles the uncanny valley in animation – the closer you get to perfection in the imitation, the more glaring the little misses become. Eisenberg settles down as the movie progresses though – in part, I think, because Dorfman himself grows more confident, taking him further away from Woody-like neurosis. Kristen Stewart continues her string of strong performances as Vonnie though – avoiding the traps that many actresses in Allen’s films seemingly fall into, making their characters shallow or shrill, or both. In those early scenes, Vonnie really does seem like Bobby’s perfect girl – yet she never quite becomes “female perfection personified” (something that happens too often in modern comedies). She is insecure, but in a charming and natural way. She even makes her transformation later in the film – where she has seemingly embraced everything she once mocked, seem natural as well – she hasn’t really changed deep down, but she has taken the path of least resistance. Allen and Storaro loving photograph Stewart, not in a creepy, pervert way, but in a way that idolize and idealize her. It’s a great performance.

 

Had Allen just stuck to telling this story, it may well have worked. But he throws in a number of unnecessary scenes and subplots that add nothing to the overall film. While the significant others to the two main characters are necessary, neither Steve Carell as Phil (a last minute replacement, when Bruce Willis dropped out) or Blake Lively as Veronica – Bobby’s eventual wife – really do much to leave an impression. Worse is everything that surrounds the two main characters that don’t belong. An early scene between Dorfman and a prostitute – gamely played by Anna Camp – seems to be beamed in from a different movie, and neither furthers the plot or deepens the themes, and given that we never see Camp’s character again, one wonders why it’s there. Then there is Bobby’s brother Ben – played fairly well by Corey Stoll, doing a decent version of a gangster from a 1930s Warner Brothers movie. But why is Ben here? Why is there so much violence and killing when he’s onscreen? What does that have to do with the rest of the film? And why is Bobby’s sister married to a philosophy professor, who is given lines like “Socrates said the unexamined life is nor worth living” in a way that not even a notice screenwriter would keep in his final draft. Yes, the tin eared dialogue runs throughout the movie – Eisenberg and especially Stewart sell it however, whereas no one else can (to be fair, I think the rest of the cast gets line far worse than either of the leads do).

 

Café Society is a frustrating experience, because I wanted to like it much more than I did. I was enthralled by the photography, which is beautiful, and by Stewart, who succeeds in making Vonnie seem like a real, three dimensional woman, which actresses often do not do in Allen’s films. There is so much to like about Café Society – but everything that is off about the movie hurts it too much to make it a good movie. Just when things start to get good, Allen throws in another unnecessary scene, or flashes to Benny killing someone, or Bobby’s brother-in-law waxing philosophically, and the movie grind to a halt. I am used to being let down by Allen films these days – but I am not used to be let down in this way by Allen films. Café Society should have been a late career highlight for Allen – instead of another mediocrity.

Movie Review: Irrational Man

Irrational Man
Directed by: Woody Allen.
Written by: Woody Allen.
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix (Abe), Emma Stone (Jill), Parker Posey (Rita), Jamie Blackley (Roy), Betsy Aidem (Jill's Mother), Ethan Phillips (Jill's Father), Sophie von Haselberg (April), Tom Kemp (Judge Spangler).

If you’ve read any interviews with Woody Allen, you know that the man makes films out of a preference for routine, rather than some driving passion. He’s essentially been making a film a year, every year, since the late 1960s, and his latest Irrational Man is his 47^th film (that includes a third of the omnibus film New York Stories and the TV movie Don’t Drink the Water). You can certainly tell that Woody’s heart isn’t in every one of his movies – especially when you watch something like Irrational Man. The film is lazily written by Allen – he is basically doing his umpteenth variation of what may just be his best film, Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and the “morality or murder”. The characters are classical Allen archetypes, and the dialogue often seems like self-parody, not to mention that the movie is overly repetitive, and other than a few moments where the characters look at their cellphones or reference “the computer” could have been written by Allen back in the 1970s. Basically, Irrational Man is another one of Allen’s “late period” disappointments (his early period stretched from 1966’s What’s Up Tiger, Lily to 1975’s Love and Death, his prime between 1977’s Annie Hall and 1997’s Deconstructing Harry, and we’ve been in this late period ever since). This period has produced some gems – Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Match Point (2005) – another Crimes and Misdemeanors Variation – Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2007), Midnight in Paris (2010), Blue Jasmine (2013) – and any number of films that are, at the very least, entertaining. And to be fair, Irrational Man is not the nadir of Allen’s career – its way better than The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Scoop, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger or To Rome with Love, and is at least slightly better than last year’s Magic in the Moonlight. Still, if it feels like Allen is going through the motions with this film, well, that’s because that is precisely what Allen is doing.

The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Abe Lucas – the new philosophy professor at a small, liberal East Coast University, who mopes, drinks and says “very dark things”, and seems to have everyone fooled into thinking that he’s a deep, complicated man – when really, he’s just an asshole. It isn’t long before not one, but two women have fallen for Abe Lucas (and yes, almost every time his name is spoken, it’s said as Abe Lucas, and not just Abe). There’s the age appropriate Rita (Parker Posey), another professor, who is married, but has had many affairs, and sets her sites on Abe Lucas as her latest conquest. Then there’s the very much age inappropriate Jill (Emma Stone), one of his students, who follows Abe around like a lost puppy dog, while he “nobly” refuses to sleep with her, until, of course, he doesn’t. It’s while he is out with Jill, that they overhear a woman telling a sob story about the family court judge who is going to screw her over – when Abe Lucas gets an idea. Abe Lucas will kill the family court judge – making the world a slightly better place. After all, he’s tried to “do the right thing”, volunteering in Darfur and New Orleans, and other places and nothing helped. But murder? Perhaps that will.

This is all pretty standard Woody Allen stuff – and to be fair, some of it works. There is no way the three major characters should feel real or original, and they don’t, but the three actors do a hell of job with them anyway. Parker Posey is playing the “older”, slightly desperate and pathetic woman – ruining her marriage, drinking constantly, and while you could certainly find this character offensive (because, well, it is), Posey reminds the audience just how terrific she can be given a juicy role. This is her first movie with Allen – and not the last (she’s been announced for his next film) – so let’s hope he gives her the juicy role she has deserved for years now. Phoenix is playing what could be described as the Woody surrogate here – the neurotic, suicidal, pretentious intellectual, but like the best Woody surrogates, he doesn’t attempt an impression here – but takes Abe Lucas is an more interesting way. Phoenix is pudgy in the film, and morose, until he hits upon his plan when he becomes much happier. Phoenix, who is one of the best actors working right now, does way more to make this asshole into a believable character than Allen does – and it almost works. Best of all is Stone – who overcomes the limitations of the role (that like Posey’s, you could easily describe as offensive), delivering a wonderfully comic performance, that gives Jill far more intelligence and insight that appears to have been there in the screenplay. Stone was good in Magic in the Moonlight as well last year – so that makes two Allen movies she has saved from being awful in two years. Let’s hope that at the very least, Allen gives her a role as good as Scarlett Johansson’s in Match Point (or hell, even Vicky Cristina Barcelona, where Johansson was perhaps the least interesting major character) at some point.

Allen still knows how to direct – and he does a better job there than on the screenplay. I like the look and feel of the college campus, engulfed in green throughout the film, and there are a few set pieces that work quite well. You can see that there is still talent in Allen. Which is what makes a film like Irrational Man so frustrating. Even though this is the umpteenth version of Crimes and Misdemeanors he has made – that storyline can still work (as Match Point and the grossly underrated Cassandra’s Dream prove). But in order for it to work, Allen needs to give a shit, and actually try. The fact that Irrational Man is as good as it is – and it is, overall fairly mediocre – is a testament to Allen’s undeniable skill. The fact that it’s not any better is a testament to his laziness.

Movie Review: Magic in the Moonlight

Magic in the Moonlight
Directed by: Woody Allen.
Written by: Woody Allen.
Starring: Colin Firth (Stanley), Emma Stone (Sophie), Eileen Atkins (Aunt Vanessa), Simon McBurney (Howard Burkan), Hamish Linklater (Brice), Marcia Gay Harden (Mrs. Baker), Jacki Weaver (Grace), Erica Leerhsen (Caroline), Jeremy Shamos (George), Catherine McCormack (Olivia).

The last decade and a half of Woody Allen’s career has had some remarkable highs (Match Point, Midnight in Paris, Blue Jasmine) and some spectacular lows (The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Scoop, To Rome With Love) – with most of the rest of the films – and he makes one a year – falling somewhere in between those two screens. His latest, Magic in the Moonlight, is pretty much the definition of “middle of the road” Woody Allen. It’s amusing without ever being really funny, interesting without ever being involving, pleasant but dull, charming yet slight. I cannot say it’s a bad movie – not really – but I also cannot really say it’s a good movie. Like many Woody films of the last 15 years, it’s basically a shrug of a movie to me – something that I would easily forget if it were not a Woody Allen film.

The film is set in 1928, mainly in the South of France. Stanley (Colin Firth) – who makes his living as the famous “Oriental Wizard” Wai Ling Soo – doing fine magic tricks on stage. In his spare time, he indulges in his real passion – exposing fraudulent spiritualists, mystics and psychics. Stanley has always believed in nothing – what you see is what you get (“I think Nietzsche neatly deposed of this God business” he says). His old friend and rival, Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney) shows up one day after the show and invites him to France to see an American psychic from Kalamazoo, Sophie (Emma Stone), who has a wealthy family convinced she is the real deal. Burkan was hired to try to prove she was a fraud – but he cannot find anything in her “act” that could be described as a trick or false. But Stanley is convinced she is faking – and he’ll prove it by any means necessary. Of course, when they meet, they hate each other – so you know what that means don’t you?

 
The reason to see the movie is the performances by Firth and Stone, who are both charming and funny and, if you can ignore the almost three decade age difference between them, have chemistry together that works (Firth is only a year younger than Marcia Gay Harden, who plays Sophie’s mother, although his Stanley – and Allen as writer/director doesn’t seem too interested in given this great actress much to do). Together – with an assist from a wonderful Eileen Atkins as Stanley’s eccentric Aunt – they keep the movie afloat, even as it becomes clear that the film is essentially Allen going through the motions. It’s better than something like To Rome with Love – which is just a quartet of half thought through ideas thrown together in a mismatched hodgepodge – but it never really takes off either. Allen has essentially admitted that at this point of his career, he’s essentially making movie out of force of habit and routine – so we shouldn’t really expect that his every movie to be as good as last year’s Blue Jasmine. Yet, the fact that Allen is still capable of making a film like that – or Midnight in Paris – makes films like Magic in the Moonlight all the more frustrating. The film is Allen’s through and through – not many writer-directors would do a film like this in 2014, and that is somewhat refreshing. But Allen has the talent to elevate a film like this – so when he doesn’t, it’s somewhat disappointing to find he doesn’t really seem to be trying.

Movie Review: Blue Jasmine

Blue Jasmine
Directed by: Woody Allen.
Written by: Woody Allen.
Starring: Cate Blanchett (Jasmine), Sally Hawkins (Ginger), Alec Baldwin (Hal), Andrew Dice Clay (Augie), Bobby Cannavale (Chili), Louis C.K. (Al), Peter Sarsgaard (Dwight), Michael Stuhlbarg (Dr. Flicker), Alden Ehrenreich (Danny).

When Woody Allen is at his best – and in Blue Jasmine, he is – he has an ability that few of writers/directors have – and that is to make some old, feel fresh and original. You would have to have no knowledge of Tennessee Williams’ great play A Streetcar Named Desire not to recognize that Allen’s main character in this movie is clearly a version of Blanche DuBois – the Southern Belle driven to insanity by her animalistic brother-in-law Stanley. Allen doesn’t hide his influences – he never has – and so one could amuse themselves while watching Blue Jasmine in playing “spot the reference” in relation to Streetcar. But it would a shame to spend all of your time watching this wonderful movie doing that – because Allen has crafted one of his best recent films in Blue Jasmine, and created one of his best characters in Jasmine, and surrounded her with other interesting characters. He has also – for the first time since Match Point (2005) and its lesser known (and criminally underrated) flip side Cassandra’s Dream (2007) made an incisive study in class. For years, Allen was accused (not incorrectly) of ignoring class altogether in studying his upper class, Upper East Side characters, that at times made Allen seem like he was doing little other than navel gaze. But Blue Jasmine – along with those other two films – proves that when he wants to, Allen can take issue of class very seriously.

The movie stars Cate Blanchatt, in what will surely be one of the performances of the year, as Jasmine. She spent years married to Hal (Alec Baldwin), who she’s called a “financial genius”, who was really just a Bernie Madoff-clone. He was arrested, and killed himself in jail, and now she’s broke. She has no skills, because she’s spent her entire adult life shopping and arranging luncheons. She moves to San Francisco to live with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), who Jasmine virtually ignored when she was rich - but Hal didn’t – convincing her and her then husband Augie (a surprisingly great Andrew Dice Clay) to invest their lottery winnings with him. Jasmine is horrified when she arrives at Ginger’s apartment – where she lives with her two kids – which is cramped by her standards (but nicer than some of the places I’ve lived in). She looks down on Ginger, her kids, and her new boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale). She wants to do something “substantial” – although she has no idea what that is. Oh, and she’s already had a nervous breakdown when she was caught talking to herself on the street – something she is still doing.

The movie flashes back and forth between the past and the present. In the past, we see Jasmine in her sheltered life with Hal – when first she’s on top of the world, and then it everything starts to fall apart. In the present, she’s trying to rebuild her life – although she has no real skills, other than self-delusion. The movie would not work at all if Cate Blanchatt wasn’t as terrific as she is as Jasmine – a woman who willfully ignored all the signs that her husband was a scam artist, and a cheat in other ways, and even after her fall from grace, sees herself as a more of a victim than anyone else. She complains about the government taking her money, she looks down her nose at everyone around her, lectures everyone on how to live their life, and what to do when you’re extraordinarily wealthy, and won’t admit to anyone, least of all herself, the situation she is in. Blanchatt makes Jasmine a brittle, self-deluded, pill popping, martini drinking mess – hardly a sympathetic character, but a human one. It would have been easy for Blanchatt – and Allen – to simply mock this woman, but they don’t do that. They – and we – may not like Jasmine, but she is a complete person on screen.

This isn’t to say Blanchatt and Allen aren’t hard on Jasmine – they are certainly harder on her than Williams was on Blanche DuBois, who could at least put some of the blame on Stanley for her mental breakdown. Jasmine has no such excuse, as she only has herself to blame. Baldwin’s Hal is all surface charm – and everyone else sees through him before she finally does. Allen toys with the audience by giving us a few plausible potential Stanley’s in the cast – in the form of Ginger’s ex-husband Augie, and her current lover Chili – but both ultimately are good guys. They may have a temper (Jasmine says that Augie used to beat Ginger, but given her unreliability as a narrator, and everything we see of him in the movie, I doubt that’s the case, and although Chili does get angry at times, he never hits anyone, and is at heart a big softie). When she finally does move on from Hal, and starts dating Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard), whose ultimate rejection of her is the last straw holding together her mental stability, you can hardly blame him for doing what he does – she did, in fact, do nothing but lie to him. The only outright horrible male character she meets is Michael Stuhlberg’s pathetic, handsy dentist who is for a brief period of time her boss – and even that never comes close to rising to the level of Stanley.

Blue Jasmine however is more than just the Cate Blanchatt show – although she is certainly the best thing in it. Sally Hawkins gives a wonderful performance as the sweetly naïve Ginger – a woman who almost allows Jasmine to screw everything up for her, before she comes to her senses. I also quite like Louis C.K. playing a more subdued version of his comic persona, as Al, the guy who Ginger briefly thinks is a better match for her. I’ve already said Andrew Dice Clay is excellent as Augie – and he really is.

Blue Jasmine is one of Allen’s best recent efforts. Sometimes, Allen does seem to be living life inside of a bubble – but this time, he really has taken a look around him. Blue Jasmine is an excellent movie not just because he has created a wonderful character in Jasmine, and Cate Blanchatt delivers a great performance – but because the movie really does feel grounded in the economic reality we now live in. Allen is a master filmmaker who has steadily churned out a movie a year for more than 40 years now. Sometimes we get a stinker like last year’s To Rome with Love – but as long as he follows those up with a movie as good as Blue Jasmine, I’ll continue to look forward to everything he does.

Movie Review: To Rome with Love

To Rome with Love
Directed by: Woody Allen.
Written by: Woody Allen.
Starring: Woody Allen (Jerry), Judy Davis (Phyllis), Alison Pill (Hayley), Flavio Parenti (Michelangelo), Fabio Armiliato (Giancarlo), Jesse Eisenberg (Jack), Ellen Page (Monica), Alec Baldwin (John), Greta Gerwig (Sally), Alessandro Tiberi (Antonio), Alessandra Mastronardi (Milly), Penélope Cruz (Anna), Antonio Albanese (Luca Salta), Roberto Benigni (Leopoldo), Monica Nappo (Sofia), Sergio Solli (Leopoldo's Chauffeur).

Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love feels like four half formed movie ideas that Allen throws at the screen to see what will stick – and unfortunately nothing really does. There are isolated moments – lines, scenes – that work and are delightful, but for too much of the films running time the film feel strained. I can see how two of the four stories – ironically, the ones featuring mostly American character – could have been made into a decent movie, even intertwining the two stories together, had Allen put more care and thought into them. Unfortunately the two story strands featuring almost entirely Italian characters fall completely and totally flat. It`s almost like Allen had two half formed ideas for American characters (which it should be said, could have been set anywhere) when the funding came through to shoot a film in Italy, so he threw something together at the last moment. Coming on the heels on Allen`s best film is year with Midnight in Paris, this makes To Rome with Love one of the year`s biggest disappointments.

The four story strands are as follows – neurotic Jerry (Allen himself) and his wife Phyllis (Judy Davis) arrive in Rome so that they can meet up with their daughter (Allison Pill) and her fiancé (Flavio Parenti). When Jerry, a retired Avant garde opera producer, hears the fiancé`s father (Fabio Armiliato) sing in the shower, he thinks he can turn him into a great opera star – and won’t be discouraged even when it turns out he can only sing in the shower. In another story, neurotic Jack (Jessie Eisenberg), as aspiring architect, meets one of his idols (Alec Baldwin), who mysteriously hangs around and gives Jack advice as he risks throwing over his lovely girlfriend Sally (Greta Gerwig) for her pretentious friend (Ellen Page). Another story has neurotic Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) and his innocent young wife Milly (Alessandra Mastronardi) arrive in Rome from the Italian countryside so he can start a new job for his uncles. The problem, the uncles want to meet Milly, who has got lost looking for a hair salon and gets swept up by a famous actor, while through a series of misunderstandings, Antonio winds up with a prostitute (Penelope Cruz), who agrees to pretend to be his wife for the day. And finally, there is neurotic office drone Leopoldo (Roberto Benigni) who wakes up one morning to discover he`s the most famous man in Italy. What for? No one can tell him, but they don’t care, and eventually neither does he. After all, beautiful women are throwing themselves at him, and he can have whatever he wants.

I think I enjoyed the segment with Allen himself in it the most, but perhaps it was just because it was nice to see him on the big screen for the first time since 2006`s Scoop. Even though in nearly every one of Allen`s films he has a `Woody surrogate`, no one is better at playing the classic Allen character better than Allen himself. The problem here is that this segment is a one joke comedy – and doesn’t really go anywhere you don’t seem coming from the setup. But it is a joy to see Allen work – especially with a screen partner as great as Judy Davis, and Allison Pill as their daughter is a delight, so while the segment doesn’t really work, it’s at least kind of fun. The same can be said about the other segment involving the Americans. Jessie Eisenberg makes a good Woody surrogate in this segment – perhaps a little too good, as his nervous stammering, and comic delivery is too close to Allen`s for comfort. Yet, Eisenberg is still the best part of this segment – the usually radiant Greta Gerwig is completely wasted as his girlfriend, and Alec Baldwin and Ellen Page are miscast. Since Baldwin is supposed to be a mentor of sorts to Eisenberg – or perhaps even just as an older version of him – wouldn’t it have made more sense to cast Allen himself in the role? And since Page`s Monica is supposed to be some sexpot that men are instantly drawn to, I couldn’t help but think this would have been a perfect role for Allen favorite Scarlett Johansson. Page tries valiantly, but she does cute, funny and spunky way better than she does irresistibly sexy. So again, the segment doesn’t really work, but it’s not painful to sit through.

The same cannot be said about the two segments in Italian however. As if having Allen himself in the cast, along with a pretty solid Allen surrogate in Eisenberg wasn’t enough, Allen insists on turning Alessandro Tiberi`s Antonio into an Italian Allen surrogate as well – and this time the results aren’t anywhere close to being good. His fumbling and stumbling through the segment are a pain to sit through – with almost no laughs as a payoff. Yes, I liked seeing the fiery side of Penelope Cruz come out again as the prostitute, but surely there was something more she could have done. And yes, Alessandra Mastronardi, as the seemingly innocent Milly, carries her half of this segment well, but it never leads anywhere except around in circles. And finally, there is the segment with Oscar winner Roberto Benigni, who I suspect most North American audiences haven`t seen since his success with Life is Beautiful (1998), as he kind of screwed up the follow-up. No matter what you can say about Benigni as a filmmaker, he can be hilarious, and is a great physical comedian, which at least livens up his segment quite a bit. But it seems like once Allen had his idea of someone `being famous for being famous`, he couldn’t think of anywhere to go with it except to have him chased around by paparazzi.

To Rome with Love is Allen`s 44<sup>th</sup> feature film – he has essentially made one film per year since the late 1960s. His status as a master filmmaker has long since been established. And yet, often in recent years it feels like he`s simply going through the motions – making films out of force of habit more than anything else. He`s got far too much talent not to hit one out of the park every once in a while – like Midnight in Paris last year. But To Rome with Love, like other recent clunkers like You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Scoop, just feels like Allen really isn’t trying. He`s now 77, and I hope he has another great film or two left in him. Sadly, To Rome with Love is nowhere close.

Movie Review: Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris ****
Directed by: Woody Allen.
Written by: Woody Allen.
Starring: Owen Wilson (Gil), Rachel McAdams (Inez), Kurt Fuller (John), Mimi Kennedy (Helen), Michael Sheen (Paul), Nina Arianda (Carol), Carla Bruni (Museum Guide), Yves Heck (Cole Porter), Alison Pill (Zelda Fitzgerald), Corey Stoll (Ernest Hemingway), Tom Hiddleston (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Sonia Rolland (Joséphine Baker), Daniel Lundh (Juan Belmonte), Thérèse Bourou-Rubinsztein (Alice B. Toklas), Kathy Bates (Gertrude Stein), Marcial Di Fonzo Bo (Pablo Picasso), Marion Cotillard (Adriana), Léa Seydoux (Gabrielle), Emmanuelle Uzan (Djuna Barnes), Adrien Brody (Salvador Dalí), Tom Cordier (Man Ray), Adrien de Van (Luis Buñuel), David Lowe (T.S. Eliot), Yves-Antoine Spoto (Henri Matisse), Laurent Claret (Leo Stein), Vincent Menjou Cortes (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec), Olivier Rabourdin (Paul Gauguin), François Rostain (Edgar Degas).

At this point, the films of Woody Allen have become the ultimate cinematic comfort food for me. When I recently did my rundown of my 10 favorite and 5 least favorite Allen films, the best list had no film made after 1997, and four of the five least favorites came in the past 10 years. And yet, every year, I still look forward to the new Woody Allen movie. Most of them since 1997 have been solid entertainments – a few excellent like Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Match Point (2005) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), a few quite bad – but for the most part, even if they are not quite as good as his output from the 1970s-1990s, they are still highly enjoyable. Now comes Midnight in Paris, his 42nd film, and my favorite of his in years. You could dismiss it as more of the same from Allen, but I don’t think it is. True, it is lightweight and breezy, but it also harkens back to one of my favorite Allen films, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). That film was about a woman living a not so great existence, who dreams of her life being like the movies – and then gets her wish when the hero of her favorite film steps out of the screen and joins her in reality – but of course things aren’t quite as good as either of them thought they would be. Instead of that, Midnight in Paris is about an American writer, Gil (Owen Wilson), who wishes he were in Paris in the 1920s, and while vacationing there, gets his wish one night. It seems if he stands on the same street corner every night at midnight, a car will come by, and sweep him back in time. Soon he’s discussing his writing with Hemingway, the Fitzgerald’s and Gertrude Stein, seeing Picasso work, and discussing surrealism with Dali, Man Ray and Luis Bunuel (who he gives an excellent idea for a movie, even if Bunuel doesn’t get it “Why can’t they leave the room?”). He even meets a girl, Adriana (Marion Cotillard), who seems much more suited to him than his current fiancé. But is this reality really any better than the one he left?

For most of its running time, Midnight in Paris is a delightful comic fantasy. A lot of this has to do with Owen Wilson, who is great as the Woody surrogate in this film. Unlike actors like Kenneth Branagh, Sean Penn or Will Ferrell, who have essentially tried to do Allen impressions to varying degrees of success in the past, Wilson, doesn’t attempt that, and instead plays his role with the same goofy charm he always brings to his role. Here, it makes sense. He is not as cynical as other Allen characters. In fact, he seems downright sincere, even when he’s insulting the Tea Party right to his future father in law’s face – a man who admires them. He seems genuinely amazed when he walks into the 1920s Paris, but he accepts it openly as an opportunity to live his dream – to escape from his own reality, which he doesn’t much like. The scenes of him in modern Paris are wonderfully comic – with Gil suffering through shopping trips with his materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her mother, or suffering even more on trips to museums, in which a friend of Inez’s, Paul (Michael Sheen), feels the need to lecture about every piece of art they come across – even if he’s wrong. The scenes in the 1920s are even funnier. I loved Corey Stoll as Hemingway, giving terse, clipped lectures on love, beauty, honesty, violence and war – and then asking “Who wants to fight?”, or Alison Pill’s loopy performance as Zelda Fitzgerald, or Adrian Brody in a cameo as Salvador Dali who cannot stop talking about rhinoceros or Kathy Bates, warm and open as Gertrude Stein. I may not have known every person he comes across in Paris, but I knew enough of them to enjoy the movie. And Marion Cotillard, one of the most beautiful women in the world, is just about perfect as the muse for seemingly everyone in Paris – including finally Gil himself.

But this is a movie that sneaks up on you a little – much like The Purple Rose of Cairo did. That film was such a pleasure to watch, I didn’t quite realize just how complex it was until after it was over – how serious the message and theme of the movie was underneath all the delightful comedy on display. Midnight in Paris is similar in that respect, although I think Allen is this time around, a little too explicit in explaining his message in the final reel. It was clear enough without the speeches.

And yet, that is really the only thing I can complain about in Midnight in Paris, which overall was the most enjoyable trip to the movies I have had so far this year. I loved how Allen didn’t even try to explain why Gil is transported back in time – it doesn’t matter, and any explanation would have seemed silly. Instead, he simply embraces his concept. The opening sequence in the film will undoubtedly bring to my Allen’s best film, Manhattan, which opened with the most romantic view of Manhattan ever put on film, under Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Allen’s own voiceover. This time, there is no voiceover, and the images are of Paris, and yet while Allen could have made this sequence as dreamily romantic as Manhattan, he doesn’t. The famous Parisian landmarks seem somewhat empty – as if they are waiting for people to fill them. That ultimately may be the purpose of Midnight in Paris – it doesn’t really matter where you are, either in the world or in time – because it is ultimately you and not anything else that determines how happy you are. That Allen is able to get this point across in a movie that is so thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end is what makes this his best films in years.

Woody Allen's Best and Worst Films

Tomorrow, I will be seeing Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris – his 42 film as a director. I have seen 38 of his first 41, missing only his debut What’s Up Tiger Lily? along with A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy and September (one of these days, I’ll rent those three films and finish off his filmography). Allen is one of the most celebrated American writer/directors in history – he has been nominated for more writing Oscars than anyone else, and won Oscars for Directing and Writing Annie Hall and writing Hannah and Her Sisters, although he never showed up to get them. Of course, when you make 42 films in your career, not all are going to be good, but I think Allen’s track record is remarkably consistent. True, the most recent film on my top 10 is from 1997, and four out of five my five worst are from the 2000s, but I am not one that thinks Allen has completely lost it in the past 10 years. He has just grown a little more inconsistent. I easily could have put films like Match Point (2005), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) or even the extremely underrated Cassandra’s Dream (2008) on a lesser director’s top ten, and been happy with it. Anyway, below are my 10 favorite and 5 least favorite Woody Allen movies.


Ten Best
I had a hard time limiting this to 10 films. I still cannot believe I didn’t have room from Bananas (1971), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Match Point (2005) or Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), but alas I did not. Here are my 10 favorites.

10. Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Deconstructing Harry may just be Allen’s most personal film. It is about a novelist named Harry Block, who may have brought to mind the great Philip Roth if it didn’t so clearly bring Allen himself to mind. Block is a novelist who uses people in life, leaving them feeling cheated, and then uses their stories in his novels, making them feel even more cheated. No one likes Harry, who is under constant attack from everyone in his life – particularly the women, including ex-wives and mistresses – who say all sorts of horrible things about Block, mainly right to his face. It isn’t hard to imagine that Allen wrote this film about himself, just a few years after the ugly separation from Mia Farrow and the beginning of his relationship with her adopted daughter. Allen throws every criticism at Block that was thrown at himself, and then some. His characters are somewhat hateful, and could be seen as offensive. You could call Allen a self hating Jew after seeing this movie, except that he already has a character call him that in the movie itself. So why is Deconstructing Harry on my best of Woody Allen list? Because it is also hilarious, and somewhat daring. The movie moves back and forth between Block’s real life, and the stories he writes – including a hilarious and grotesque one about a wife who discovers that her husband was married before, and even had kids. But then he killed them and ate them but pleads with his new wife for understanding. Sometimes filmmakers need to exorcise their personal demons through their films, and that is precisely what Allen seems to be doing in Deconstructing Harry, which despite all of its excesses, it one of his best films.

9. Everyone Says I Love You (1996)

Allen’s films are often hilariously cynical, but Everyone Says I Love You is different in that it is unapologetically romantic and optimistic. It is Allen’s musical, done with actors who do not really sing all that well, but Allen lets them gamely try anyway. The songs aren’t truly about musical prowess anyway, but rather are about the emotions they bring up. There are no original songs in the movie, but instead Allen has his characters sing the old standards from Hollywood musicals of yesteryear. The result is utterly charming. The plot is complicated, with Allen’s writer returning from Paris after his French girlfriend dumped him, to his family – his first wife (Goldie Hawn), their two daughters (Drew Barrymore and Natasha Lyonne), her new husband (Alan Alda), and Alda and Hawn’s three children (Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman and Gaby Hoffman). There are laughs throughout the film – some supplied by Edward Norton as Barrymore’s straight laced fiancé and then by Tim Roth, as the criminal Barrymore finds herself inexplicably attracted to. When the emotions start running too high, the characters break into song. There are some movies that you can simply sink into, and no matter what come away smiling. Everyone Says I Love is that type of film.

8. Another Woman (1988)

Allen is rightfully thought of as mainly a comedic director. But Allen has made some straight ahead dramas, and of them all, his 1988 film Another Woman is my personal favorite. Gena Rowlands gives a remarkable performance – completely opposite of her equally remarkable work for her husband John Cassavetes – as a quiet, reserved woman, head of a philosophy department, somewhat happily married (to Ian Holm), who gets along with her husband’s teenage daughter (Martha Plimpton). She takes a small office in order to have solitude to write her latest book – but then quickly discovers that she can hear the therapy sessions of the psychiatrist next door, and eventually cannot resist listening in. What she discovers however, is not really about the other people, but about herself. People do not see her the way she thinks they see her. Her mind, so organized and nimble, begins to cave in on itself as she gets one revelation after another. Another Woman is a thoughtful examination of this woman, and a remarkable achievement for both Allen and Gena Rowlands. You don’t much hear this film compared with Allen’s best work, but it certainly belongs there.

7. Radio Days (1987)

Radio Days is about two conflicting realities in 1940s New York. On one hand, we have the story of a young Jewish boy in Brooklyn (Seth Green), who is obviously based on Allen himself. This story is about the Brooklyn how Allen remembers it while growing up, with his larger than life parents and relatives and teachers (one great sequence has the parents and a rabbi each pulling Green is one direction than another for the privilege of hitting him). Green drifts away listening to the radio in his house which transports him to another world. And Allen shows us that world as well – all glitz and glamour in Manhattan. There is not a real plot here, as Radio Days isn’t about a plot, it is about memory as nostalgia. The 1940s were probably not really like they are presented in this movie – either in Brooklyn or Manhattan – but that doesn’t matter because it is how Allen remembers it. The movie is funny, the Manhattan scenes in particular, but the scenes in Brooklyn; although they are also funny, have an air of sadness as well. Allen has put few emotional moments on screen that feel more real than the scene where Green discovers what his father does for a living. This is an underrated gem.

6. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Hannah and Her Sisters is about, as the title implies, Hannah (Mia Farrow) and her two sisters – Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest). The movie contains three Thanksgiving dinners – one each at the beginning middle and end – and the movie progresses through these two years in their lives in which many things happen. The sisters couldn’t be more different – Hannah is more down to earth and motherly, Lee more free spirited and sexual, and Holly a mess of tics and drug addiction. Then there are the men in their lives – Michael Caine as Hannah’s husband, an accountant who is in love with Lee, Max von Sydow, as an aging artist who has lost contact with reality, except for his relationship with Lee, who is supposed to be his girlfriend, but who he talks down to. Then there is Allen himself as Hannah’s first husband, a TV director, who fears he is going to die. Then there are the girl’s parents – Maureen O’Sullivan and Lloyd Nolan, an old showbiz couple in a constant state of war, but who underneath it all, truly do love each other. The movie is expertly crafted and structured; teetering between comedy and tragedy and ultimately these screwed characters come to find just a little bit of happiness, even in heartbreak. Even Woody’s character, who spends much of the movie in a constant state of depression, and then walks into a theater and watches the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, and is reminded that life isn’t all pain and suffering.

5. Husbands and Wives (1992)

Husbands and Wives is one of Allen’s messiest movies visually. He uses handheld camera work and jump cuts throughout the film because his characters lives are more chaotic and painful than most of the time in his career. The film centers on two couples who are friends – Sydney Pollock and Judy Davis are getting a divorce to allow them a chance to “grow”. They tell their friends, Allen and Mia Farrow – over dinner that it is an amicable breakup, but in reality there really is no such thing, and the hurt and resentment in this couple is real and palpable. The news comes as a blow to Allen and Farrow, who of course, start to reevaluate their own relationship. The film is funny in parts, but most often it is painful and honest. This may just be Allen’s best performance, as a he plays a man who is tempted by a younger woman (Juliette Lewis), and has to decide whether he wants to resist or give into the attraction. Pollock is of no help, because he is seeing a much younger woman himself – an aerobics instructor who loves “me for me”. Yeah, right. Judy Davis’ performance is the best of her career, and is full of pain bile. Husbands and Wives came out just as Allen was breaking up with Farrow in real life, and many people hated it at the time. Looking back now, it is one of his very best films.

4. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

What a wonderful comic fantasy The Purple Rose of Cairo is. Mia Farrow plays a shy, quiet woman who has been going to the same movie over and over again, until one day the hero of the movie, noticing her in the audience again, strikes up a conversation with her from inside the screen. Soon, he has stepped out of the screen, out of the movie, and into her life. The rest of the cast is stuck on screen not knowing to do because the main character is missing. The studio is horrified to discover their characters can think for themselves. And the actor, who is real life is an asshole, is pissed there is another version of himself walking around. What’s more, the “hero” of the movie cannot function in the real world, because of course his life experience is limited to what he did in the movie. The Purple Rose of Cairo is related to other Allen movies about fame and the movies – and is really about the difference between fantasy and reality – fictional characters, and the romance on the big screen does not really exist, and you if you expect them to, you are bound to be disappointed. The Purple Rose of Cairo is a delightful comedic fantasy, but it is one that takes its premise seriously, and the end of the movie is damn near heartbreaking.

3. Annie Hall (1977)

Annie Hall is Allen’s most loved movie, and for good reason. This is Allen stretching himself for the first time, beyond his “earliest, funnier” movies, yet is still just about the funniest film he has ever made. The difference between Annie Hall and his earlier movies, is that characters and their relationship to each other feels more real than the earlier movies. The film is about the failed relationship between Alvy Singer (Allen) and Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), which starts out so promising, but ends like all relationships in Allen films seem to. There are still brilliant comic moments – Marshall McLuhan being a famous one, Christopher Walken’s brilliant one scene debut as Annie’s creepy brother, Allen walking the streets asking people about sex (and hearing about a giant vibrating egg). This is Allen’s emergence as a real filmmaker – one who could tackle bigger issues about people’s relationship to each other. And it remains one of his very best films.

2. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

I have heard Crimes and Misdemeanors called one of the greatest atheist films of all time, and I can understand why. At the heart of the movie there is a successful doctor (Martin Landau), who has been having an affair with Anjelica Huston, who has now become serious. She threatens to tell his wife about them, which he doesn’t want. He never wanted to leave his wife, his comfortable lifestyle, but simply want to have some fun. He approaches his brother (Jerry Orbach), a gangster, and asks him to “take care of her” for him – everyone knowing what he means. Ultimately, Landau gets away with it, and finds that unlike previous movie and literary characters who get away with murder, he can sleep soundly at night. You can do whatever you want to, as long as you can live with yourself afterwards. The other half of the movie is more comedic, with Allen playing a struggling documentary filmmaker hired to do a film on his famous brother in law (Alan Alda), who he despises, and falls in love with his associate producer, Mia Farrow. The film is about the moral dilemmas that both of these men face, and what they do about them – Landau walks away scot free, with no remorse, while Allen, who has nothing anywhere near as wrong, is still stricken with sadness. It is one of Allen’s most lasting, and quietly profound, movies.

1. Manhattan (1979)

For a few years after seeing Manhattan for the first time, I was a little scared of watching it again, because the first time I saw it, the film struck me as just about perfect, and I was afraid that any additional screening would disappoint me. I needn’t have worried. Allen’s 1979 film is his best and for me, always will be. Allen plays a twice divorced TV writer, who latest ex-wife (Meryl Streep) has come out as a lesbian, and is writing a tell all book about their life together. He is daring a 17 year old (Muriel Hemingway), who adores her, but he is somewhat embarrassed by it. He meets his best friend’s mistress (Diane Keaton), and falls for her, breaking up with Tracy because of it, but eventually realizing, he may have made a mistake. This film is one of Allen’s funniest – with many of his best one liners (“I think people should mate for life, like pigeons or Catholics”, “He’s done a great job on you, y’know. Your self esteem is like a notch below Kafka’s”. about God “I gotta model myself after someone”, about orgasms “You had the wrong kind? I’ve never had the wrong kind, ever. Even my worst one was right on the money”, etc). And yet, the film is also perceptive about relationships – even more so than Annie Hall. I liked the relationship between Keaton and Allen, but I love the relationship between Hemingway and Allen, which is not just a stereotypical younger girl, older man relationship but something deeper, and more honest. Also, you cannot possibly fault Gordon Willis’ gorgeous black and white photography, or the wonderful use of Gerswhin’s Rhapsody in Blue to begin and end the movie. The movie is simply put, perfect.

Five Worst
I don’t think my five worst list will shock anyone, except for maybe my choice for number five. Unlike many, I actually kind of like some of Allen’s lesser thought of works – Anything Else (2003) has a wonderful Allen performance (his last great one as an actor), even if Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci are miscast, I thoroughly enjoy Kenneth Branagh’s mugging in Celebrity (1998), thought Larry David made a suitable Allen substitute in Whatever Works (2009), enjoy the black and white photography of Shadows and Fog (1992) and think that Stardust Memories (1980) is hugely ambitious despite its many flaws. Below are the only five films of Allen’s career that I wouldn’t gladly pop in the DVD player tonight.

5. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex*(*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)

This was only Allen’s fourth movie, and while it was a box office success, to me it is a film that sounds much better on paper than it actually plays on screen. It is a series of seven sequences based on chapters of Dr. David Reuben’s book of the same name. Included are a segment with Allen as a court jester foiled by the Queen’s chastity belt, a segment with Gene Wilder falling in love with a sheep, a segment with Lou Jacobi trying on women’s clothing, a game show parody called “What’s My Perversion?”, and sequence about an insane sex researcher. Of these five, only What’s My Perversion has moments that are truly funny, and even then only in fits and starts. I did mildly enjoy Allen’s take on the films of Antonioni and Fellini, about a woman who can only climax in public, and the final segment, a sci fi homage taking place inside the male body during orgasm is genuinely funny, with Allen playing a sperm. But overall, the film was a disappointment. Perhaps in 1972, this seemed daring. Now it seems incredibly dated and not very funny at all.

4. Hollywood Ending (2002)

Hollywood Ending is mildly enjoyable at times, as almost any Allen movie is, but it is one that at a fundamental level, I just didn’t buy. It stars Allen as a once great filmmaker struggling for the last decade, who has been given what could be his final chance to direct a studio movie – the stress of which makes him go temporarily blind. To make matter worse, he has insisted on a Chinese cinematographer, who does not speak English, so he cannot tell him what to do. The only person on set who knows he’s blind is the translator, whose English is rough, and tells Allen things that don’t make much sense. For me, there is too much mugging for the camera done by Allen in this movie – too much physical comedy, which is not Allen’s strong suit as a performer or director. Yes, there are some enjoyable moments, but overall, I think Hollywood Ending adds up to nothing very substantial, and worse, it quite simply isn’t very funny.

3. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

Allen’s most recent film is one of his weakest. Like much of his recent work, the film doesn’t take place in Allen’s beloved New York, but rather in Europe – this time in London, yet his characters are pretty much the same as his New York characters. Josh Brolin plays a struggling writer, married to Naomi Watts, even though they don’t much like each other anymore. She is starting to fall for her boss, Antonio Banderas, who she thinks like her, and he is falling for the neighbor across the street, Frieda Pinto. Meanwhile, Watts’ father (Anthony Hopkins) has left her mother (Gemma Jones) and taken up with a younger woman – a hooker (Lucy Punch). This is the film, more than any of Allen’s others, where I felt like he was simply going through the motions. There is nothing new here, nothing to really draw us into the movie in any real way. It is mildly pleasant, and I did quite like Lucy Punch, and Gemma Jones near the beginning of the movie (as it wore on, she got more and more annoying). When you make a film a year for 40 years, at some point, it must get tiring, and that’s what I felt while watching this film.

2. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)

One thing we know about Allen is that he is in love with movies, particularly the films of the 1940s. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion was his attempt to make a comedic riff on the film noir genre. I did like the look of the film, but the plot never really takes off. Allen works for an insurance company and has helped to make some homes “burglar proof”, but then he is hypnotized by Zoltan (David Ogden Stiers) and sent into those homes to steal valuable jewels. Helen Hunt plays his arch nemesis, who has also been hypnotized, and when they are both under Zoltan’s spell, they think they’re in love. The screenplay lacks Allen’s usual crackling dialogue, and given what he had to play within the noir genre, this should have been a film full of memorable dialogue (I can only imagine what Allen riffing on Dashiell Hammett’s dialogue would sound like, because he’s doesn’t pull it off here). Helen Hunt is miscast (and also clearly doesn’t smoke, which is a pet peeve of mine, when I see actors on screen merely holding a cigarette, instead of smoking it). Elizabeth Berkley, of Showgirls and Saved by the Bell fame, adds nothing either, although Charlize Theron fairs okay. Overall, however, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion quite simply never goes anywhere, never rises to the level that it should have, and could have, gotten to. A major disappointment.

1. Scoop (2006)

Scoop is without a doubt, my least favorite Allen movie ever. Even the other films on my “worst of” list for Allen had moments to enjoy, but Scoop truly has nothing to offer. Set in England, the film is supposed to be a comedic mystery, with Scarlett Johansson playing an American journalism student trying to discover if Hugh Jackman is really a murderer, and then ending up falling in love with him anyway. A murdered journalist, Ian McShane, appears to Johanson to tell her that Jackman is the murderer at the magic show of Sidney Waterman (Allen), who gets dragged along by Johansson into the mystery. The film isn’t funny and it isn’t mysterious, it quite simply painful to sit through. Johansson and Jackman appear lost in the film, McShane plays a role that makes no sense, and even Allen himself, in what is to this point his final film as an actor (although apparently, he will star in his next film) is simply going through the motions. Scoop is the one film of Allen’s career that has absolutely nothing worthwhile in it – he even screws up an homage to F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise. A complete failure.

Movie Review: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger ** ½
Directed by: Woody Allen.
Written By: Woody Allen.
Starring: Naomi Watts (Sally), Josh Brolin (Roy), Freida Pinto (Dia), Anthony Hopkins (Alfie), Gemma Jones (Helena), Lucy Punch (Charmaine), Antonio Banderas (Greg), Anna Friel (Iris), Pauline Collins (Cristal), Ewen Bremner (Henry Strangler).

The films of Woody Allen have become something like comfort food. Every year, the filmmaker makes another film, which is always undeniably a Woody Allen film as he remains one of the most distinctive filmmakers of all time - in terms of dialogue, visual approach and themes, Allen really has been doing something similar for more than 40 years now. He has always been a hit and miss filmmaker, and even if fewer of his films are hitting, and many more are missing, he still has the talent As he has proven in recent films like Match Point, the criminally neglected Cassandra’s Dream and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, he can still make a great film. But for the most part, we continue to get films like You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger - a mildly diverting, but ultimately although pointless film.

Returning to London, setting of Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream after shooting his last two films in Spain Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and New York City for Whatever Works. But no matter where Allen sets his films, they all have a similar feel, and are about similar people - people who are overeducated, who are constantly thinking that what they don’t have is better than what they do have, and they spend too much time overanalyzing their lives, and too little time actually living them.

This time, Allen focuses his gaze on Sally (Naomi Watts) who is married to Roy (Josh Brolin). He is a writer who had a success with his first novel, and has spent years trying to figure out how to follow it up. She works in an art gallery to try and support him as he works on finishing his latest novel - but basically they spend much of their time arguing. They are unhappy, and he has started to spy on his neighbor across the street - Dia (Freida Pinto) - and his peeping tom behavior actually leads to a relationship of sorts. She has started to see her boss (Antonio Baderas) in a different light - like her, he is caught in a marriage that makes him unhappy. Then there are Sally’s parents - Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) has just left Helena (Gemma Jones) because he doesn’t want to admit he’s old. He falls for a prostitute Charmaine (Lucy Punch), and makes the mistake of marrying her, and then being surprised to find that she did it because he has money. Meanwhile Helena spends all her time visiting a psychic, whose advice she bases all of her decisions on.

All this is is handled with skill and smarts by Allen. He does know how to write dialogue, and provide us with some interesting characters. Unfortunately this time around, it all rings kind of hollow. It’s not that Allen’s films in the recent past have seem overly original - they are all variations on a theme - but this time, he seems to be going through the motions a little too much. Everything feels just slightly warmed over and derivative. I did quite like Lucy Punch as the call girl that Hopkins marries, who is a little more complicated than we first think. But everyone else is essentially established early, and never really become more complex. Especially Frieda Pinto who is little more than female perfection personified - she doesn’t even get the typical dose of Allen neurosis. Allen, who hasn’t acted in one of his films since Scoop back in 2006, is well known for providing surrogated for himself in the film even when he isn’t in them - this time, I suppose he can be seen in Josh Brolin as the struggling author, and in Hopkins as the older man trying to convince himself he’s still young, but eventually realizing he cannot fool himself any longer. Both do an fine job with their roles - although at times Hopkins simply seems like he’s going through the motions, much like Allen himself. Naomi Watts is one of the harsher female characters in Allen’s recent works - there is very little to like about her, as whenever we see her she is complaining and has a sense of entitlement which is off-putting. I did like Gemma Jones as her mother Helena, but that’s because she does a really good job at being really annoying. I think that Banderas does a very good job at playing aloof - a man who we, just like Watts, seem to deliberately misread because we want him to be something he is not.

Perhaps I am being too hard on Allen and this film. After all, one of the first things he has the narrator say in the film is a paraphrase of Shakespeare’s famous quote about life being nothing but sound and fury signifying nothing. That is a pretty much perfect description of You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, so I guess who much you like the film will depend on how much you like all this sound and fury, because there really is nothing else here.

Movie Review: Whatever Works

Whatever Works *** ½
Directed By: Woody Allen.
Written By: Woody Allen.
Starring: Larry David (Boris Yellnikoff), Evan Rachel Wood (Melodie St. Ann Celestine), Patricia Clarkson (Marietta), Conleth Hill (Leo Brockman), Henry Cavill (Randy James), Olek Krupa (Morgenstern), Ed Begley Jr. (John), Michael McKean (Joe), Christopher Evan Welch (Howard), Jessica Hecht (Helena).

It’s nice to have Woody Allen home in New York again after a number of years abroad. I know Allen has said that he made his most recent films – Match Point, Scoop, Cassandra’s Dream and Vicky, Cristina Barcelona – abroad because of money concerns, and although with the exception of Scoop, I have really like all of them, there is something unnatural about watching a Woody Allen film set somewhere else. Like Martin Scorsese or Spike Lee, Allen is a New York filmmaker, whose films bring the city to life in a way that few others have been able to do.

Whatever Works is a throwback to the films of Allen’s past. Apparently, he wrote this screenplay around the time of Annie Hall and Manhattan – 30 years ago – and the movie certainly does fit in with the films Allen was making in that period. He has updated the film some to make it relevant and timely in 2009, but this still has all the hallmarks of those late ‘70s classics. Perhaps Allen did not make it back then, because he wasn’t sure if he was up to playing the role of Boris Yellnikoff, the brilliant (at least in his own mind) physicist, who looks down on the rest of the world as intellectual “inchworms” and “cretins”. But Larry David, who he casts as his surrogate in this film, was made for this role. He plays it better than Allen could have ever done. He is perhaps the best of all the Woody surrogates over the years, because he is enough like Allen, that he doesn’t feel the need to try and do an impression, but different enough that you feel you are watching someone else playing the role, instead of watching someone play Allen playing the role.

Boris is a depressed hypochondriac who has left his rich wife, and his job teaching physics at Columbia, and now teaches chess to children in the park, who he berates with insults when they make a dumb move – and according to Boris pretty much everything is a dumb move. He is a misanthrope, but somewhat happy being one – or at least as happy as Boris is capable of being. He is not happy at all, unless he is miserable.

Into his life appears Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood, proving at least that Allen doesn’t have to cast Scarlett Johansson in every damn movie he makes). She is a poor girl from Mississippi, who has run away from home, and now finds herself on the street. Against his better judgment, Boris invites her inside, and allows her to sleep on his couch until she can find a job. Melodie’s sunny disposition is at first annoying to him, and she is certainly not very smart. But she grows a little crush on him, and eventually he is worn down. They get married. Then Melodie’s born again Christian mother Marietta (Patricia Clarkson) arrives, and she hates her new son in law.

The movie, it must be said, is a comic fantasy. Is there any real way that a girl like Melodie would fall in love with a guy like Boris and vice versa? Not really. But if they didn’t, then there wouldn’t be a plot to the movie. And to be fair to Allen, I don’t think he really believes it either, hence where the movie ends up when everything is wrapped up. The basic premise of the movie is summed up perfectly by the title. Screw what society, what religion, what anyone else says is normal behavior and relationships. You’re only responsible for trying to make yourself, and the people in your life happy. And if you find something that works, hang onto it, no matter what anyone else says.

The film’s cast is pretty much perfect. In addition to David, who is essentially playing a version of himself that he has perfected on Curb Your Enthusiasm over the years, mixed with some of Woody’s comic persona, every other role is filled out perfectly. Evan Rachel Wood is a comic delight as Melodie – chipper and cheerful, and delightfully dimwitted, you cannot help falling for her. Allen has written this type of role before – most notably for Mia Farrow in Broadway Danny Rose and Mia Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite – but I think Wood plays the role better than either of them did. Patricia Clarkson is perfect as the born again Christian woman, who finds that New York really does have a corrupting influence on her – and she couldn’t be happier about it. And I loved Ed Begeley Jr. when he shows up late in the film as Melodie’s father, spewing bible passages, before making his confession.

So while Whatever Works is not going to be counted among Allen’s masterpieces – like Annie Hall and Manhattan surely are – and it doesn’t seem quite as fresh and daring as those film did (how could it? It was written 30 years ago), it is also one of the most enjoyable, and funny, films I have seen so far this year.