woody allen

i want to disapprove but who am i kidding i will save my pennies for that

Rosenbaum in 1990:

“Why are the French so crazy about Jerry Lewis?” is a recurring question posed by film buffs in the United States, but, sad to say, it is almost invariably asked rhetorically. When Dick Cavett tried it out several years ago on Jean-Luc Godard, one of Lewis’s biggest defenders, it quickly became apparent that Cavett had no interest in heating an answer, and he immediately changed the subject as soon as Godard began to provide one. Nevertheless it’s a question worth posing seriously, along with a few related ones — even at the risk of courting disbelief and giving offense.

Why are American intellectuals so contemptuous of Jerry Lewis and so crazy about Woody Allen? Apart from such obvious differences as the fact that Allen cites Kierkegaard and Lewis doesn’t, what is it that gives Allen such an exalted cultural status in this country, and Lewis virtually no cultural status at all? (Charlie Chaplin cited Schopenhauer in MONSIEUR VERDOUX, but surely that isn’t the reason why we continue to honor him.) If we agree that there’s more to intellectual legitimacy than name-dropping, what is it in Allen’s work as a comic Jewish writer-director-performer that earns him that legitimacy — a legitimacy that is denied to, among others, Elaine May and both Mel and Albert Brooks?

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=21337%EF%BB%BF

For me it might have something to do with the fact that I find Jerry Lewis movies unwatchable.

CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS offers another case in point. A film that professes to address the rampant amorality and self-interest of the 1980s gives us an ophthalmologist (Martin Landau) who arranges to murder his mistress and gets away with it and a socially concerned documentary filmmaker (Allen) who isn’t rewarded for his good intentions. But both characters seem equally motivated by self-interest, and we are asked to care much more about Allen’s character as a fall guy than about the murdered mistress (Anjelica Huston). Landau’s masochism about his initial feelings of guilt are matched by Allen’s masochism about being a loser. There is a lack of ironic distance on this aspect of both characters, and if the film is genuinely attacking self-interest, it is seriously handicapped by being unable to see beyond it.

I don't agree with this at all - I thought the point of the parallel stories was partly to question the goodness of the "loveable loser" -- Allen's character is shown to be petty and mean, and what separates him from his double seems come more from his lack of power than any supposed good intentions.

"of the 1980s"

piece was written at the conclusion of the '80s dawg

and that is the decade when the national "narrative" endorsed such a philosophy very shamelessly.

Yet Allen is often treated in the press as if he were even more important than (Bergman and Fellini).

haha was this really the case or is this just another vaguely dumb thing in this article? also is this guy like a respected critic and stuff, i'm very confused

At peak Woody respectability, say '86-92, it's not much of an overstatement.

A film that professes to address the rampant amorality and self-interest of the 1980s gives us an ophthalmologist (Martin Landau) who arranges to murder his mistress and gets away with it and a socially concerned documentary filmmaker (Allen) who isn’t rewarded for his good intentions. But both characters seem equally motivated by self-interest, and we are asked to care much more about Allen’s character as a fall guy than about the murdered mistress (Anjelica Huston).

i think this really misreads the movie tbh. Always thought Allen's self-interest is pretty clear.

exactly

I mean that's the whole point of the screening room scene where he's made a doc comparing Alda's character to Mussolini, isn't it?

BTW the mistress is also quite selfish - she's ready to destroy a family out of possessiveness and jealousy.

mia farrow clearly makes the right decision in that movie

Yet Allen is often treated in the press as if he were even more important than (Bergman and Fellini).

haha was this really the case or is this just another vaguely dumb thing in this article? also is this guy like a respected critic and stuff, i'm very confused

― thomp, Friday, 20 July 2012 17:27 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbh throwing out bergman & fellini just as ~serious filmmakers & stylists~ is p weak & makes me want to rep for allen, who's very varied, inventive, structurally interesting, thoughtful, &c. i guess some of his stuff being comedy pigeonholes him outside of a certain canon but he's important.

A little something about a familiar house.

I wouldn't have thought they'd used some interiors for scenes.

Great that they did, though. Still have a fondness for that film.

saw a double feature of manhattan and the purple rose of cairo on 35mm last night; prob gonna die sometime this week. this is i think the first time i've seen the former (and i've seen it many many many times, thanks to a high school crush on mariel hemingway) with the brightness properly calibrated.

in purple rose i like when someone insisting on the necessity of getting jeff daniels back into the movie before they turn off the projector says "ya want an extra guy running around?!"

i heard louie ck got a part in his new movie? will probably go see it if so. how many times have i been shocked that woody allen's new movie is great? (ummm, first time was purple rose of cairo, then again on manhattan murder mystery, then a third time on deconstructing harry) all had long stretches of bombs between so i'm always hoping i'll hear the new one is surprisingly awesome.

don't hold your breath

I will see it cuz it was shot in my neighborhood tho

almost headed up to see that same double feature, dlh! just a few blocks from my apartment. now I really wish I had :( should probably check the runtimes for the rest of the week.

The problem is that Woody's weaknesses have gotten worse, and he's so impervious to change in his dotage that he seems incapable of pleasant surprises.

(There's a reason Chaplin made one reviled film in his 70s.)

Saw the Manhattan showing on Friday. Won't get a chance to see any of the others, I don't think, since I'm out of town til Friday.

Hannah and Her Sisters and Sleeper out on blu-ray this month, in MGM's apparent campaign of releasing the Allen classics two at a time.

I watched To Rome with Love recently. Some of the scenarios and characters in it were really good, but it felt that by pulling all the stories together, it created nothing more than the mad ramblings of an old man. If Allen had concentrated on one idea rather than three or four ( I especially like the Baldwin, Esinberg scenes) it could have made a rich, brilliant film. It's a shame, it feels like Allens losing his ability to weave a good yarn, and is using his film budget to pitch half baked storylines.

Last night I listened to this interview with him from 2007 or so. One funny detail: he's pretty adamant in saying that he has stopped writing comedies and now wants to focus more on serious drama. This right before Midnight in Paris...

If we agree that there’s more to intellectual legitimacy than name-dropping, what is it in Allen’s work as a comic Jewish writer-director-performer that earns him that legitimacy — a legitimacy that is denied to, among others, Elaine May and both Mel and Albert Brooks?

w/ the exception of annie hall and manhattan, IMO mel brooks's best work holds its own against woody allen's. plus i give mel brooks brownie points for standing by david lynch at the beginning of lynch's career.

albert brooks is a pompous bore who is loved only by similarly pompous & boring boomers.

"both Mel and Albert Brooks"

ah yes, both of the famed Brooks Brothers

Woody had a humor piece in the NYT yesterday; i'm scared to read it.

That Rosenbaum piece is monumentally OTM.

it is monumentally boring challops

Would Elaine May have had a better rep if she were any way as prolific a film-maker as Woody, or hadn't made Ishtar (which I'm not saying is anywhere near the disaster its rep paints it as, but which is a pretty widely reviled financial flop)? Has Woody made a movie as bad as Life Stinks, Dead And Loving It or Robin Hood? Have Albert Brooks' movies ever really been more than great ideas that aren't taken the distance they deserve (thinking Lost In America here in particular)?

By the same token, has Woody made films as purely and brilliantly comic as Young Frankenstein? I'm not sure either.

Mel Brooks made six watchable-to-very funny films from 1968-77, and as always his fine TV-writing and comedy-album (2000YOM) career is nearly forgotten. As a filmmaker, oeuvre looked at in toto, he can't touch Woody Allen, who didn't go into the dumper until the mid-late '90s.

Zelig > Young Frankenstein

Has Woody made a movie as bad as Life Stinks, Dead And Loving It or Robin Hood?

Celebrity, Deconstructing Harry, Everyone Says I Love You, and Anything Else, just off the top of my head.

See, I *loved* Everybody Says I Love You...

Eh, there's a charming moment or two, but for the most part it struck me as boilerplate at best.

how is it boilerplate?? its a musical!!

Yeah, ghosts doing a song'n'dance number to 'enjoy yourself' in an undertaker's is pretty far from boilerplate to me!

That's the problem: Woody seemed to think just doing a musical -- regardless of quality or intent -- would somehow force himself out of his cliches. It didn't.

I mean, Albert Brooks?! What is he even doing in the discussion?

bcz Lost in America is one of the great comedies of the last 30 years?

one hot film every 30 year average

as opposed to Woody's average of six cold films for every lukewarm one

i hope ppl make fun of you guys when you are really old Jews.

Modern Romance is great you fucking savages

and if you're gonna mention bad Woody, mention Hollywood Ending which is an all-time piece of shit

It has some funny blindness gags. (yeah, i know) The last film was as bad as any i've seen.

still haven't forced myself to watch that one, looked too similar to Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

whatever works was also terrible -- larry david & evan rachel wood should be very ashamed of themselves for appearing in it.

vicky cristina barcelona was little more than an 70-something's dirty dream of directing softcore lesbian porn featuring Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz.