Woody Allen

Started by Pedro, March 20, 2003, 11:46:16 PM

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Mesh

Quote from: RaviI only saw a few minutes of Celebrity, but it seemed that Kenneth Branagh was merely acting like Woody Allen would have.

I think that's accurate.  I also think it was totally intentional.

edit:  whoops.  I guess according to previous posts in the thread, it wasn't intentional.  I think I like the fact that Branagh was doing Woody, Woody asked him about it, he kept on doing it, and it was left at that.  Woody has always coaxed career performances out of his actors, possibly by letting them go, to a large extent....Not that Celebrity is a shining example of that trend.....

godardian

Quote from: MacGuffin
Quote from: themodernage02anyone want to recommend anything?

"Crimes And Misdemeanors"

Hannah and Crimes are Woody must-sees.

My favorite, though, is Husbands and Wives. Absolutely top-notch, in my opinion. And his most visceral work.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Mesh

Quote from: SoNowThenI think Celebrity and Deconstructing Harry are two of Allen's best films. I don't know why they're so universally hated.

And I still say I'll take Zelig and Radio Days over everything else. Even Annie Hall and Manhattan.

But I saw Small Time Crooks and just about puked. And then I noticed... produced by Dreamworks... which means he's working for The 'Berg... which can only mean a drop in the quality of his films...

I liked Celebrity and I love, love Deconstructing Harry.  It's the best late-era Allen film, IMO.

I'm gonna go ahead and score some Woody films we've mentioned.  Outta 10 possible points:

Zelig - 7.4
Radio Days - 8.8
Celebrity - 7.1
Deconstructing Harry - 9.6
Annie Hall - 10.0
Mighty Aphrodite - 8.6
Small Time Crooks - 6.1
Curse of the Jade Scorpion - 4.8
Wild Man Blues - 7.3

Oh, and speaking of Spielberg:  I rewatched Amistad last night:  8.1

Mesh

Know what I'm just now realizing?  I think I've seen more Woody Allen films than I have by any other director.....

Off the top of my head, I know I've seen from beginning to end:

Annie Hall
Manhattan
Zelig
Radio Days
Small Time Crooks
Celebrity
Mighty Aphrodite
Deconstructing Harry
Wild Man Blues
Shadows and Fog
Hannah and Her Sisters
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Stardust Memories
Curse of the Jade Scorpion
The Purple Rose of Cairo

...and now, checking IMDB, I've also seen all or part of:

Sweet and Lowdown
Bananas
Sleeper
What's Up, Tiger Lily?
New York Stories (Allen-directed segment)
Bullets Over Broadway
Everyone Says I Love You
(Did I see any of Interiors?  I'm confused....I can't remember....which is as good as having never seen it, I suppose)

That's 21 feature films, not counting the New York Stories segment.  Holy shit.  And I'm not even that big a fan.  There's just no way I've seen more films by anyone else.  No chance....

godardian

Quote from: MeshKnow what I'm just now realizing?  I think I've seen more Woody Allen films than I have by any other director.....

Off the top of my head, I know I've seen from beginning to end:

Annie Hall
Manhattan
Zelig
Radio Days
Small Time Crooks
Celebrity
Mighty Aphrodite
Deconstructing Harry
Wild Man Blues
Shadows and Fog
Hannah and Her Sisters
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Stardust Memories
Curse of the Jade Scorpion
The Purple Rose of Cairo

...and now, checking IMDB, I've also seen all or part of:

Sweet and Lowdown
Bananas
Sleeper
What's Up, Tiger Lily?
New York Stories (Allen-directed segment)
Bullets Over Broadway
Everyone Says I Love You
(Did I see any of Interiors?  I'm confused....I can't remember....which is as good as having never seen it, I suppose)

That's 21 feature films, not counting the New York Stories segment.  Holy shit.  And I'm not even that big a fan.  There's just no way I've seen more films by anyone else.  No chance....

Ya gotta give Husbands and Wives a try. In m opinion, it's right up there with Manhattan and Deconstructing Harry as a peak in his ouevre.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Ravi

Quote from: Mesh(Did I see any of Interiors?  I'm confused....I can't remember....which is as good as having never seen it, I suppose)

Seen it.  It was a few years ago, so I can't even remember the plot well.  All I remember is that there were 3 sisters, one of which was Diane Keaton.  Is this the one with the manipulative, obsessive mother?  I remember the scene where she's criticising the decor of the apartment of one of the sisters.

children with angels

Stardust Memories is my favourite. It's basically a full-on homage to 8 1/2. Very much a precurser to Deconstructing Harry (which I also love). It's something of a filmed mental breakdown (as is 8 1/2) about a movie director who used to make comedies and now wants to make more serious movies, but the public keeps wanting his "early, funny ones". (Sound familiar?)

It's fascinating the amount of self-loving and self-loathing one man can have and put on screen (maybe Vincent Gallo will make his 8 1/2 one day...!). I've said earlier in the thread how ridiculous and funny I find his claim that his movies are not about him: you just need to look at this one. He's directly making reference to the fact that he recently made Interiors and it was critically mauled (undeservedly). The film opens as if it's a symbolic, deep opening (a la Fellini, or possibly Bergman), only for the beginning of the movie to be shouted down and ridiculued by studio executives claiming, "I've seen it a thousand times: artists trying to justify their own petty neurosis by attatching them to these adolescent philisophical themes." "Why  doesn't he just stick to making people laugh?"

It really is a beautiful thing. Charlotte Rampling is astounding as the mentally unstable girlfriend, as if she walked right off the set of one of Bergman's best female character studies. The movie has a particular kind of transcendental, surrealist visual beauty that I feel none of his others have (the images of Woody as a child magician, flying, being given an elephant). The conclusion is just wonderful, and moving and true - then the audience watching the movie walk out telling you it's wonderful and moving and true...

I guess basically I'm just a sucker for the whole tell-it-all-in-art thing, and this movie really is the epitome of his career if you want to indulge that particular fetish.
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godardian

Quote from: children with angelsStardust Memories is my favourite. It's basically a full-on homage to 8 1/2. Very much a precurser to Deconstructing Harry (which I also love). It's something of a filmed mental breakdown (as is 8 1/2) about a movie director who used to make comedies and now wants to make more serious movies, but the public keeps wanting his "early, funny ones". (Sound familiar?)

It's fascinating the amount of self-loving and self-loathing one man can have and put on screen (maybe Vincent Gallo will make his 8 1/2 one day...!). I've said earlier in the thread how ridiculous and funny I find his claim that his movies are not about him: you just need to look at this one. He's directly making reference to the fact that he recently made Interiors and it was critically mauled (undeservedly). The film opens as if it's a symbolic, deep opening (a la Fellini, or possibly Bergman), only for the beginning of the movie to be shouted down and ridiculued by studio executives claiming, "I've seen it a thousand times: artists trying to justify their own petty neurosis by attatching them to these adolescent philisophical themes." "Why  doesn't he just stick to making people laugh?"

It really is a beautiful thing. Charlotte Rampling is astounding as the mentally unstable girlfriend, as if she walked right off the set of one of Bergman's best female character studies. The movie has a particular kind of transcendental, surrealist visual beauty that I feel none of his others have (the images of Woody as a child magician, flying, being given an elephant). The conclusion is just wonderful, and moving and true - then the audience watching the movie walk out telling you it's wonderful and moving and true...

I guess basically I'm just a sucker for the whole tell-it-all-in-art thing, and this movie really is the epitome of his career if you want to indulge that particular fetish.

I love Stardust Memories (it's my third favorite, after Husbands and Wives and Purple Rose of Cairo). And Charlotte Rampling is, indeed, spectacular in it. That quick-cut montage where she addresses the camera and seems to be breaking down? Perfect. I loved that. The editing style in that is very, um... Godardian.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Stringstroker

to Woody Allen  (if they have never seen a film from him before), where would you start and in what order would you go?

I know I shouldn't even be posting on this board without seeing any of his stuff, and I really want to, I just don't know where to start.
"This is funny.  This is nice."
-Barry Egan

xerxes

start with annie hall or manhattan

Keener

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chainsmoking insomniac

"Ernest Hemingway once wrote: 'The world's a fine place, and worth fighting for.'  I agree with the second part."
    --Morgan Freeman, Se7en

"Have you ever fucking seen that...? Ever seen a mistake in nature?  Have you ever seen an animal make a mistake?"
 --Paul Schneider, All the Real Girls

chainsmoking insomniac

Quote from: themodernage02lets see. woody allen.  i dont really like him (with a few exceptions), yet i feel compelled to keep seeing his movies for fear of  missing out.  ive seen:

HOLLYWOOD ENDING
SMALL TIME CROOKS
SWEET AND LOWDOWN
CELEBRITY
DECONSTRUCTING HARRY
EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU
MIGHTY APRHODITE
BULLETS OVER BROADWAY
MANHATTAN
ANNIE HALL
EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX...
BANANAS

Loved Annie Hall, Manhattan, Everyone Says I Love You.  Thought Bananas and Sweet and Lowdown were hilarious.  Hated Everything you ever wanted to know about sex..., Small Time Crooks and Celebrity.  Thought everything else was okay.  plan on seeing Whats Up Tiger Lily, Sleeper, Love And Death, Broadway Danny Rose, Hannah and Her Sisters soon.  anyone want to recommend anything? sway me from those?

I'm rather fond of Love and Death and Manhattan Murder Mystery...
"Ernest Hemingway once wrote: 'The world's a fine place, and worth fighting for.'  I agree with the second part."
    --Morgan Freeman, Se7en

"Have you ever fucking seen that...? Ever seen a mistake in nature?  Have you ever seen an animal make a mistake?"
 --Paul Schneider, All the Real Girls

SoNowThen

Annie Hall, or Hanna And Her Sisters. Maybe even Purple Rose Of Cairo. But definitely not Manhattan. I guess because it took me 3 watchings to love it, and I was bigtime into him...
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

Royal Tenenbaum

Woody Allen is the best, I love all of his work. My favourites are Manhattan, Sweet and Lowdown, and Purple Rose of Ciaro, with Annie Hall, and then all the rest of his pre-Annie films coming next. He is the comedic genius of our times, the greatest, the funniest. I can't properly express how much his films mean to me.