Mia Farrow's son -- Ronan Seamus Farrow -- really creeps me out!

you got a problem yo I'll solve it

check out my minstrel show while white media absolves it

solve for miley in the following equations. show your twerk.

lol nice

Been a pleasure to watch the journalist acquaintance I alluded to get blasted by a female coworker.

tmi

statistically probable coworker blaster

I mean, in a way that anyone expected a definite resolution.

No adult expects resolution to come from discussion of these things. It's fucking stupid that the Onion/that stupid Flavorwire piece presumes that we do.

That was to Tracer Hand, obv.

resolution = certainty. apparently achieved by many.

I think the Onion piece was also making fun of the way blogposts and counterblogposts on stuff like this tend to unfold.

eh it was cynical in a pretty shitty way imo, trying to be cleverly above-the-fray with something like this is nagl

Dog Unaware It Is Not Starving, however, is pretty hilarious

resolution = certainty. apparently achieved by many.

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 6 February 2014 22:51 (18 minutes ago) Permalink

From their side of things. These pieces presume that we're trying to resolve things for them, but we aren't. Whether you think that our own certainty about the issue is a good thing or not is besides it all.

i read that joan didion piece posted above. it's fun to read, some of its criticisms are spot-on (including the observation that some of allen's cultural-reference jokes barely count as jokes), and I'd probably prefer to read a Didion book than watch an Allen film (now more than ever). that said... ultimately it was a good example of the old "narcissism of small differences" thing. this was especially evident in didion's reply to one of the letters published in the NYRB in response to her Woody Allen hit job. the letter was thoughtful, not particularly nasty given the venue/milieu, and well-written. her only response was the cruel, dismissive, and hateful, "Oh, wow." what a fucking snob.

come on, that's great

sorry I have nothing to contribute to the larger conversation here. I'm a bit wary of pieces that seem to indicate that it is a moral imperative to make a judgment call in this situation, which feels a bit too much like an extension of the whole internet-outrage-machine. but otherwise I feel like a lot of you do: horrified by what likely transpired, sad for Dylan Farrow, confused by the possible larger implications of it all, probably permanently ruined for Allen movies esp. those with him in the lead (which is not as big of a deal for a non-fan like me as it is for people who had been devoted to his work).

xpost

i said it was fun to read, but i think a lot of the criticisms could in another form be leveled right back at ms. didion.

"Oh, wow" annoyed me too. Maybe it just seems like kind of a played out "I got nothin" response in the internet age.

come on, that's great

― horseshoe, Thursday, February 6, 2014 7:13 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

next time you're in a series conversation w/ someone and make a careful argument for something and they roll their eyes dismissively and say "oh, wow" while calling for the check, let me know if you think it's "great." :) to me it just reads as mean, like "this guy can't possibly think I'd take him seriously enough to _engage_ him, right? I'm _Joan Didion_."

series = serious

the guy who responded to the didion piece was such a drip about it. (i agree with your narcissism of small differences reading of her critique, fwiw.) i mean, yes, it is mean and snobby to respond "oh wow," but it is also awesome.

btw WA has always claimed in interviews he's just an autodidact who'd rather watch the Knicks game, not an intellectual -- "They only eat their own." Didion seems a decent rep of who he meant.

i'll kill you

frankly, nothing about being an audo didact or loving basketball are in any way opposed to being an intellectual. he doth protest too much (or maybe he's just trying to avoid the Didion-esque criticism of him as a "psuedo-intellectual").

to be fair, I've read all of Didion's non-fiction and doubt she's read many novels either, including Sentimental Education.

i'll kill you

http://static.rogerebert.com/redactor_assets/pictures/far-flung-correspondents/pray-for-rosemarys-baby/rosemarys_baby_knife.jpg

autodidact who claims he's above intellectuals is just fighting one narcisissm of small difference with another

that's because madame bovary is better; didion otm

xxp

he's also said his films are consistently mediocre, not sure where "above" comes in

didn't say it was better! On a clear day I'll read "A Simple Heart."

i love the didion piece because it, like, one-ups that marshall mcluhan joke in annie hall

I've read A Sentimental Ed & I came away with the impression that Ed is really quite a sentimental guy

sometimes you still hear things like WA "counts ingmar bergman among his influences" (i heard this in a recent BBC Four hagiography) like, ok, if namedropping someone is being influenced by them, then i guess so, but i think didion's right that bergman was just something else to mention, like avocados or psychotherapy, and it made the right sort of people feel flattered that they were part of the conversation

we should probably change this thread to a forking-paths thing where each path leads to

- discussion of sex-abuse allegations against woody allen

- possible creepiness/hotness/media savvy of ronan farrow

- woody allen, (non)intellectual and filmmaker

not only is joan didion a better artist than woody allen could ever hope to be, but mia farrow is too

he used Bergman's cinematographer, had dinner with IB, blatantly parodied him several times in the early funny ones etc.

i dunno tracer hand, have you seen stuff like "shadows and fog" or "interiors"? the bergman "influence" (by which i mean near-plagiarism in terms of particular shots, overall tone, etc.) is all up in the audience's face.

i grant that those are exceptions among allen's films, and if I'm not mistaken were made at the height of his critical prestige and cultural relevance so he probably thought "fuck it, I'm going to make an art film like Persona"--but it still proves his debts to bergman pretty plainly.

xpost that too

Mia Farrow seems to have made about ten non-shit movies and nine of them were written and directed by WA. xp

athough she was very convincing as the wacky neighborhood lady in Be Kind Rewind

btw WA has always claimed in interviews he's just an autodidact who'd rather watch the Knicks game, not an intellectual -- "They only eat their own." Didion seems a decent rep of who he meant.

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 7 February 2014 01:21 (20 minutes ago) Permalink

Sometimes I can't tell in Woody Allen films whether he's trying to portray the character as being different from those intellectual schmoes or just obliviously thinking he's different while not realizing he's one of them. The Knicks scene in Annie Hall is a good example of that -- are we laughing at Alvy or nodding?

*he said, as he took off his basketball shorts*

Further from Dylan Farrow:

People are saying that I am not actually remembering what I remember. People are saying that my ‘evil mother’ brainwashed me because they refuse to believe that my sick, evil father would ever molest me, because we live in this society where victim blaming and inexcusable behavior – this taboo against shaming the famous at the expense of their victims – is accepted and excused….My memories are true. What happened to me as a little girl … is my cross to bear. But I will not see my family dragged down like this. I can’t stay silent when my family needs me.

He has a foot in both camps. I'm p sure he did not write his publicist's remarks saying on some morning show that "he cartainly deserved that lifetime achievement award."

I agree w/ am that this is no place for movie breakdowns, but that's old. xp

Why is this stuff going to PEOPLE magazine?

that's where the NEWS is.

and she didn't even ask the cast of Cassandra's Dream to condemn him this time.

"Oh, wow" annoyed me too. Maybe it just seems like kind of a played out "I got nothin" response in the internet age.

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Friday, 7 February 2014 01:18 (14 minutes ago) Permalink

i have a friend who sometimes responds to observations she thinks are stupid by raising her eyebrows and saying "wow!" in a ridiculous old-timey radio voice. it can be fucking devastating.

I don't see how it benefits her to have this turn into a tacky he said-she said deal played across the tabloids (esp. when PEOPLE is writing the copy for your she-saids).

i have a friend who sometimes responds to observations she thinks are stupid by raising her eyebrows and saying "wow!" in a ridiculous old-timey radio voice. it can be fucking devastating.

― tɹi.ʃɪp (Treeship), Thursday, February 6, 2014 8:06 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like to imagine that she adds that old-timey tin-can-like distortion to her voice when saying this.

remember when Whiney whined that she didn't publish her initial piece on Tumblr instead of the NYT