Movie Update 33: Woody Allen

These movies are all from the mid seventies to early eighties, and show off Woody Allen's more serious and philosophical side. They're also funny though, with one big exception.

Interiors


The only pure drama on this list, and the only pure drama by Allen that I've seen. It's the story of three (though really mostly two) sisters and what they experience after the separation of their parents. They frequently butt heads and have very different takes on their parents, especially how their delicate mother is handing being away from her husband. She dives even deeper into her interior decorating, but it might not be enough to keep her going anymore. The film is very obviously heavily influenced by the style of Ingmar Bergman, and it's mostly a well acted and filmed drama, but I mostly wasn't interested in the characters or their plights. It also seemed just a bit forced in the shots it creates - Bergman was able to create similarly striking images without them seeming so intentional. Still, it's not a bad departure for a guy previously mostly known for silly comedies.

Love and Death


Possibly the last purely goofy Allen movie, Love and Death still has hints of what he would try out later, both in its repeated Bergman references and the constant philosophical debate among its main characters, even if that debate is mostly played for laughs. It's about a Russian played by Allen who stumbles his way to being a war hero, marries his cousin played by Diane Keaton, and eventually they attempt to assassinate Napoleon together. It's a fun little spin on classic Russian literature that manages to be funny throughout without completely ignoring the subject matter it tackles.


A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy


Yet another Bergman-influenced film (boy, did Allen ever love that guy), and his first collaboration with Mia Farrow. It's about three couples that go on a weekend together to a cottage in the woods in the early 1900s, and end up struggling the whole time with conflicted feelings. Farrow is marrying an older professor, but she had a previous experience with Allen and is very attractive to his other friend. The professor is drawn to the friend's new companion, and Allen also has feelings for Farrow further risking his rocky marriage with Mary Steenburgen. There are some sillier elements like his flying machine and a strange device that can show the past, but it's mostly a very entertaining mix of comedy and romantic turmoil.

Stardust Memories


Allen claims this film is not autobiographical, those it's easy to see how it could be seen as such, with him starring as a film director who wants to be serious but is constantly told by fans that they prefer his earlier, funnier work. It's again a mix of humor and more serious elements, this time with an occasionally trippy feel. We frequently see snippets of the films his character has made, and they mix with real life and odd dream sequences which make it easy to get a bit lost as far as what the movie is trying to say. It's a pretty divisive film, and I myself was unable to decide whether I really liked it or thought it was too muddled.

Midnight in Paris

Somehow this is the only Woody Allen movie I've seen that's been released since 1989, though my Netflix queue tells me that will change soon. He doesn't appear to have changed that much as a writer or director since then, though I've gotten the impression that this is his best work in a while, and since it wasn't actually all that great, it makes me wonder how much he's slipped. Midnight in Paris isn't bad at all, and in truth I enjoyed most of it. But there are some things about it that bothered me too, and it really isn't anything new for him.

The most surprising thing about the film is its fantasy premise, which I didn't really know about. Owen Wilson is a stand-in for the definitely-too-old Allen, playing a pretty standard Allen character - a Hollywood writer who hates his job and would prefer to be a novelist. While on vacation with his fiancé and her parents in Paris, you see many cracks in their relationship. They don't fundamentally agree on most things, and you question how they got together in the first place. He's hopelessly romantic about the city and the past and being a real artist, and she wants nothing to do with it. But then while on a walk at night he gets into an old car with some people and taken to a party where he meets many famous artists from the period he's nostalgic for, from Ernest Hemingway to Pablo Picasso. At first I thought it was just a costume party or something, but before too long it's apparent that he's actually somehow visiting another time. By day he fakes being interested in what his future wife is doing, but by night he's showing his writing to Gertrude Stein and falling in love with a woman played by Marion Cotillard.

It's kind of an odd story, but it's an effective one about career and life in general, how we may not always be totally happy and satisfied, but maybe we're not supposed to be, and trying to hide in the past isn't a good way to deal with it. I liked how Wilson's relationship with Cotillard eventually allows him to learn what he needs to, and while it's not exactly the funniest comedy, there's some pretty enjoyable scenes. It's fun playing spot the famous person, both in the older artists being portrayed and the actors playing them. My favorite was Adrien Brody playing a Salvador Dali who's apparently become obsessed with rhinoceroses.

As I said though, there were flaws too, most notably perhaps being that the film is so yellow that I was often distracted by it. I understand wanting to create an aesthetic, but I'm pretty sure Paris isn't that damn yellow in any time period. The characters also often seem underwritten, or not fully thought through. Owen does a decent job with the character, and has a few genuinely very good acting moments, but it's sometimes hard to like him when he acts like one of the most deluded and unreasonable people ever. Actually experiencing time travel only gets you so far. And I think the story of his obsession and drifting away from real life would have been more effective if the people in it weren't so shitty. His fiancé and her parents and her know-it-all friend are completely unsympathetic. The actors are fine, they're just written to be villains, and I don't think it helped the story. If you were with someone who started talking about how they were going off at night and partying with Hemingway, you probably wouldn't react well either. Midnight in Paris is a fine movie, but it's far from Allen's best work.

Movie Update 15

A bunch of movies this weekend, as several were about to disappear from my Netflix streaming queue. Let's get right to it.

Bananas


One of Woody Allen's earliest films, starring him as a sort of a deadbeat who moves to a South American country in the middle of a revolution after his activist girlfriend dumps him. This movie was quite strange to me, as it mixes Allen's natural film technique and some pretty Woody Allen jokes like the giving and receiving conversation with a lot of really silly and over the top gags that don't quite fit. Stuff like his dad making him assist on a surgery when he's saying goodbye or the whole courtroom scene would feel more in place if the whole thing was a wacky spoof like Airplane!. I did enjoy the movie, though. Lots of great gags prop up a simple story.

Defiance


On the one hand, Edward Zwick should be commended for finding a way to tell a story about a Jewish resistance against Nazi occupation in Belarus with a Hollywood budget. On the other, after seeing movies with similar subject matter like Come and See, I kind of wish he had taken a smaller budget and just made a slightly better movie. I respect him for focusing on unexplored parts of history in his work, but Defiance as a whole feels kind of whitewashed. It's a pretty decent movie, but too much is just standard American war movie stuff. Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber give very good central performances, and their Belarusian accents sounded pretty good even if I still don't like the compromise of having a non-American character speak with an accent rather than his actual language. Really nice cinematography, too.

Jerry Maguire


This movie had a huge impact on popular culture at the time, and was nominated for a bunch of awards, but I don't think it really holds up as a great film. It was on AFI's list of the top 10 sports movies, but they must have been stuck at 9, because it's not actually a sports movie. Yeah, Tom Cruise plays a sports agent and a big part of the movie is his relationship with Cuba Gooding Jr's wide receiver character, but it's much more a romantic comedy, and a story about a man learning how to connect to people. He could have been in almost any other kind of business and it would have been the same movie. There are several iconic lines in the movie that are kind of entertaining to watch unfold, especially when Cruise is overselling them. The whole movie is sort of overly sappy and emotional, but it's slick and amusing enough to keep it watchable for most of the time it's on. Gooding is really quite entertaining too, though it doesn't strike me as the typical award winning performance.

A Night at the Opera


This is the Marx Brothers' follow-up to Duck Soup; their first film at a new studio and without their brother Zeppo. The plot is less out-there than Soup's, featuring Groucho, Chico, and Harpo as a few guys who travel with an opera company to America and try to help a down-on-his-luck singer score with someone else in the company and get the break he deserves. What really interests me is how the brothers continue to be giant assholes to everyone, even if they don't deserve it. The only people resembling antagonists here are the boss who doesn't want to give the singer a job until he has a better reputation, and a man who is his rival professionally and personally. But the first is just making a smart business decision, and the second never really does anything wrong, he just has more status as a singer and is also attracted to the same beautiful woman. It doesn't matter though, the film considers them the bad guys, and they get their shit ruined by the brothers constantly. The crowning moment comes at the end when the boss finally agrees to sign their friend, and while Groucho and Chico are debating the contract, Harpo tears open the boss' tuxedo jacket for no reason. God, I love the Marx Brothers.

Scarface


Most people probably don't know that the Brian De Palma film starring Al Pacino is actually a remake of this, which is loosely based on the life of Al Capone. It comes right out at the beginning and denounces both organized crime and the government for not doing a better job of fighting it, and then tells the story of a man's rise to prominence and eventual downfall in the 1920s underworld of violence and illegal booze. It's an early film by Howard Hawks, and I think I would have liked it a lot more if it wasn't for Paul Mini's performance as the titular character. I really can't stand it. Tony Camonte bounces around, getting overly confrontational, pursuing his boss' girlfriend while flipping his shit when his sister so much as looks at a guy (what, is he hoping she'll join a convent?), and generally acts like a jackass. I'm aware that crime movies are built on their central figures being bad people, but they're supposed to be redeemable or at least likable in some way so we don't get annoyed whenever they're on screen. It's something they just hadn't figured out yet. Important and fairly well made movie, but a hard one to enjoy.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

The third and last Woody Allen film I watched over the weekend. Crimes and Misdemeanors is the first film of his I've seen that you could reasonably call a drama more than a comedy, although there's still funny moments, usually involving Allen's character butting heads with Alan Alda's. But considering that a murder is central to one of the main two character arcs in the story, calling it a drama certainly seems fair. The film is fairly neatly divided between two threads. In one, Allen plays a documentary filmmaker in a loveless marriage, who is given an opportunity to do a profile on his hot shot producer brother in law played by Alda, and then becomes his romantic rival after meeting an associate producer played by Mia Farrow. In the other, Martin Landau plays a successful eye doctor who has to deal with an increasingly intrusive mistress played by Anjelica Huston. The two threads barely bump up against each other until the end, when the two leads meet at a wedding and share a quiet moment.

The film is certainly different than what I'm used to seeing from Allen, and while it didn't totally work for me, I admired a lot about it. The cast is pretty terrific as always, and I appreciated the attempt at some genuinely dark material without a hint of a humorous motive. This is also the second Allen film this week to take an idea from an Ingmar Bergman film, and he's not a bad person to pay tribute to. Alda's character is pretty much the perfect smug bastard, refusing to take no for an answer and carrying a tape recorder around with him to track every little idea he has for the next big hit. The relationships on display have the appropriate mixture of sweetness and melancholy, and there are a few inspired moments. I felt like a few of its concepts got in the way of creating a more genuinely entertaining movie though, and Allen isn't quite a master of suspense when it comes to the darker stuff, or at least he wasn't yet. Still a perfectly fine film, and it was cool seeing him try something different.

Hannah and Her Sisters

Hannah and Her Sisters is another comedy/drama about relationships by Woody Allen, and while I didn't think it was as good as a couple other examples I've seen, it was still a very good movie. It shows the intertwining lives of three sisters over the course of two years as they go through relationship woes and sometimes don't get along too well. Mia Farrow plays Hannah, whose husband played by Michael Caine feels attracted to her sister played by Barbara Hershey, who is also in a relationship with an artist played by Max Von Sydow. Dianne Wiest is a struggling actress who butts heads romantically with her friend and business partner played by Carrie Fisher. Woody Allen plays a TV writer who has a history with both Farrow and Wiest, and believes he may have a tumor. All of these plot threads dance around each other and come together repeatedly around Thanksgiving, when the whole family gathers to pretend nothing is wrong with their lives.

While I have enjoyed other films by Allen more, I think this one actually impressed me the most with its direction. The unique use of title cards, the way things are cut together, the way some of the scenes are shot, are all really interesting. It's certainly the best case I've seen so far for Woody Allen as a great artist and not just a guy who makes cute, funny movies. There's some of that too though, especially in his subplot, which is mostly tangentially related to the other stories until near the end. It involves him worrying about his mortality and looking for solace in religion, but because he's neurotic, nebbish Woody Allen the way he goes about it is really silly and amusing. He's mostly there to provide laughs while everyone else is doing heavier lifting. Caine and Wiest both won Oscars for their work, and they along with pretty much everyone in the film do great jobs with the material, sympathizing people with often very unlikable traits, which can be difficult to do. I can see why those two were singled out for their work, but the whole thing is a pretty outstanding ensemble. It's not quite as fun a movie as it could have been, but I liked what it did.

Zelig

Several of Woody Allen's films will be expiring from Netflix' Instant service shortly, so I made sure to watch a few of them this weekend. They coincidentally all co-starred Mia Farrow, and the first one is Zelig, a mockumentary about a man with a mental disorder that causes him to physically transform to resemble those around him. Allen plays the titular character, and is surprisingly dedicated to the documentary conceit, as a very large portion of the film is narration over still photographs and period footage, with the story taking place mostly in the 20s and 30s. Any scene using live action, whether intended as archive footage or as a modern interview, is usually pretty funny, though the focus seems to have been on the fake documentary stuff rather than humor.

I would say that the joke of the character isn't enough to sustain a whole movie, even one that doesn't quite last eighty minutes, though the fact is that the joke isn't the whole thing. It provides some laughs as Allen transforms into other races or gains copious amounts of weight to fit in with his current crowd, but the condition actually sort of explores the idea of identity and wanting to be liked in a way I wasn't expecting. It's a surprisingly effective story beyond the comedy. The relationship between Zelig and his doctor played by Farrow is also one of the nicest I've seen in an Allen film, mostly because it doesn't involve a lot of infidelity or anything like that. The one thing I found odd was that the entire style of the film and narration seemed to be like an old newsreel or something, but the footage from the (then) modern day interviews clashes with that. Still, with so many mockumentaries these days that barely even bother to play with or acknowledge the concept, it was fun seeing a film that threw itself into it entirely.

Manhattan

Apparently Woody Allen disliked this movie so much that he begged the studio not to release it. This I do not understand. It's not quite as good as Annie Hall, but very few movies are, and it's both a highly amusing and occasionally heartfelt look at romance as well as a love letter to New York. It's shot in black and white, and that along with the George Gershwin score lend the movie a great old fashioned sense of style, as the protagonist played by Allen worries in the opening narration that society is going to hell as we lose our values and get addicted to cheap pop culture. Of course the movie itself is guilty of numerous insider pop culture references, but I don't think the irony is lost on Allen.

He stars as a divorced TV writer in a questionable (and somewhat prescient) relationship with a seventeen year old high school student. He worries that he's told for her, though his concern becomes more acute when he finds out that his best friend is having an affair with a journalist played by Diane Keaton, and he begins to have feelings for her. Eventually he begins to see her as well, and everything turns into a big mess as people try to figure out what they really want to do and who they want to do it with, but it's done in a real way where the drama and controversy doesn't overwhelm the human feelings that drive all of it. People get hurt, but nobody is really a bad person. Although sleeping with an underage girl is pretty bad when you're in your 40s.

Still, the fact that the characters are sympathetic despite some of their actions is an accomplishment. The central actors are all very good, and Meryl Streep has a nice role in a side plot as Allen's lesbian ex-wife who's writing a book about the break up of their marriage. There are a few story elements that don't really go anywhere, but they add to the flavor of the movie and make it seem more genuine. It's a very funny movie, maybe not as original or creative as Hall, but it provokes a lot of laughs while it lasts, and the general Allen-style of a bunch of characters talking and going on tangents and interrupting each other is in full effect. It's more striking visually than Hall, obviously with the black and white photography at the center of that but there's a few other things that contribute to it as well. I really should have seen more movies by Allen by now, his movies are quick, to the point, and a lot of fun. Luckily, there are a bunch streaming on Netflix right now.

Take the Money and Run

One of Allen's first movies, back when he was one of the prime innovators of comedy in film. He's known for creating a lot of jokes and gags that have been recycled endlessly by less creative writers, and Take the Money and Run is the first real Mockumentary. A lot of the movie plays pretty much like a normal movie, but the narration and interviews with people who knew the main character are what make it different. Allen wrote and directed, but Ralph Rosenblum's editing appears to have been very vital to the movie's success. He changed the editing and tightened up the whole thing, making it into a lean comedy gem.

Virgil is a man who appears kind-hearted but is really a career criminal, although he's not great at what he does. There's a lot of great humor about botched heists, failed escape attempts and how a relationship holds up under the strain of breaking the law for a living. The central conceit that it's supposed to be a documentary doesn't really make sense, because most of this stuff would never be filmed in real life, unlike the more mundane subject matter of This is Spinal Tap or The Office. If you just ignore this problem though, you can find a very smart and funny movie. It rewards viewers who remember details and can spot some cultural references (there was an entire bit about an old Game Show I wouldn't have gotten as well without some help). The runtime is pretty quick, and they never spend too much time on one subject. This is where Woody Allen got his start as a "triple-threat", and it's a good movie indeed.

Best Movies of 2006

I saw several decent movies in 2006, such as The Good Shepherd (Well acted, interesting subject matter, way too slow), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Pretty much the right amount of stupid), Superman Returns (Admirably crafted but wallows in the superhero movie pit of too many special effects and not enough real action) and X-Men: The Last Stand (Entertaining but unfocused and far from the greatness of the second). I consider the five below to be the best of the year.

Best of 2006

5. A Scanner Darkly

They've made a bunch of movies based on Phillip K. Dick's writings, and they usually seem to turn out pretty good. Paycheck didn't turn out so hot, but I loved Total Recall and Minority Report, and I still haven't seen Blade Runner but from what I heard that was good too. A Scanner Darkly is a little different though, instead of just being a normal science fiction movie, it's a much more personal story, as it's based on Dick's own experience dealing with drug addiction. It has some cool futuristic ideas like the suits that distort the wearer's appearance to be unidentifiable, but instead of having big action scenes, it focuses on Keanu Reeves' character and his internal struggle.

Near the end the plot gets a little tighter and actually has a twist or two, but most of the movie is the discussion between him and his boss and doctors, and humorous interactions with his drug buddies Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr., who both excellently portray uniquely hilarious and disturbed characters. They're more outwardly crazy than Reeves, but his character's addiction to the drug that's filled the streets is deeper, and he handles his role well for someone whose acting is so universally derided. You can't mention the movie without pointing out the animation that's applied over the entire picture, and I think it doesn't only look cool but also serves to illustrate the strangeness of Reeves' world. It was mostly overlooked, and I think that's a shame.


4. Little Miss Sunshine


What's interesting about this movie is how, despite the somewhat depressing state of dysfunction this family is in, it still manages to come out in the end with a good feeling. I love well-executed dark humor, and this movie is filled with sometimes painfully hilarious jabs at how crappy normal life can sometimes be. You can feel this family's frustration with each other, but they are all able to stick it out in order to bring some happiness to their youngest member. I really liked the acting, everybody seemed perfectly cast in their roles and did them well. I'm not sure Alan Arkin's work was really Oscar worthy, but he was the source of a lot of the best laughs.

3. Casino Royale


This is, in my opinion, the best James Bond movie. In my opinion, that's also not saying a lot, but it's still a good film. The James Bond series has always been about stupid fun, big action scenes, some good-looking women, cool gadgets and a few laughs. This tries to be a little more of a real movie, and it's still got a lot of the James Bond silliness, but I still think its style fits in more with the current era. I was a bit skeptical of Daniel Craig as Bond, as he didn't look the part to me, but that's kind of the point. The new Bond has a rougher edge and maybe's a little more brutal than he used to be, and is very well handled by Craig's skills. The plot is differently paced than usual as well, there are some solid action scenes, but a lot of it is focused on the characters, and the entire last act is a little unusual. Some of the characters' actions don't make much sense in retrospect, but I'd say overall the writing is pretty solid, and it's nice to look at too. Secret lairs in exotic locations will always have their place, but this is what today's James Bond should be.

2. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan


Question: How does a movie that's based on improvisation and real people who haven't even seen a script get an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay?

Answer: By being insanely hilarious and popular to the point that they probably felt they should recognize it somehow. I never really saw Sacha Baron Cohen's Da Ali G Show on HBO, but I feel like I probably should, since it's where the Borat character started. Cohen's a comedic genius, his ability to riff on people and get the perfect reactions out of them is amazing, in addition to just being great at creating a hilarious character. The movie has decent amounts of both planned out jokes and goofs on normal Americans that are played by ear, and it adds up to comedic gold. The theater was full and laughing its ass off the entire time. It's not the kind of movie that you talk about for its direction and contributions years later, but that's not what it wants to be.


1. The Departed

It's not the kind of movie I'd hang my hat on as a true, amazing, undisputed best picture of the year type thing, but it's still very good and deserving of this year's honor (Noting that I don't see a ton of movies every year). I'd like to see Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong movie it's based on, and see how much of The Departed really came from that directly. The plot is a rock solid crime movie filled with double-crosses and whackings, and it's set in the gorgeously filmed city of Boston. Everyone pulls of their accents well, and manage to create one of the strongest ensemble casts I've ever seen. DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson, Sheen, Wahlberg, Baldwin, and a good group of smaller names all bring their A game, and it's really just an exceedingly fun to watch affair. The world needs more movies featuring likable, good actors betraying and beating the crap out of each other.

Delayed Entries

Again, these are movies worth mentioning that were released before 2006 but I didn't see until then.

Citizen Kane

I wouldn't go so far as others as to call this the greatest movie ever made, although I can see where that distinction would come from. The directing and cinematography are amazing, every shot is beautifully planned and rendered. It really is a how-to video of interesting and meaningful filmwork. It's also brilliantly acted, all of the main players are good, and Orson Welles is great as both a young entrepreneur and an old curmudgeon. I think it definitely drags in the latter half, and I can't bring myself to honestly say I like it more than some less stately, but more enjoyable other movies.

Annie Hall

I've never been a huge Woody Allen fan, but this is definitely a terrific movie. The dialogue is very funny, and it creates a whole lot of things that will become staples of off-beat comedies in the future, like subtitled translations of what people are really saying, and breaking the fourth wall as the star directly confers with the audience. It's not just a comedy though, it's a well-filmed and acted story of love and how it can go wrong. It's not your typical story where everything turns out right in the end, it's a realistic examination of human relationships, and really admirable in its execution.

My guess is there's other movies that belong here that just haven't come to mind.