woody allen

also what was the name of the theater on the East Side where we would cue up when these things debuted, maybe the same one where Donald Fagen saw Lou Reed crying at a midday show of “Terms of Endearment,” The Beacon? No, The Beekman. Guess it closed for good recently although the original theater had already closed in 2005.

https://patch.com/new-york/upper-east-side-nyc/beekman-theatre-closes-unexpectedly-upper-east-side

I watched The Philadelphia Story the other night and got weirded out by the central theme of Katherine Hepburn needing to learn how to put up with men's bullshit so I can understand not wanting to go near Annie Hall because of WA's age-inappropriate casting.

is te casting of annie Hall age-inappropriate?

Milder version of silby's question: I have seen all of Woody Allen's films through Anything Else. I have seen zero of Woody Allen's films after Anything Else. So like...am I good or is there anything I'm missing out on?

Oh you know what, my bad, I forgot that Melinda & Melinda came out after that, so that would've been my last one. I mean I guess shakey's revive kinda answers my question but still.

I watched The Philadelphia Story the other night and got weirded out by the central theme of Katherine Hepburn needing to learn how to put up with men's bullshit so I can understand not wanting to go near Annie Hall because of WA's age-inappropriate casting.

― closed beta (NotEnough), Thursday, December 12, 2019

otm about The Philadelphia Story, which I like but its insistence on humiliating Tracy Lord/Hepburn grates on me (and it weirded out critics at the time, I might add).

I didn't see the age difference in AH as a problem. If anything, she learns enough from him to leave his whining ass at the end of the film.m

it's been a while since i saw manhattan but i always imagine that final scene is the last time hemingway's character ever sees allen's

I'm thinking less of the age difference in AH (which doesn't seem egregious to me) and more the general vibe of casting men against younger love interests, which is obviously a bigger problem. AH definitely paints the WA character as a solipsistic asshole loser that'll never learn and that Keaton is right to dump his ass.

was trying to think of instances where his scripts called for casing older women with younger men - Bullets Over Broadway def the most memorable, but I think there's a couple others I'm forgetting

So like...am I good or is there anything I'm missing out on?

I've seen three of the 17 he's made since then*, and enjoyed one of them a lot, but your life will not be especially enriched by it.


* counting one he only acted in here, because: dermatologist Sharon Stone has never been able to arrange a girl / girl / boy threesome with her also-curious female friend, so she naturally asks her 78-year-old patient Woody Allen if he can hook her up. Woody turns to the most attractive and virile man he knows, 56-year-old John Turturro, and soon is operating a thriving business as a pimp with Turturro his sole ho. feel free to guess who wrote and directed this movie at any point.

Bill Cosby!

Jeffrey Epstein before he didn't kill himself?

Possibly the man who thought that a movie featuring his Big Lebowski character as the protagonist was actually a sound and reasonable idea?

It's not on quite the level of, like, Dylan Baker spending half a decade to get his Dr. Maplewood passion project off the ground, but it's not that far off.

(Fictional example, btw. No libel of Mr. Baker intended.)

is the casting of annie Hall age-inappropriate?

It's like an 11-year gap, and it's based on their actual romance, so

Barbara Kopple's doc Wild Man Blues is better than any WA film of the last 20 years that i've seen. Woody's parents humiliate him at the end.

as will all of our parents

Can report that A Rainy Day in New York is now on American Airlines domestic flights on demand...

Wasn't sure whether to post this here or in the Literary Clusterfucks thread

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/mar/03/ronan-farrow-hachette-woody-allen-memoir

big whoop

Was wondering whether there are other cases of someone leaving a publishing house because it published their rival/enemy.

They've backed down

BREAKING: In a statement, Hachette Book Group has announced that it will not publish Woody Allen’s memoir 'A Propos of Nothing, originally scheduled for sale in April 2020, and will return all rights to the author. Our story is forthcoming.

— Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) March 6, 2020

Little, Brown editors staged a walkout out over it I saw on Twitter

interview w/ one of the employees who walked out:

https://slate.com/culture/2020/03/woody-allen-memoir-hachette-little-brown-walkout.html

Obviously Hachette’s behavior is unethical. That’s why it was hidden like the shameful little deal it was. But it’s also very stupid! One reason: there is more reporting (not from Ronan) coming on Woody Allen. Hachette is aware of this. https://t.co/7Vy238BtNF

— Jon Lovett (@jonlovett) March 5, 2020

Do you see any value in publishing the book?

I do not. Perhaps [ Allen ] still has fans, but I don’t think any of that matters in the slightest considering the things he’s been accused of doing.

perhaps

Little, Brown editors staged a walkout out over it I saw on Twitter

also three posts above itt tbf

matters in the slightest considering the things he’s been accused of doing

yikes

also three posts above itt tbf

oh wait no, derp

😎

Wooooow I didn't realize that the deal was done ages ago and the PHYSICAL BOOKS are probably already printed and *in a warehouse* somewhere and are now going to have to be scrapped. I worked at Hachette for 10 years and I worked on some projects with levels of secrecy (Twilight related, mostly), and this whole thing had to involve A LOT OF PEOPLE from the publisher down to the pressmen. Fucking a.

I've always enjoyed "pulping" as a term of art

It's just so amazingly...STUPID. How do all the people who need to approve something like this make a mistake of this magnitude and not realize it's a moral and PR NIGHTMARE?

oh they realized that's why they kept it secret

they must've been like "this sucks and we'll take flack for it but maybe we'll make lots of money anyway!"

Yes, the secrecy PROVES THE POINT!! It's incredible. I haven't worked there for a while so idk what's going on but I can only imagine that a LOT of pressure must have been applied somewhere to overcome the better judgement of at least some of the top level staff who would have needed to be in on this.

countdown to Jeffrey Wells 'Khmer Rouge wokester' post in 5 4 3 2 1

fwiw i understand the PR necessities

i remain agnostic on Allen's guilt and am a fan of his work, but if there is new evidence i'll listen (don't at me)

and here it is as predicted

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2020/03/victory-for-obstinate-wokester-bullies/

also io, can u get me a job at h4ch3tte?

They weren't too happy with me when I left there and that was like 7+ years ago, so I doubt it. :(((((

an Associate Vice President or three is about to be fired so you might find an opening xp

im not that seniorish

i actually applied online for a job there last month *crickets*

I am undecided about all of this. It would have been better to have knowledge about what's in the book before judging the deal, but I also understand why that's not possible. He may have admitted to some things in the book, or, more likely, he may have lied about his past to further his career.

I thought his writings in the New Yorker in the early 2000s were garbage.

he may have lied about his past to further his career.

How do you further your career at 84, when none of your remaining films will be released in America?

Didn't read any 21st century pieces, but his first two collections of humor pieces are good (c 1968-73), as is the later story "The Kugelmass Episode."

also none of this week's brouhaha has to do with what might/could be in the book. nuthin'.

he probably wanted the advance so he could provide for his daughter wife