Annie Hall: Classic or Dud?

i kind of can't remember manhattan that well at this moment, so would probably benefit from catching that again, also (i had a couple of years of telling everyone that stardust was his best movie, i guess pointedly on account of being some kind of connoisseurish b&w alternative to manhattan, though a rewatch convinced me otherwise - though i am very fond of it, particularly its precision meta-referential take on his career, & sequences of it in particular, it doesn't have the rhythm of his best, & ends a couple of times before ending, etc). what was interesting in annie hall, kinda prefiguring love & death, in which intellectual references are quoted for their absurd phonic qualities & for a humorous shift in register, was that to a more restrained degree he's still using those references kind of self-deprecatingly & to impugn others, always as a distancing, complicating thing in communication or relationships. i'm not sure how pretentious manhattan is; the parts that stick with me are those examples of wonderfully human and common reflexive bullshit - don't fall in love with me, i'm broken etc, which, like with annie hall, kinda resonate deeply whether you are woody or not. eesh anyway this slayed me.

also, just as an aside, woody looks so great in this film, outfits & everything - idk if elmo's reading this thread but there were some plaid shirt/herringbone jacket combos that i thought he'd be into

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lshlhnt4SG1qg7mglo1_500.png

Ralph Lauren, ya know

I can't defend Manhattan as anything other than an occasionally amusing film but I've made my peace with the thing.

I love Manhattan. You guys are loons.

Annie Hall is better but polyphonic otm

i love manhattan too but i haven't seen since i was a teenager and i'm reluctant to revisit it pretty much the same reasons i'm scared to revisit catcher in the rye. still it's showing in town soon on the big screen so i'll definitely check it out (if only for the opening monologue and the gershwin). if i can tolerate/borderline enjoy vicky cristina barcelona and pine for the relative quality of 90s woody allen i'm pretty sure manhattan will deliver just fine. do wish he'd make another movie w/ diane keaton. manhattan murder mystery really should be the template - small cast, alda-huston-keaton-allen, maybe switch up the other two parties (maybe throw tony roberts and dianne wiest in the mix) but a doddering nick and norah type series w/ allen and keaton is something i could actually imagine being entertained by, and there aren't alot of scenarios for 'future woody allen movies' i can say that about.

I could've seen Midnight in Paris for free last night and opted to pay to see 50/50 instead...

anyway my POV on Manhattan changed considerably from teendom to adulthood. I loved it 18 but I interpreted it completely differently than I do now

I love Manhattan. You guys are loons.

― polyphonic, Monday, October 3, 2011 3:47 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

Manhattan's philosophy is suspect, but that's not of paramount importance, is it?

anyway, I wish for a sock o' manure on a daily basis

Manhattan's philosophy is suspect, but that's not of paramount importance, is it?

I'm not sure what the overall "philosophy" of the film is.

I prefer to view Woody as the villain of the film, fwiw

manhattan still holds up for me, maybe even better than when i was 18. whatever happened to marshall brickman anyway

I've discussed this before: the ping-pong dialogue between Woody and Michael Murphy in the classroom condenses everything that's wrong about Allen in this period (characters defining themselves and others through psychoanalytic cliches, actors not given anything to do but embody those cliches). And I don't care for the clumsy way in which the movie tries to have it both ways: romanticism and sourness.

But I can still watch it and laugh.

Pretty much the same: looks fantastic, there's stuff that makes me laugh, and I can still appreciate why it was such a big deal at the time. But there are things that make me cringe, and that scene in the classroom is one of the worst offenders.

re: that scene, it's not particularly realistic dialogue but the one liners are all funny ("I have to model myself after someone!" lol)

The film becomes nostalgia in the act of its unfolding, so I've never considered it realistic.

Some of the throwaway stuff makes me laugh: Woody's reaction to Wallace Shawn, when he puts his hand in the water while rowboating, the brown water, etc.

there is a guy in my preschool co-op who, god help me, reminds me of Wallace Shawn every time I see him. He's like 2 ft taller than Shawn but he talks EXACTLY like him, the lisp, the diction everything. it's unnerving.

I like all the bits satirizing liberal fatuity.

Meryl Streep -- the role and the performance -- are unbearable though.

she gets what 5 minutes of screen time? I think she only has two scenes iirc

She makes sure we understand that her hair is doing all the work.

I'm wondering where the film stands in relation to Streep's marriage to Cazale--my guess is that she was making it either just before or just after he died.

this is the Annie Hall thread btw

Can we at least talk about how awful Barack Obama is?

We're reaffirming its goodness.

lol clemenza

i love that scene in the classroom, don't see what's wrong with Meryl Streep either but then i'm in love with Manhattan so any criticism is too much!

Streep's take by the way is interesting:
"I don't think Woody Allen even remembers me. I went to see Manhattan
and I felt like I wasn't even in it. I was pleased with the film because I
looked pretty in it and I thought it was entertaining. But I only worked on
the film for three days and I didn't get to know Woody. Who gets to know
Woody? He's very much of a womanizer; very self-involved. On a certain level,
the film offends me because it's about all these people whose sole concern
is discussing their emotional states or their neuroses. It's sad because
Woody has the potential to be America's Chekhov. But instead, he's still
caught up in the jet-set crowd type of life, trivializing his talent."

I'll remind Ms. Streep that Allen's stab at Chekhov in September was exactly that -- into his neck.

what year is that Streep quote from?

some time in the late 90s maybe? http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/kammer/gossip-is-the-new-pornography/
i first read it on IMDB way back.

I love Manhattan. You guys are loons.

― polyphonic, Monday, October 3, 2011 3:47 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

― Juggy Brottleteen (ENBB), Monday, October 3, 2011 3:59 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

philosophy schmilosophy

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llwy6n7fOX1qbyzufo1_500.gif

What an intense young Method actress.

what a fucking babe

weirdo

And I don't care for the clumsy way in which the movie tries to have it both ways: romanticism and sourness.

― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, October 3, 2011 5:29 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

thats why i dig it! real life tries to have it both ways too, man

the only thing i'll say against manhattan is a lot of the supporting characters are too wooden, too caricatured, but fuck me its a gorgeous movie... clemenza otm about 70s cinematography

Eh. The cinematography freezes the characters' crises like pins through a butterfly.

Streep can shut up now that she mostly plays cartoon bitches (w/ the odd cartoon chef tossed in for flavor).

Annie Hall is intimate, Manhattan tries to have the characters stand in for a class. And they're around, I've seen them, but they don't talk to me.

there are few films i dread like that thatcher biopic looming out there

also, what is so fascinating about a bunch of pituitary cases trying to stuff a ball through a hoop?

ha are there woody allen movies where the characters don't stand in for a class? manhattan's at least slightly aware of it.

Manhattan is totally mediocre at best except for the first 5 minutes when it doesn't have people in it.

I saw Annie Hall recently and thought it very good, often: it seemed like the best of Woody Allen, like the best feature film version you were ever going to get of the thing that Woody Allen does or did on feature film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPh59jOoiEs

you always hurt my feelings pinefox

i think annie hall is prob better, but i mean i don't even like to think like that

pinefox not otm except for the fact about the first 5 mins begin great because they unquestionably are

horseshoe otm... its like chocolate and vanilla... why cant we just appreciate living in a world with two delicious flavors in it

if you're gonna dismiss a film just cuz of sour characters, lotta Altman gonna fall by the wayside.

so we already covered that AH was supposed to be a murder mystery, yeah?