Woody Allen

[P_R]

Woody Allen - a magician who captures the most vulnerable moments of human life with a knack if combining sensitivity, scathing cynicism, 'bending' humour and uncomfortable questions.

Let's discuss his works here.

[html:f62a059497]<img src = "http://www.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Woody_Allen/woody_allen_image__4_.jpg">[/html:f62a059497]

[P_R]

Was rewatching parts of Crimes and Misdemeanours this weekend. What a brilliant film ! Got pieces and parts to chew on and dwell.Thought I'd muse on one of Allen's pet-themes: the intellectual who doesn't get the girl.

This is a little different from loser-boy. The kind of roles Kamal played in the initial stages of his career, where he was asked to step aside by the heroine. And it is of course unlike Casablanca's Bogart , who lost the girl of his own accord and thus had a 'masculine' stamp to it.Woody Allen brings in a simultaneous egotism and vulnerability with his self-deprecatory humour bordering on being a palliative.

Alan Alda - the lampooned comedy-magnate Lester - wins over Halley (Mia Farrow) - the colleague and object-of-desire of the intellectual Cliff (Woody Allen).
Knowledgable no-good-nick, stuck in the absurdity of reality and hence has a justifiable arrogant cynicism that wraps his insecurities tight, is a role Woody Allen can play in his sleep.

Losing to whom

Cliff's Niece: Come on, he is no competiton for you...
Cliff : God bless you for saying that sweetheart...but as you grow up you will see that great depth and smouldering sensuality don't always win

The throbbing embarrassment of rejection cannot be decoupled from the knowledge of who one is rejected for. As officer Panneer asked: "Madam, en kitta illAdhadhu avar kitta enna irukku ?".

"I think it's the caviar that did it" jokes Lester in the last scene on what won Halley over. As Cliff puts it in words later- it is his worst fear realized. His hatred of Lester is shown to be disproportionate - but not unjustified. Lester is shown to be a man of variety and shown to be aware of the 'shallow' tag on him. As the film progresses he moves away from the dictaphone wielding pompous man to perhaps someone the insecure intellectual feels comfortable pigeonholing as "shallow and brash". The documentary about the Prof. Louis Levy was doomed to never made, because the urge to share something so precious was perhaps not there. Why cast these pearls to the swine anyway ?

The telephone conversation late night when Cliff learns Lester is in Halley's apartment - has beneath the veneer of humorous paranoia - a stinging indication of the direction of things.That we expect those close to us to have a confluence of opinion - especially about other people - has context beyond the romantic angle. It is an everyday predicament. That is an expectation we all struggle to fulfill. Woody Allen brings that out brilliantly.

Thou shalt judge
Are we urged to judge Halley ? (Apart from the married Cliff's advance being a misdemeanor and all that). Was it a convenient decision to pick Lester that she is rationalizing even to herself. Well isn't the reasoning then more painful than the decision itself ? And, if the 'flawed' decision seems to reveal, was she worth the trouble ?

Now "she isn't" is the convenient denial response of all. But the 'intellectual's denial is more complex. He is solipsistic even in his surrender. He may make hyperemotional declarations, is also given to excessive praise :

You know what you are? You're God's answer to Job, y'know? You would have ended all argument between them. I mean, He would have pointed to you and said, y'know, "I do a lot of terrible things, but I can still make one of these." You know? And then Job would have said, "Eh. Yeah, well, you win."

This is from Manhattan but what the heck. It is the kind of special-ness that is more of a compliment to the one who thought of the compliment than the apparent recipient. Not in that he is being deceptive but in that he is being delusional. He sees things disproportionately with those thick glasses of his. The partner, the 'answer' so to speak, in unreal. She can never live up to the perception.But even amid this, the intellectual has is guard up. Continues to be a snooty punk. The coccoon is pacemaker.

Dolores - the airhostess with whom Judah has an affair, really tries and 'reaches' up to his class. She presents him a Schubert record though she struggles to pronounce Schubert. Schubert's (presumably) is heard - rather incongruously - when Judah visits her house to retrieve his things when she lies murdered. Let's leave the moral question apart for later. But her earnest (love ?) bid to climb up the intellectual ladder makes her - amid all the rabble rousing - quite poignant. In fact, one can ' understand' and empathize with Judah. After the passions cooled, it is quite clear that the cultured, Schubert-listening opthamologist had little do with an ageing flight attendant beyond physical intimacy. Recall Annie Hall's constant protestations against Alvy making her take night classes in the University - while harboring ill concealed jealousy against professors who convers with her is a wonderful example. The intellectual yearning to bring 'up' and possess at the same time. The movie ends with Alvie saying he is glad Annie - who broke up with him - was now taking her boyfriend to an Ingmar Bergman film !

Hopeless situation when reality can never live up to the imagination and expectation of an intellectual. As the maid in Rear Window most famously said: "Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence."

It takes a real artist to capture such moments. Woody Allen - magician :bow:

[thilak4life]

Good post on one of my favorite films from an all-time favorite filmmaker.

Not nearly a nitpick, but Dolores learns about WCM and Schubert from Judah, and the film shows very little of her climbing up the intellectual ladder, so to speak. But when she suggests Schumann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schumann) just like that. Judah remarks Schumann as flowery, and suggests Schubert. He proclaims the sadness (in Schubert) reminds of Dolores. Perhaps the poignancy is felt when she gets him a Schubert record as a birthday present (in their final meet?)

But much right about Annie hall, Alvy does feel glad about Annie forcing her boyfriend to "The sorrow and the pity" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066904/maindetails), which they have watched together several times in their relationship, Annie once remarks she can't sit through a 4 hour documentary on Nazi. Alvy still takes her to it. Then follows the man on the queue with Fellini bashing- (lacks the cohesive structure, incredibly indulgent, blah-blah etc).

Btw I love the references, and name-dropping in WA films! :)

[thilak4life]

I'd also add to the poll:

Stardust memories
The Purple rose of Cairo
Hannah and her sisters
Match point
Broadway Danny Rose
Deconstructing Harry

You could still name Zelig, Radio city, Manhattan murder mystery, Sleeper, etc. And just to piss Woody off a little, the earlier funny ones (Bananas, Take the money and run)? :P

I'd say his recent films are eminently enjoyable on their own, but distinctively average when compared to his earlier films. Woody still pops up with great moments and could write characters like Christina, and Maria Elena in his sleep! Although he could do better than dud- Scarlett Johansson, the man still gets the best out of her. :clap:

[P_R]

Then follows the man on the queue with Fellini bashing- (lacks the cohesive structure, incredibly indulgent, blah-blah etc).

Marshall McLuhan appears :lol:

Apparently initially Woody Allen wanted Fellini himself to appear in the scene and contradict that guy.

[thilak4life]

Then follows the man on the queue with Fellini bashing- (lacks the cohesive structure, incredibly indulgent, blah-blah etc).

Marshall McLuhan appears :lol:

Apparently initially Woody Allen wanted Fellini himself to appear in the scene and contradict that guy.

Boy, if life were only like this. :lol:

[salaam_chennai]

There was a similar scene in the movie which i enjoyed. Annie Hall will say "wife" instead of "life". When Wooden Allen points out that, she won't accept. Wooden Allen then faces the camera and explains it to the viewers.

[salaam_chennai]

Here it is.

Alvy: l don't think l mind analysis at all.
Annie: The question is, will it change my wife?

Alvy: Will it change your wife?
Annie: Will it change my life?

Alvy: But you said "wife."
Annie: No, l said "life."

Alvy: No, you said "wife."
Annie: "Life!" l said "life."

Alvy(to audience): She said "wife." You heard that, because you were there. l'm not crazy.
:D

[Nerd]

Have only seen match point. Watched it for you-know-who. Liked the film. The last few minutes were arresting. WA could have used a better male lead. Have 2-3 other movies of his in my hard drive, no time :(

[VENKIRAJA]

Have only watched Purple rose of Cairo.
Looked like a short story. Riveting twist and a very very different sort of comedy. Looking out for more. :)

[thilak4life]

Have only seen match point. Watched it for you-know-who. Liked the film. The last few minutes were arresting. WA could have used a better male lead. Have 2-3 other movies of his in my hard drive, no time :(

Nerd, if you liked "Match point", you'll love "Crimes and misdemeanors". The plot is thematically no different from Judah-Dolores from the latter, and the role of "luck" in existential terms. It seems scientists are confirming more and more that all existence is here by blind chance. No purpose, no design.

"I'd rather be lucky than good" from the VO monologue is well resonated. The character, Chris Wilton derives much from D's Raskolnikov(WA owes much to the book, and there is a shot where Wilton reads it in the film). I agree that a better actor would have improved the part.

[Nerd]

Thank you Thilak!

Btw, why haven't you guys voted in the poll yet? Still pondering over the choices? All of them equally good? :P

[P_R]

Voted for Annie Hall.
Perhaps the one I watched more times that his other films.
So I voted before C&M catches up.

Right from the start monologue :" small portions" to the endpiece: "we need the eggs" it maintains 'pace' like no other Allen film

The young Alvy flashbacks, the whole non-linearity thing, the departures from line : talking to the camrea, commenting as they pass by Annie and her earlier boyfriend, Hall family dinner, getting opinions from passersby, the respective therapy sessions, "love's too weak a word" and goes about making linguistic innovations : typical Allen'ish: 'making light of poetry', the 'removed' Annie, "I have a problem with authority" encounter with the cop, his autobiographical play !

Allen regulars like California hating New Yorker, the intellectual stuck in a discomfiting situation where there are 'competing' intellects (his first wife's friends) and then Annie's prof. The half-tragic scene where he tries to get Annie back.

To me, it is his most impressive movie.

And the line that summed it all up: "As Balzac said.....there goes another novel"

[Querida]

I have not voted seeing that I am only beginning to see Allen's work...so far I have seen his most acclaimed "Annie Hall", "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and "Manhattan Murder Mystery"...all three of which I enjoyed especially when i would go back and play those parts in which he includes his show-stopping lines...it's like finding a chocolate chip in a cookie...(that will have to do for now...cause i can't think of any better simile)

Youtube offers some samples of his standup work as well...just as funny and though it is corny he keeps such a straight face about it you just can't help laughing (eg. "the moose" bit)

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me about his other work such as "the purple rose of cairo" or his earlier "bananas" or even his serious "interiors"...is it that they are not as good? or a different genre then his popularly noted works?

[P_R]

Bananas is quite disappointing...except for some 2-3 scenes and a piece of trivia that Stallone comes as a New York subway goon in one scene, the film just went nowhere.

Purple Rose of Cairo is an interesting film. You are right in saying it is quite unlike Annie Hall , C& M etc. But though he doesn't act in it and the concept is quite novel - you can feel his creative presence. Jeff Daniels and Mia Farrow are both out of place in their own ways. The humor is distractive, the haunting questions sheathed in so much lightness that you are encouraged to dismiss them. The ending, though kinda predictable, is arguably one of the most poignant I have seen in his works.

[crajkumar_be]

Have watched only Annie Hall and Match Point and loved them both

[P_R]

From Manhattan

Diane Keaton says she is getting back with her ex...and Woody is too shocked to reacts

DK: Why don't you get angry....let's just get it over with...
WA: I have a problem expressing anger.....I grow a tumour instead :lol:


DK's intro-scene is fantastic where she (and her boyfriend) trash everything Woody Allen holds as 'great' in his artistic evaluation. DK is just fantastic in that scene, the way she speaks her dialogues.

WA's reactions are hilarious in that scene ("Vang Goggghh....!") and he gripes about it in the next scene. "If she had said one more thing about Bergman I would have knocked contact lense off" :lol:

[thilak4life]

Watched "Bullets over broadway". Woody once said posterity of an artist through art is fallacious (regarding DK's character in "Interiors"). This belief recurs in his work, both loud and subtle. Woody's characters could also be demarcated as gifted and not gifted. This couldn't be stressed anymore than in BOB. Cusack's character, David (playwright), is not an artist. But Cheech (Palminteri) is uncannily talented for a hoodlum. Cheech gets a chance to shape David's play. As the play is crafted to its perfection, Cheech's life is at stake by his own creative control measure, and David experiences a self-realization.

[P_R]

Vicky Christina Barcelona

What a lovely film.
Thoroughly enjoyed it. Extremely well written - Allen everywhere and nowhere. Lots of aspects to chew on.

Penelope Cruz :shock: She is amazingly talented. The single most impressive performance I have seen (in a while - my sense of balance hastens to add and I accomodate grudgingly). I must must must see her films now.

enna dhaan nadakkum nadakkattumE
..
..
..
thalaivan irukkiRan kalangAdhE :bow:

[equanimus]

Oh, I've been meaning to catch this film somehow.

Allen everywhere and nowhere.
Interesting. This is a comment that's so true for 'Match Point' as well. It's so tightly written and Allen's control over the medium is just impeccable, much more so than any of quintessential Allen classics and at the same time, its overarching themes are all Allen.


enna dhaan nadakkum nadakkattumE
..
..
..
thalaivan irukkiRan kalangAdhE :bow:
adhennavo uNmai dhAn! So many films and one never tires of Woody Allen.

[thilak4life]

Finally someone else from hub had also liked it.



enna dhaan nadakkum nadakkattumE
..
..
..
thalaivan irukkiRan kalangAdhE :bow:

:notworthy:

[P_R]

enna dhaan nadakkum nadakkattumE
..
..
..
thalaivan irukkiRan kalangAdhE :bow:
adhennavo uNmai dhAn! So many films and one never tires of Woody Allen.

Earlier that night I watched Synecdoche and I demoted Kaufman from demigod to talented human being. Hence the song :-)

[thilak4life]

enna dhaan nadakkum nadakkattumE
..
..
..
thalaivan irukkiRan kalangAdhE :bow:
adhennavo uNmai dhAn! So many films and one never tires of Woody Allen.

Earlier that night I watched Synecdoche and I demoted Kaufman from demigod to talented human being. Hence the song :-)

Is it not good? :roll:

[P_R]

I didn't like it Thilak.
Compli. enjoyed the film. I am trying to be provocative so he'll post about it.

Neenga reNdu pErum paathuttu sollunga.

[thilak4life]

I didn't like it Thilak.
Compli. enjoyed the film. I am trying to be provocative so he'll post about it.

Neenga reNdu pErum paathuttu sollunga.

Sure. DVDSCR-ku waiting. :P

[complicateur]

Compli. enjoyed the film. I am trying to be provocative so he'll post about it.
Unfortunately the travails of work and "other matters" have struck. So it may be sometime in the composing but a post is definitely in the offing.
I think I posted elsewhere about VCB and my adulation for Penelope Cruz and diametrically opposite apathy for Scarlett (who tries too hard to imitate Allen sometimes).

[P_R]

Scarlett (who tries too hard to imitate Allen sometimes).

Actually I liked her better here than in Scoop.
Perhaps because the characterization was more interesting or because she was the Allen, even though it was inappropriate I couldn't help enjoying it.

If you don't undress me now, its going to turn into a panel discussion :lol:

[P_R]

Vicky Christina Barcelona

Best Film Golden Globe

[thilak4life]

Vicky Christina Barcelona

Best Film Golden Globe

Yes, Musical Or Comedy.

[complicateur]

Was surprised Cruz did not get nominated/win. She is incandescent in the movie. Watched it again just for her :oops:. Maria Elena - :notworthy:

[P_R]

Was surprised Cruz did not get nominated/win. She is incandescent in the movie. Watched it again just for her :oops:. Maria Elena - :notworthy:
Not talented...genious..genious

[groucho070]

Whoa! I didn't notice this thread. Great posts guys.

I am one of the "his early works are the best" type of pathetic fan. I think I have almost all his films (some pirated multiple pix per DVD set).

But as I said, I adore his early ones, Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Sleeper, Love & Death are all out funny (prompting THE comedian legend to say that Woody Allen is the fifth Marx brother).

Keep this thread going, guys.

[P_R]

Bananas is rather ordinary I thought.
Granted it has a great opening scene which is hilarious, the ridiculously funny take-out restaurant stick-up, the Castro get-up conquest, the subway sequence (Stallone !), the Edgar Hoover witness.....wait a minute....

[P_R]

Finally Saw Match Point

Must say it was only okay

Very on-the-surface storytelling, characterization. Very ordinary acting.

It is nowhere near Crimes and Misdemeanours with which it has thematic similarities

What does he see in Scarlett Johansson ?

[thilak4life]

Cruz won BAFTA in Supporting actress category. Well deserved.

[groucho070]

Bananas is rather ordinary I thought.
Granted it has a great opening scene which is hilarious, the ridiculously funny take-out restaurant stick-up, the Castro get-up conquest, the subway sequence (Stallone !), the Edgar Hoover witness.....wait a minute....

Early ones were straight forward standup materials and slapstick which Woody did okay. The later ones are more cerebral. Some of it takes time to grow on you.

As Dave Barry said (in early 90s), "his humour gets more sophisticated day by day only Mia Farrow understood his jokes". But that is an exaggeration, of course.

[groucho070]

What does he see in Scarlett Johansson ?

Wondering the same thing, bro. She is freakin' bland.

[Nerd]

:twisted: Scarlett is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. indha oru quality pOdhAdhA?

[groucho070]

:twisted: Scarlett is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. indha oru quality pOdhAdhA? Among others. But not acting performance? Want to list "others"?

[P_R]

From what little I have seen Diane Keaton is just awesome

In their first meeting in Manhattan there is a scene where she is talking and everyone is interrupting and she bounces from topic to topic, laughs at some inside jokes with her boyfriend, handles delicate conversational points with Woody (opinion about artists vEra enna !)...all this while walking on the streets.

Unbelievably good acting.

[groucho070]

Of all Woody's gals, Diane is definitely the best. She plays off him very well, can really absorb his eccentricity and come out real herself. She is the "straight man" to Woody's giddy stammering gag man. My favourite of both is Love & Death, great verbal sparring.

[thilak4life]

The finest stand-up comedian of his generation on Woody (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzzJf3d0vDU&feature=related).

[P_R]

The finest stand-up comedian of his generation on Woody (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzzJf3d0vDU&feature=related).

Chris Rock :clap:

He just struggles to describe him enough

[thilak4life]

Chris Rock saying he didn't want to be one of the fans bothering Woody reminds me of Stardust memories. The reservoir of jokes could also be seen in this part (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L50zv9GVHWM&feature=channel_page). His romantic scene with Charlotte Rampling (there is a joke right there, the last time you cooked, the kitchen looked like hiroshima.. :lol: ) is the first scene in the video, in fact her character is quite poignant (that wall poster with Charlotte in a deep reflective thought..around 6.24 in the video.. is brilliant again. I like the way Woody lits his scenes to capture the facial.). Also Woody's fans (all kinds of them) bothering him in this scene is probably what Chris is hitting at. :) Although Woody himself had said it is not criticism, but just the way Sandy Bates had visualized them. Eerything that happens after the rabbit's carcass is his figment of imagination, says Woody.

[P_R]

Genious ! :victory:

[html:5155f21420]<img src = "http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2008_Vicky_Cristina_Barcelona/2008_vicky_christina_barcelona_007.jpg">[/html:5155f21420]

[complicateur]

Genious ! :victory:
Woohoooo!

[groucho070]

New York Stories

Scorcese may be one of my favourite directors, but more often than not I question his casting choices. Plus he has been becoming uninteresting the last 13 years. When I decided to revisit this movie, it was not for him, it was also not the for possible has-been Coppola (another favourite, now uninteresting), but for the prolific Woodster.

Woody's offering, Oedipus Wreck, is definitely the best number of the three (over Scorcese's pretentious Life Lesson and Coppola's boring Life Without Zoe) 40 minutes films. It's about him and his on-screen mother and the name Oedipus says it all. Wonderful comedy about mama's boy trying to break out, and finally gets a chance when she disappears, literally during a magic show, and appears (in what form is a delightful secret, don't want to spoil for those who have not seen it).

Woody takes a break from telling stories about realistic relationship between man and woman, and tells a surealistic story about a man and a woman, his mom. The whole film feels like one of his short stories (I read them all, and I don't think he adapted any). Ah, Woody, who else can make a scene about "making love with a chicken drumstick" and get away with it. Oh, and watch out for Marge Simpson.

[groucho070]

Conversation between giants that I dug up. There are treasures in NY Times archive, I tell ya.


http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/16/magazine/the-two-hollywoods-the-directors-woody-allen-martin-scorsese.html?pagewanted=print



The Two Hollywoods: The Directors; Woody Allen; Martin Scorsese

By Lynn Hirschberg
While both Woody Allen, who is 61, and Martin Scorsese, who is 55, work within the studio system, neither is of it. They might best be thought of as proto-independents, taking their cues from European auteurs of the 1960's while continuing to take the Hollywood money. ''Kundun,'' Scorsese's new film, which tells the story of the Dalai Lama's early life, and Allen's ''Deconstructing Harry,'' which he wrote, directed and stars in, are examples of American cinema at its most audacious. (Both open in December.) On a Saturday afternoon last month, which happened to be Yom Kippur, Allen and Scorsese met in Scorsese's plush, poster-lined offices on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Fellow New Yorkers and contemporaries, they hardly knew each other -- maybe that's how insider-outsiders are. Allen spent most of the conversation curled up with a pillow on the couch while Scorsese, dressed all in black, sat bolt upright in a chair and sparked the dialogue.

Allen: We did ''New York Stories'' together.

Scorsese: We met then, and then we met a couple of times, I think, inadvertently.

Allen: I remember years ago meeting you at a video store on Broadway.

Scorsese: That was very funny. I was behind the counter looking for ''It's in the Bag'' -- Jack Benny and Fred Allen.

Allen: I remember that. Why were you looking for ''It's in the Bag''?

Scorsese: Oh, I love that film. I like Fred Allen a lot. And, of course, Jack Benny.

Allen: But it was not a successful movie, I don't think.

Scorsese: No, no.

Allen: It was a chance to see Jack Benny and Fred Allen.

Scorsese: You were looking for a Bunuel film. I think ''Los Olvidados.''

Allen: Right, very possibly.

On Other People's Films

Scorsese: I go through periods, usually when I'm editing and shooting, of seeing only old films.

Allen: Do you get discouraged if you look at something that's great while you're editing?

Scorsese: Not discouraged, but it makes me re-evaluate what I'm trying to do. Sometimes it's a little hard while you're shooting when that happens. If it's a new young director. You think: Where does this stand compared to me? Have the times changed? What the hell am I doing?

Allen: I have heard that expressed exactly by Ingmar Bergman, who said that he couldn't look at a film, any good film, while he was making a film because he lost all confidence. And I understand that completely. It's so hard to maintain your confidence for the 10 months or the year that you're working on a film.

Scorsese: Yup. And even sometimes great old ones will do it to you. Last weekend I said, Let's do it, and we got my old Technicolor print of ''Vertigo.'' Oh, oh, oh, it's sublime.

Allen: It does shatter your confidence to look at somebody else's wonderful work. Because their work is completed, edited, mixed, color corrected. And you're sitting there with a pile of unpromising dailies or something. [laughter] And it's hard to keep your hand on the wheel. Older movies don't make me as nervous. These things are part of your childhood. They're like grown-ups or something. But with the work of contemporaries, you re-evaluate yourself. And if you have any integrity at all, it's always negatively.

Scorsese: I was shooting ''Goodfellas,'' and I was in the middle of shooting -- it turned out to be another one of those 90-day shoots. It just never ends. The torture never ends. I was very, very tired. And I bought a print of ''Man With a Movie Camera.'' It's a Dziga Vertov. Russian. And I said, Well, I never saw a Vertov thing. It was a Sunday. I said, So let's just do homework. And I'd never seen anything like it. And I couldn't wait to get back to work in the morning.

Allen: That's very inspiring.

Scorsese: Yeah, but that's an older film. With new ones you feel you're almost from another century. The young people today are the 21st century. I'm 20th century, I can't help it. It's hard to let new stuff in. And whether that admits a weakness, I don't know.

Allen: But I certainly feel better now than when I started. I'm, what, 25, 26 films down the line. And I find that all the films and directors that I always liked my whole life are the ones that I still like to see. It's hard to develop new tastes.

Scorsese: Right now seems to be a very good period for American cinema. Spike Lee, David Lynch, the Coen brothers. Altman's still working. And all these independent films coming out in the past 10 years.

Allen: It's great.

Scorsese: Fascinating. Kids will put together a movie if it costs $60,000. The danger is that you spoil the talent. They make a good picture for under a million, and then, good or bad, they're picked up by a studio and given $30 million. It's too soon. Young film makers should learn how to deal with the money and learn how to deal with the power structure. Because it is like a battle.

Allen: I've never had to deal with the Hollywood structure. That's the only reason. I don't know if I could have survived it if I had to do it. You know, if I had to use my ingenuity to do it. But I just lucked out and didn't have to.

On Hollywood

Scorsese: I went out to Hollywood to edit ''Woodstock.'' I was not a hippie. When I went to Woodstock, I had french cuffs and cuff links. I lost one of them there. And then I went out to L.A., and I wore the cowboy shirts from Nudie's. I became a Los Angeles person. I just struggled out there. Finally I got this first film to do with Roger Corman. And then ''Mean Streets.'' I felt that I had to stay out there. But it got to me. It was the 70's, and there was George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and John Milius, and Francis Coppola was sort of the godfather of it all, and Brian De Palma, who was very helpful, introduced me to everybody. It took me a while, but I moved back to New York when I was doing ''King of Comedy.'' That was in '81 or '82.

Allen: You were out there for a while.

Scorsese: They insisted that I was not a Los Angeles person, though. Every time I was at a party, they'd say, How long are you here for? I'd say, No, I live here. They'd say, No, it can't be.

Allen: Well, you have manipulated that thing brilliantly because you have been able to raise significant sums of money to make movies and make them the way you want to make them, which is a feat in itself. That's as hard as making the movie. To raise that kind of money and still keep artistic and personal control over a film.

Scorsese: I've been very lucky. And part of that in the 70's was because of the combination with Bob De Niro. The studios went with him as the actor, and coming off of ''Mean Streets'' -- myself, Harvey Keitel and De Niro -- they figured, well sure, as long as you have Bob in a part. De Niro was the one behind ''Raging Bull.'' He wanted to make that. It took us four years of gestating until finally I slipped into it. That took me to the beginning of the 80's, and then I sort of had to start all over again.

Allen: What happened?

Scorsese: Everything changed, I think. The end of the 70's was the last golden period of cinema in America. The power of the director ended with the ''Heaven's Gate'' opening. Which is a picture that actually has some extraordinary things in it. And the next thing you knew, ''E. T.'' made so much money, and it only cost $10 million. It made, I think, what, $700 million? The plug was kind of pulled. And it got pretty rough. I had to start all over again. I was trying to do ''Last Temptation of Christ'' at Paramount. The climate just wasn't right, and the plug was pulled. I came back to New York and I made this low-budget film, ''After Hours,'' where I was trying to learn if I could do a film again in 40 days, rather than 100 days.

Allen: I've been blessed. It's like fool's luck. From the day I made my first film, nobody at United Artists and then Orion expected anything. I've had nothing but support, freedom, final cut, nobody tells me who to cast. It's nothing that I did to earn it. It was given to me by magnanimous people.

Scorsese: U.A. was great. That's where I was too. They did ''Raging Bull,'' ''Last Waltz'' and ''New York, New York,'' which went way over budget, and they still kept going.

Allen: They were a wonderful company. But for me it's all been wonderful. No one ever sees any of the dailies, nor do they get to read a script or comment.

Scorsese: I've shown studios scripts. There's a process to go through with their notes, but I try to filter it out because as well meaning as studios are, they are in the business of making films for a marketplace, and if this is what they feel is right for the marketplace, I can't listen to that. I have to be able to feel what I think is right and hope that somebody's going to see it. I can think back to ''Goodfellas,'' where, although Warner Brothers was very supportive, we had a certain amount of dates for shooting, and I went over and squeezed in this sprawling kind of movie. When they saw it, they appreciated it, but they did ask to go through the preview process. And we did have a couple of problems at previews.

Allen: People walked out?

Scorsese: Oh, God, yes. I said, ''Don't preview this thing.'' After the first scene with the knifing in the trunk, it was like a mini-exodus. People have to know what kind of film it is. But I learned a lot from the previews, and I felt that what I should do is just be firm, throw it up there on the screen and weather it. Just see if you can learn anything from it. I learned, for example, in the sequence where he's driving and paranoid on cocaine, I could go faster. Whereas ''Age of Innocence'' was another process. And again, it's a very delicate process. With ''Age of Innocence,'' if you canvass the right group, it might be O.K. If you get the wrong group, you're in big trouble. And we even tested ''Kundun.''

Allen: I've never previewed a film. There have been times when the company has previewed films, without telling me, for their advertising. But by then the film is completely finished. But you could say universally make it a little faster here, you know what I mean? And you can't go wrong.

Scorsese: Always, yes.

Allen: That's one thing I think never hurts a film; I mean, if you can do it faster, do it. It's a godsend. When stuff comes out, it's a mercy killing.

Scorsese: We just did that with ''Kundun.'' But it's a little difficult in a picture like this because their world is a world where they had no roads, and they walked from place to place. That's the pace. It's not New York. So you have to say, How do you show that pace without boring an audience to death?

Allen: Well, when you take something out, it gives the film such an exhilarating pace. Once you see it out, the joy of the speed is so exhilarating that I can never bring myself to put the material back. I have the problem of getting my movies up to the minimum requirement of length. I've put out films that don't fulfill my contractual obligations, with regard to running time.

Scorsese: My problem is going the other way. They're all over two hours.

Allen: You work at that length. But for many people, without that intensity, they wouldn't be able to sustain that kind of length in a film. I always worry that it's going to be boring. And particularly if you're working with comedy, which is 99 percent of the time with me, you know. You really have to keep moving, or it just lies there.

On New York

Scorsese: Your New York is alien to me. When Barbara Hershey in ''Hannah and Her Sisters'' says, ''I have to go get my teeth cleaned,'' I mean, I also go. But it was, like, What are you talking about? She's going to get her teeth cleaned, O.K., that's an everyday thing. And it's on the corner of Madison and somewhere, and wow, it's a whole other world. And it's a very interesting thing for me, it's a little journey each time. I come from way downtown, in the Italian-American area, which is no longer. They have boutiques there now, artists and stuff.

Allen: I never think of depicting New York. If I didn't live in New York and wanted all the convenience of living at home and working near my home and all of that, I could make a movie elsewhere. That wouldn't bother me.

Scorsese: I made ''Age of Innocence'' because I wanted to learn more about old New York. I don't think I could have done an E. M. Forster novel.

Allen: I'm sure the fact that it was New York put you at ease.

Scorsese: It was very interesting to see if I could actually direct a different world. I grew up watching films by John Ford and by Orson Welles and by Preston Sturges, and I wanted to be more like them, but I came out of a different world. When I went to L.A. in the beginning, I wanted to make a western, a musical. And I made a musical, ''New York, New York,'' and it was so grim. What I probably had in mind to do was not ''The Band Wagon'' by Vincente Minnelli but ''The Man I Love'' by Raoul Walsh. And I crashed the two together. On top of that, the fascination I have with the improvisations, the way Cassavetes was doing films. And it was like a car crash.

Allen: But interesting. It turns out not to be a grim musical, really, it's an interesting musical because of those two disparate strains that are driving you forward.

Scorsese: It was a way, I thought, of reinventing the musical genre. We were doing that a lot in the 70's. I mean ''McCabe and Mrs. Miller'' is a western, but it evolves into something else. I remember Coppola telling us that you can't be that way, that the genre has a certain form and that you have to stick to that form. And I think, ultimately, he was right to a certain extent. But the things we were doing reflected a different time.

On the Importance of Film History

Allen: Whenever people ask me about comic directors, I think that I would have to say Ernst Lubitsch is the best one I've ever seen. And not many people know Lubitsch. I was talking to some college kids the other day, and they were bright kids who were going to a good college, and they had no idea about great directors. These bright college kids have no knowledge whatsoever of Truffaut's films or Fellini's films. And yet the universities do encourage them to read Mark Twain and Flaubert and Melville. But not to see the great films for some reason. And I feel that has to be made accessible to them.

Scorsese: Films are national treasures.

Allen: Well, when we grew up, on any given night, you could just go see a John Ford film or a Fellini film. Now Fellini couldn't get distribution of his last film.

Scorsese: Yes. Harvey Weinstein said he would distribute it, the Film Forum would show it, but Fellini's people decided not to. And that was it. It's a very serious situation.

Allen: So many film students are film illiterate. They're not unsophisticated. They probably know more about steady cams and special effects than the average audience. The guy who drives your cab will use those terms when talking about a film, but they're illiterate in terms of --

Scorsese: The lineage.

Allen: They've never seen any of these films. I think they have a different attention span. I think if you make a good movie there will be an audience for it, and they will like it. It's just a shame that if I put out a movie or if you put out a movie, and the audience likes it, that those same people could be enjoying a dozen Truffaut movies.

On Watching Their Own Movies

Allen: I made my first films in the late 60's, and I've never seen them since.

Scorsese: Me too.

Allen: You won't look at ''Raging Bull''?

Scorsese: Are you kidding? No way.

Allen: If you saw it now, would you be sitting there thinking, Oh, God, I wish I could change that, and Can I do that better?

Scorsese: No, no, not that. I get upset with the emotions of it.

Allen: So it touches other feelings and other memories?

Scorsese: And also the emotions of the people in the film, the actors.

Allen: But that goes for all your films, right?

Scorsese: Yes, so I have a great deal of difficulty looking at them. I won't look at them.

Allen: See, with me, it's the sheer brutality of seeing my work and feeling that, if I could only get that film and start over on it now, I could make it better. Or at least change 10 scenes that are embarrassing to me now. So I'd rather not watch it and go home depressed for weeks.

Scorsese: Sometimes I will see one on television, sometimes I see images from the pictures, and I allow myself to look at them without sound. See the pictures go by.

On Their Place in the Scheme of Things

Allen: I hope you see you've had an enormous impact on all these young film makers. You can't miss it. It's in the style of shooting. It's in the content and the style of directing. It's just all over the place. I don't feel I've influenced anybody. And I'm not saying this out of any kind of false modesty. I just don't see it at all. I don't see it in anybody's work, and I don't hear it.

Scorsese: Well, you have. There's no doubt. It's also opened the way for a certain style of comedy. There's nothing like it.

Allen: Well, I'm blind to the influence, but I do feel lucky that I've been able to work as freely as I have. I've worked with comparatively low budgets. I mean, not low like these kids work. They make these knockout films, you know, those black kids in California?

Scorsese: Oh, the Hughes brothers? ''Menace II Society.'' That's a great picture.

Allen: Your influence was all over that. Just all over it. But it is amazing how these kids can, on no budgets at all, make these enormous films. I've worked on comparatively low budgets, but nothing like what they're doing.

Scorsese: I don't even think about how much ''Menace II Society'' cost, because it works. They've got to do it that way. And that's why I went back to do ''After Hours'' on a tighter budget. Five-million- point-five all in, including my salary. I had to stop living a certain way. ''After Hours'' was a scary thing. It was coming off of the plug being pulled on ''Last Temptation of Christ.'' Boy, I was out there. A couple of friends visited me on the set of ''After Hours,'' and one of them told me, ''Don't you want to come do a real movie back in L.A.?'' But after that, I was able to finesse it in such a way that I could do a studio picture, ''The Color of Money,'' and do it with Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, big stars.

Allen: And to control it?

Scorsese: To control it and also come right under budget, which was great. And after that I did ''Last Temptation of Christ'' for $7 million only. And in a sense I was back on track with the kind of film I wanted to make.

Allen: The studios run quick. When you give them the film, their tendency, whether truthfully or not, is to be enormously supportive. They want to carry you around in a sedan chair. But the minute that they sense some obstacles, that the public is not going to come, then it all vanishes very quickly. The distribution goes. It's hard to get the movie booked any place.

And I would prefer my films to be popular. But I would never do anything to make them popular. You hit it on the head earlier when you said you do what you do, and you just pray they like it. And if they like it, great. And if they don't, you still do what you do.

Scorsese: It's nice if you can have a wide audience, that's great. But I learned right away. ''Mean Streets'' was picked up at the New York Film Festival. And we had the bright idea at the time to release it wide. Warner Brothers didn't want to do it, but I told them they should. ''Five Easy Pieces,'' which opened at the festival, got great reviews, opened wide across the country and did very well. So they released ''Mean Streets'' wide. And it died. Because ''Mean Streets'' wasn't American. It wasn't ''Five Easy Pieces'' -- that was American. People would complain to me that in places in ''Mean Streets'' they needed subtitles. It didn't go over in Waco.

Allen: I can't get my films distributed in those places. They won't put them in the theaters, because it costs more to take the ad and to get the print than what they'll take in. ''Annie Hall'' was more mainstream and got fairly wide distribution, but it was only after it won an Academy Award. ''Annie Hall'' made, I don't know, $6, $7 million or something. That's all.

I find that reviews can hurt but not help. If you put out a film, and everything they write about it is negative, it kills you. And if they write great things, it doesn't necessarily help you.

Scorsese: ''King of Comedy'' got very good reviews. But it was one of the big failures, it just didn't play at the box office at all. But my career was made, particularly in the early days, by the critics, by Pauline Kael. That was the key thing.

I kind of depend on the critics. They make it possible for certain people at certain studios at a given time to give me money for the next picture. That's the key thing. And that varies a lot because that's like a shell game. You don't know who's going to be at a studio who will want to do a film with you. ''Kundun'' went from Universal to Warner Brothers to Disney. With me, it takes a few years before I get to finally do a picture on a certain script. We did this picture for $28 million, which is a pretty good price.

Allen: My career is less eventful. Because of the nature of how I like to work, I've tried to make my films into nonevents. So I like to just make the film, not read the reviews, not follow the box office, put it away and make another film. And then make another film. I find that if you don't like the actual making of the film, you're lost, because that's all there is. The rest of it is too mercurial, and you don't get the pleasure you think you're going to get from the success.

And the failure is not as terrible as you think it would be. So you just keep your nose to the grindstone and just keep working. I make a film, put it out and those who want to see it, see it. People have asked me for years, Who is your audience? I've never known who it is.

Scorsese: You have this incredible way of making films. One a year. It's like one long body of work, uninterrupted. Bergman was like that.

Allen: Yes. He would make these little films he wanted to make, with not a shred of compromise on a frame. And if someone liked it, they liked it. If they didn't like it, it didn't matter at all.

On Casting

Scorsese: Casting is one of the hardest things you have to do because it's so awful for the poor actors too. The people who come in and want the parts and everything. It's sad. It's terrible.

Allen: But it is survival. You have your script, and you know who you want ideally for the part. Someone comes in, and they can either do it or not. And you pick the person who can do it the best. I mean, it's really no more mysterious than that.

Scorsese: It's a little harder if you're making the kind of film where you need the box-office star. Then it's mixing the movie star with the character, and how do you do that?

Allen: Some ideas get away. The only one that I ever had that I thought about, that I can think of in my lifetime, and this was many years ago, was Julia Child. [laughter] I never got the chance to use her. But I thought if I had a comedy, she could be the mom type.

Scorsese: Exactly.

Allen: It was the one inspiration I had, everything else has been just sort of like common-sense casting. And God, there are so many great actors. I like the ones you probably like, right? I've never worked with Dustin Hoffman, but he's a wonderful actor.

Scorsese: He's great. Al Pacino I never worked with.

Allen: Yes, Pacino's great. De Niro's great. The ones that everybody thinks are great are great. But given the budgets I work with, stars have to cut their price to work with me, or I can't afford them.

Scorsese: For me, it depends on the project. In ''Age of Innocence,'' Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer cut their prices, and Sharon Stone did on ''Casino.''

Allen: You are dependent on the goodness of their hearts, their conscience and their availability. They are willing to do it, but not for one second if somebody is offering them their regular salary. If they are between things, I can get them for a pittance, but if somebody wants them for something legitimate, no way.

Scorsese: I've had actors tell me, Look, I can't, I'm getting more money on other pictures. Or, The part isn't big enough, I'm sorry, when I work with you, I want to work on something bigger. Each film is a different situation, and when you are dealing with movie stars, they, too, have to be brave. Usually in the pictures I make, the characters are not the most likable people.

Allen: With my latest movie, ''Deconstructing Harry,'' which I wanted to call ''The Meanest Man in the World,'' I wrote it, and I would have hoped someone else would have played the lead role. It's boring for me to play it all the time. It is more fun to direct now and then and not have to shave every day. But I couldn't get anybody else. I was my last choice. Until three weeks before we shot, I was sweating to get somebody else and couldn't do it. I offered it to a half-dozen people and could not work it out for one reason or another with them, and so I finally did it.

And there is no question: they'll think I am the character. But they think that in everything I do. I don't care. That is one of the curses or the blessings of what I do. That is why they come or why they stay away.

On Where It's All Headed

Scorsese: There is a friend of mine who said recently, Do you remember when there were movies where something would happen, it was like a climactic thing, then there would be a pause, there would be something slower, and then there'd be a big moment? It would build. It is not that way anymore. It is climax, climax, climax, you know, and you are being pummeled. It isn't why the bad guy dies now. It is how he dies.

Allen: But that stuff is for kids. That stuff doesn't really hold the interest of serious-minded people. Right? The problem with all these technical advances in film is that many, many film makers don't see them as tools. They are only tools for telling a story of some sort or giving you an effect of some sort that is primary.

Whereas the actual technique itself becomes the end in itself. When you did that hand-held shot in ''Goodfellas.'' The Copa shot. It was completely organic to the story. It was a tool for telling the story, and that is why it is memorable -- because it was not just, you know, the technique as an end in itself. But that is lost sight of 98 percent of the time.

Scorsese: The technique should never lead you. I stopped watching action films about six years ago. I tried looking at a few, but it is all technique. It isn't interesting. I would never go in and say that we're going to make a whole film with digital techniques. It just wouldn't be right. I wouldn't know. I don't have that kind of vision here. Those movies are too punishing after a while. Too much noise.

And then there is sex. In the 70's, sex was tougher, stronger, I think. Certain things were very powerful, and I mean movies like ''Five Easy Pieces'' or ''Drive, He Said.'' They were so strange. Now, to a certain extent, with the exception of ''Crash,'' which I think is an extraordinary movie, and the very powerful way that ''Breaking the Waves'' goes about sexuality -- there is a kind of scrubbed-clean quality that is not even sensual anymore. They are fake images and fake bodies. How do you shoot a sex scene? What would you do? I personally don't know how anymore.

Allen: It's true. If you have no limits, it does become more difficult because there are so many options. Years ago, you had no options, so you had to come up with a few sophisticated ways to show sex. Now you can virtually do what you want to do, and it becomes more of an esthetic decision, and it becomes tougher.

Scorsese: It really is tougher.

Allen: Because you can't hide behind the fact that they'll censor you, and you've got to come up with something that is ingenious or esthetically pleasing, and you really have no limits to what you want to show.

Scorsese: It's like the old story that Lubitsch could do more with a closed door than another director could do with an open fly.

Allen: Yes.


Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

[Nerd]

Manhattan - What a lovely film! Brilliant writing. Would put this slightly ahead of Annie Hall. Keaton was just fantastic as was Streep. The ending was sort of ermm.. allen's wry smile at the last frame.. What does it mean? I think Allen could not possibly wait for six months and would find another *fling*. Let me quote a few scenes.

Allen: I don't understand how could you prefer me to her
Streep: You knew my history!
Allen: Yes. My analyst did warn me but you were so beautiful that I changed the analyst :rotfl:


(While recounting the planetorium episode) You were so beautiful that I had a mad impulse to throw you down on the lunar surface and commit interstellar perversion with you :bow:

Keaton: What do you do Tracy?
Tracy: I goto high school
Keaton: Oh Really! Wow! Somewhere Nabokov is smiling if you know what I mean :lol:

The whole scene in which Keaton dismisses whatever Allen thinks is great is :rotfl:

[Vivasaayi]

Nerd,

Even I liked Manhattan better than Annie hall - sweet film :)

and yeah..the scene where all four meet in an art gallery(??) ... :)

[P_R]

Manhattan is wonderful. The senti sometimes forces me to pick this over Annie Hall, then I come to and order is restored.

B/W has it own charm. The opening shots/lines, the night they spend by the river. The planetarium scene. All :bow:

You are God's answer to Job to Tracy, the academy of the overrated (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HDSFNzptSM) conversation is one of the best scenes/acting ever. Diane Keaton is such a fantastic actress...all in one long shot. Looks like a fluent real conversation.

Van Goch :lol:

[VENKIRAJA]

Will check out Manhattan very soon. Floored by Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Bergman, Traffaut ellAm thEvayEyilla. :P

[P_R]

Manhattan

Brilliant film

Woody Allen actually wanted United Artits to not release this film and even offered to do another free instead. He claimed he didn't like the output. I suspect it was perhaps because he had put too much into it. It's got a kind of slip-is-showing sensitivity which makes it unique.

Negative capability :lol2:

[P_R]

Anupam Kher to play Freida Pinto's Dad (http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE54R0WT20090528)

[crajkumar_be]

wtf!

[P_R]

wtf!

Bollywood overrating-ai ellAm appidiyE nambirrAingaLE :-(

[crajkumar_be]

'Thatha' mela kovappadradha parithabapadradha ne therla...

[groucho070]

Woody Allen to play Freida Pinto's Dad (http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE54R0WT20090528) Crikey, PR. Ippadiya subject poodurathu. Konja neeram bayanthutten. Padikumpothuthaan vishayam theriyuthu. Woody tackling Indian subject, would be interesting. At least a break from miss boring Johanssen.

[P_R]

Sorry for conpees
Father is played by Anupam Kher

[crajkumar_be]

Sorry for conpees
Father is played by Anupam Kher
adhAvadhu, unga headline paatha odane kondhalichen. Link a open panni anupam Kher moonjiya paathadhum truly 'wtf' moment., article a kooda padikkala
Now, after reading the article, its infinitely worse :( :curse:

Groucho,
Idhula enna aarudhal, sandhosham?

[groucho070]

Yen boss :? article veru onnum sollalaiyee. Woody-yoda track record vachu paartha I think he can do great job. Itthirai padattil Johanssen illaathathaiyee oru miga periya balam endru karuthugiren.

By the way, CR, your signature :lol: :thumbsup:

[P_R]

Itthirai padattil Johanssen illaathathaiyee oru miga periya balam endru karuthugiren.
:yes:
I hope the union has ended for good.
Pinto was okay in Slumdog.

[groucho070]

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

Tempted to type the director's name as Wordy Allen. Peesikinee irukkanggappa. But it doesn't mean that they were boring. Far from it. Being a fan of this genre, I find the mystery elements are too simplistic. But the dialogues are crackling with one liners, wisecracks and what I would call Woodyism. Pairing with Dianne Keaton after a long time (role written for Mia Farrow originally, but you know what happened), its fast paced and pretty thrilling at some point. And Woody being Woody, throws in some human relationship issues, but the love triangle/Quadrangle thingy is not new. The scene in the stuck lift, with a dead body on top, is classic Woody.

W: Claustrophia and a dead body - this is a neurotic's jackpot!

Woody's wife, Diane is giddy about solving the murder mystery. Our reluctant man's responses:

W: Jesus, save a little craziness for menopause!

DK: I don't understand why you're not more fascinated with this! I mean, we could be living next door to a murderer, Larry.
W: New York is a melting pot! I'm used to it!

Super padamappa. Go and see it.

[P_R]

W: Jesus, save a little craziness for menopause!
:lol:

Has been on the Must watch list for a while

[groucho070]

Am on Woodster roll. Next is one of your fav (I think) Crimes & Misdemeanor.

[Nerd]

Incidentally, saw crimes and misdemeanors tonight. This has to be the most inaccessible Woody film among the ones I have seen. Makes you think and stuff, like what would you have done in that situation, but I just loved it. The beauty of the film lies in making the viewer empathize with almost all the main characters in the film. Brilliantly written. Some lines on top of my head:

Sort of Gounderish: :) I see a cab. If we run now, we can kick the crutch from the old lady and get it :rotfl:

Halley about Lester: He is an american phenomenon
So is acid rain :lol: :rotfl:

Had the Nazis won, the future generations would have understood the WW-II a little differently :bow:

Very hard to get your heart and head toegether in your life :bow:

So what's next? Husbands and Wives? I am strictly following the poll-options order :)

Woody is a little underrated, IMO. He has his own niche audience but he is never taken seriously AFAIK. All of Woody fans in my office are > 40 years old. :oops:

[P_R]

Halley about Lester: He is an american phenomenon
So is acid rain :lol: :rotfl:
:lol:

Nerd, have you watched 'Love and Death' ?

[P_R]

I like the Woody and his niece going to the movie track in Crimes and Misdemeanours

Cliff's Niece: Come on, he is no competiton for you...
Cliff : God bless you for saying that sweetheart...but as you grow up you will see that great depth and smouldering sensuality don't always win

[Nerd]

I like the Woody and his niece going to the movie track in Crimes and Misdemeanours

Cliff's Niece: Come on, he is no competiton for you...
Cliff : God bless you for saying that sweetheart...but as you grow up you will see that great depth and smouldering sensuality don't always win
:lol:

Cliff to the niece: Don't listen to what your school teacher's say. Just see what they look like, then you'll know what life will really be like. - Very very thought provoking :)

No, haven't seen Love and Death. Match Point, VCB, Annie Hall, Manhattan and C&D are the Woody films I have seen so far.

[groucho070]

:lol: I am halfway. Finishing it tonight with some brews.

Nerd, Husbands & Wives is a typical Woody Allen relationship movie. Good cinematography is something I neglect to mention in my kutti review in the other thread.

[groucho070]

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

I read that this film is "deep" but not that deep to the point I took time to come out of it. Some of my fav quotes:

Show business is, is dog-eat-dog. It's worse than dog-eat-dog. It's dog-doesn't-return-other-dog's-phone-calls :lol:

I don't know from suicide, you know. Where I grew up in Brooklyn we were too unhappy to commit suicide

Last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty :rotfl:

Classic Woody. And great turn from Martin Landau.

Angelica Houston :evil: But its okay, minor annoyance, that's all.

[P_R]

Glad you enjoyed it groucho.
It is arguably the 'deepest' Woody film I have watched till date. Annie Hall is great but is very focused on the relationship alone. Here it is about the possibilities and more importantly the possibilities realized by others but not by oneself, the inability to learn from others as one has to live one's life oneself...all that was just extremely well done. And such weighty stuff done with humour !!!

When Cliff mentions that Prof. Levy committed suicide. Such a laugh-out-loud scene but arguably the heaviest scene in the movie too. Genius.

Looked up Angelica Huston.The one who played Dolores I see. I thought she fit the role quite well.

[groucho070]

Great description of what the film is about, PR. Couldn't have said it better. Woody's lifelong obsession with love, life, sex & death & exudes well in this beautifully crafted script.

But it's really tough to pick out his best. And I will definitely shortlist this one.

Angelica is the great director John's daughter. She can also be seen in MMM. It's my problem actually, when I look at her I see female younger version of John Houston :oops:

[groucho070]

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972)

Trip back to early Woody. No holds barred, straight to laugh riot materials here. This is Woody in Mel Brook's market segment, only its more adult. After this movie, you will not look at boobies the same way again :lol:

We can say "boobies" here, can we? :oops:

[crajkumar_be]

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

And Woody being Woody, throws in some human relationship issues, but the love triangle/Quadrangle thingy is not new.
MMM was supposed to be Annie Hall .

The scene in the hotel room with an extremely paranoid Woody was (intruder a adikkalaamnu ready a iruppaaru..) :rotfl3: Pure slapstick

[VENKIRAJA]

VCB again. Why don't WA fans recognise this? It is definitely not in Annie Hall's class, but definitely a great watch.

[Querida]

To date I have seen the following Woody films and MMM still remains my most favourite with Annie Hall coming a close second:
Of his more dramatic pieces I do prefer Hannah and her sisters...and I liked Woody's Fellinesque "Stardust Memories" more than I liked Fellini's 81/2.

Annie Hall
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Bananas
What's Up Tiger Lily
Sleeper
Love and Death
Interiors
Stardust Memories
Zelig
Hannah and her Sisters

I know I still have a long way to go and am missing a lot of his more popular works.

[groucho070]

And old piece comparing Woody to Chaplin. Personal, but interesting how the writer tied things up.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/27/movies/film-view-chaplin-blazed-the-trail-woody-allen-follows.html?pagewanted=2&pagewanted=print

September 27, 1992
FILM VIEW; Chaplin Blazed the Trail. Woody Allen Follows.

By Neal Gabler;
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN following the messy fracas between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, and especially anyone who has seen his new film, "Husbands and Wives," the operative terms of the scandal are art and life. But whose art and whose life?

The answer seems self-evident. (Woody Allen's, you idiot! Who else's?) Yet as the public may observe for itself when Richard Attenborough's biographical film "Chaplin" is released at Christmas, the correspondences between Charlie Chaplin's life and work and Woody Allen's are remarkable -- so remarkable, in fact, that it almost seems Woody Allen has been sculpting his own life along the lines of Chaplin's. He has been playing Zelig to Chaplin, the greatest of American film icons, perhaps hoping to achieve the same results both professionally and personally.

Begin with the similarities between their careers. Recruited from a vaudeville troupe for the movies in 1914, Chaplin made his early reputation with inexpensive knockabout comedies that won such instant popularity that one observer described the phenomenon as "Chaplinitis." Chaplin was certainly funny, even if genteel critics found his comedy coarse and vulgar. The problem was that he was just funny.

At least that was the problem for intellectuals who, having taken notice of Chaplin's exceptional rise, began to bestow their blessing upon him. But to satisfy their own misgivings about popular art, the intellectuals wanted more than just funny. If Charlie were the latest avatar of the commedia dell'arte, if he were the absolute refinement of physical grace as well as the height of cinematic art, then he should dare to be tragic, too. Only that would legitimize him and levitate him from low art to high.

Uneducated and insecure, Chaplin may have taken up the challenge with too much relish. "The Elizabethan style of humor, this crude form of farce and slapstick comedy," he apologized early on, "was due entirely to my early environment, and I am now trying to steer clear from that sort of humor. . . ." From now on, he would be adding pathos to his range. His films would be "more subtle." He would, to use a phrase of Woody Allen's, be dining at the grown-up table.

There had been harbingers of pathos in other films, but it was in 1920 with "The Kid," a maudlin tragicomedy about an orphan and Chaplin's character the Tramp, that he was acknowledged to have made the crossover. For Chaplin, though, tragi comedy still wasn't enough to prove his artistry. With "A Woman of Paris," a 1923 romantic melodrama that he directed but in which he did not appear, he temporarily abandoned comedy altogether. That made him an artist.

At the same time, as Charles Maland of the University of Tennessee has detailed in his critical study "Chaplin and American Culture," Chaplin's public image was changing, too. Suddenly he was no longer just a lowborn, demotic performer getting laughs like his contemporaries Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Interviewers never failed to mention that Chaplin read constantly. He told one he had recently read Shakespeare "from beginning to end" and was acquainted with "the works of George Eliot and other noted writers." Now, as an intellect and an artist, he could win the intellectuals' highest accolade: Charlie Chaplin was being called a "genius."

If all of this sounds vaguely familiar, it should, because in many ways it is the story of Woody Allen. He, too, began in the movies with inexpensive comedies that were just funny. He, too, won a considerable following -- though nowhere near as large as Chaplin's -- and he, too, began to be adopted by intellectuals who appreciated his deft humor. Like Chaplin, he seems to have accepted their judgment that being "just funny" wasn't sufficient, and like Chaplin he made the crossover to "more subtle" comedy in 1977 with his own "Kid," "Annie Hall."

But "Annie Hall" was, he told his biographer Eric Lax, "still the area of romantic comedy and 'relationships,' which I mean pejoratively." Like Chaplin, Allen needed a complete break from humor. "Interiors," an austere 1978 drama without a laugh and without Woody, was to be his "Woman of Paris," his bid to establish himself as a dramatist as Chaplin had. Having done so, Woody Allen was soon regarded not only as a serious artist and bona fide intellectual; he was being called a genius, too. It couldn't have been lost on him that among American film makers, only Chaplin had navigated the same course and only Chaplin would have comparable intellectual cachet.

One could detect Chaplin's spiritual guidance not only in the overall design of Woody Allen's career but in the themes of certain of Woody's films. Rebuffed by his audience, in 1952 Chaplin had made "Limelight," in which he played an aging performer trying to come to terms with his rejection. ("The heart and the mind -- what an enigma!" he says, anticipating Allen's recent proclamation about his situation: "The heart wants what it wants.") Apparently angered at his audience for demanding that he be just funny again, Allen made the mean-tempered "Stardust Memories" in 1980, so much like "Limelight." Similarly, the 1947 "Monsieur Verdoux," starring Chaplin as a guiltless murderer who justifies his crimes by appealing to the even larger crimes of society, anticipates Allen's 1989 meditation on guilt, "Crimes and Misdemeanors," which in turn anticipated his response to the moral hand-wringing over his relationship with Mia Farrow's 21-year-old adopted daughter.

There was another important respect in which Chaplin seems to have served as Woody Allen's role model: his relationship to Hollywood. To be regarded as a serious artist in a commercial medium meant declaring one's independence from Hollywood, where movies, according to Chaplin, were mass-produced. As a result, tucked away in his own studio, Chaplin self-consciously guarded the artistic process in a way no other commercial American film maker had or could. When he signed with First National Pictures in 1917, trading money for time and creative control, he announced, he was going to make "perfect pictures."

Within a few years, he formed United Artists with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith -- another attempt to protect his creative prerogatives from the ordinary studio predators. Only Griffith had had anything like Chaplin's authority, and Griffith only briefly. But Woody Allen, at United Artists and then, when its executives decamped, at Orion, insisted on creative autonomy and got it, not because he was the most successful film maker but because, like Chaplin, he was regarded as one of the few authentic geniuses; and no one dared interfere.

But if Allen has drawn on the career, the image, the themes and the creative independence of Chaplin, he also seems, especially in light of recent events, to have drawn on Chaplin's life. For one thing, Chaplin had long been known for his collaborations with his wives and lovers. For another, Chaplin had always been attracted to much younger women. (Allen, despite quips about young girls, has been at pains recently to insist that his long-term relationships have always been "age appropriate.") Chaplin's first two wives, Mildred Harris and Lita Grey, were only 16 when he married them, and both relationships quickly dissolved.

In the case of Lita Grey, however, the dissolution didn't come without scandal. Her complaint against Chaplin (which she later admitted was exaggerated by her overzealous attorney) accused him of being "abnormal," "unnatural," "degenerate" and "indecent" -- allegations that sound like the ones made against Allen. Women's groups leapt to Lita Grey's defense. "Is this man permitted to run riot for the rest of his life amid the foolish little girls of the country?" asked one of her supporters, very much in the spirit of what I have heard women saying about Woody.

Chaplin's reputation survived that bout, but he was embroiled in another contretemps years later, when a young actress named Joan Barry filed a paternity suit against him. Symbolically, Chaplin became a moral pariah, just as Woody Allen is today for some people. The conservative press loosed its dogs on Chaplin then, just as the conservatives are attacking Allen now as an example of Eastern liberal immorality. "Woody Allen Is Clinton's Family Values Adviser," read one placard at the Republican convention.

If anything, though, the Barry affair shows the rewards of perseverance. While Chaplin's career did suffer from the negative publicity, his life was renewed. At roughly the same time as the Barry controversy, he met Oona O'Neill, the 15-year-old daughter of Eugene O'Neill, and fell madly in love again. "She worshiped him," Chaplin's son Charles Jr. would write, "drinking in every word he spoke, whether it was about his latest script, the weather or some bit of philosophy." In 1943, when she had turned 18 and Chaplin was 53, they married and remained together, blissfully by most accounts, until his death in 1977.

Allen may have borrowed from Chaplin's professional life, because Chaplin alone achieved the status that Allen has desperately seemed to desire. Why borrow from Chaplin's personal life? Perhaps because he couldn't aspire to be Chaplin without actually becoming Chaplin and because becoming Chaplin meant freeing himself from the sorts of moral restraints that bind ordinary people, not great artists. Geniuses, as both Chaplin and Allen's other inspiration, Ingmar Bergman, demonstrated, must play by different rules -- which makes Allen's behavior certification of his brilliance.

And there is a bonus. Chaplin wound up serene. Maybe this is what Woody Allen has in mind when he quotes his friends' reaction to his relationship to Soon-Yi Farrow Previn, 35 years his junior: "They say, 'You're a lucky guy. . . . You guys have terrific times together. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.' " No matter what anyone says about Allen and Soon-Yi Previn, Chaplin had been there first, and in effect, had sanctioned the romance as he had sanctioned so much else in Woody Allen's life and career.

Of course, no one knows how this tale will turn out -- whether Soon-Yi Previn will be Woody Allen's Lita Grey or his Oona O'Neill or neither. Whatever happens is tangled up in the skein of life and art. But in the end, there remains the possibility that "Woody Allen" may be the fascinating collaboration of two of America's pre-eminent film makers -- that in the end, whatever has happened, whatever will happen, may be their art and their life.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy

[P_R]

Thanks for the post Groucho. Here's a pic that suits it

[html:fa498fce00]<img src =http://humanflowerproject.com/images/uploads/woody-allen-penn.jpg>[/html:fa498fce00]

http://humanflowerproject.com/images/uploads/woody-allen-penn.jpg

[groucho070]

:D Daymmm....someone was using that as avatar sometimes back. Can't remember....

[P_R]

:D Daymmm....someone was using that as avatar sometimes back. Can't remember....

Heh heh :-)

[kid-glove]

I liked Woody's Fellinesque "Stardust Memories" more than I liked Fellini's 81/2.

Same here, and the key word is "liked". Fellini's might be far superior by canons of filmmaking.

[kid-glove]

I voted for Stardust memories, and then I notice only 2 votes have been lodged. the other being for Annie hall. It doesn't surprise me as Woody has made so many films, and a good little portion are equally great. It's a tough choice.

[groucho070]

I still haven't voted :(

Can't make up my mind. I always have weakness over the early straight comedies. But some of the idaiveelai films are awesome too...decisions, decisions....

[kid-glove]

A singular favorite WA film is pretty difficult. This week would be Stardust, but the moment you revisit his other great films, the latest fills the slot.

[groucho070]

Hmm....Stardust...I never dug it. Off my mind now...it got to be Crimes. Great combination of good comedy, tragedy and some cerebral stuff to boot.

[Querida]

A singular favorite WA film is pretty difficult. This week would be Stardust, but the moment you revisit his other great films, the latest fills the slot.

:exactly:

[Querida]

I liked Woody's Fellinesque "Stardust Memories" more than I liked Fellini's 81/2.

Same here, and the key word is "liked". Fellini's might be far superior by canons of filmmaking.

True but then again Cuba won an oscar for "Jerry Maguire" :confused2: :roll:

[groucho070]

True but then again Cuba won an oscar for "Jerry Maguire" :confused2: :roll:For that I am greatful. Reason being the thank you speeches are shorter now :twisted:

[P_R]

Watched Crimes again
Would like to change my vote now

[P_R]

Hannah and Her Sisters
One of his best.

The variety of characters. Woody's intro - chil molestation, everybody's doing it :lol: The chapter titlings, Michael Caine, the one scene characters too (not a sofa, an ottoman :lol:),
Woody's disastrous date, the play reading , the open-ended last line,the scene where he takes the stuff out of his shopping bag: a crucifix, a framed photo (of Mary ?), bread and marmalade (?) :lol:, shopping for clothes before the musical audition.

I am in New York City, surrounded by traffic and restaurants...how can I just vanish :lol2:

Was reminded a bit of Cries and Whispers. Don't know why. Sisters, togetherness, mutual differences, austereness, the men in their lives, death. Perhaps only marginally overlapping.

enakku BergmanE vEndAm, I will have it after Woody processes the heavy themes for me.

annikkE sonnAngO periyavanga aazhamA sonnAngo
aththaiyE aaNNAthE thaNNi ooththi lightA sonnAru

[P_R]

I liked it a lot. Very underrated. There is a cue of characters, traits and relationships(all too memorable) from his other works. But again, the magic of weaving it all together. For example, Woody contemplating religion, meaning of existence and all. You've seen it before. Yet there is an uniqueness with situation, context, and interaction. The long monologues might seem similar, yet it is so beautiful. The pairs are relatable. Frederick-Lee might evoke resemblance and yet, you lap them up. Woody is a master of his craft.
Ok I didn't understand your reactions to my post then :-)

You are right about the overlaps, but I guess it can treated as his the Woody genre :-)

Play out of life events is of course more hilariously done in Annie Hall (he turns to the camera and says, hey ! what d'you expect, its my first play) but the silly righting wrongs is more funny than tragicomic here (the schizophrenic wife stabbing the architect :rotfl:), the cuckolding is more curious than Manhattan, the masturbation joke recycled from 'Love and Death' (great, now you knock off my hobbies).

The acting is just top-notch. I am yet to see an ordinary performance from Mia Farrow. The sister who ends up marrying Woody, her performance is great too.The parents fighting (this haircut, that passes for a man :lol:) was very well done , the guy who plays Frederick, I thought he did really well, particularly in the break-up scene. With an actor like Michael Caine, perhaps the v-o's were overdone. Not that they were unenjoyable.

[groucho070]

Masturbation joke, "don't knock on it, it's sex with someone you love"? Athu Annie Hall-illa?

Anyway, after reading your piece, I think I might continue where I left off. Opening scene at the party.

Caine got supporting actor Oscar, I think.

[P_R]

Masturbation joke, "don't knock on it, it's sex with someone you love"? Athu Annie Hall-illa?

Oh ok

In Love and Death the joke is this

(After the encounter)
Countess: You were terrific
Boris: I practice a lot when alone

[groucho070]

:lol: Yeah, yeah. I remember that.

[kid-glove]

Another one in Stardust memories, lot less refined as a joke, but a funny poke at notion of 'born genius':

Random woman: The boy's a natural. I've never seen anything like it. A born magician.
Woman (presumably Sandy Bates mother): Well he should be. He sits in his room alone and practices for hours.
Man: Are you sure he's not doing something else?
Woman: Oh he does that too. (and then shows some pictures from his room)
:lol:

[crajkumar_be]

http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/movies/article9509.ece?homepage=true


Freida Pinto may be romancing a younger man, Dev Patel, in real life, but she has been paired opposite Academy-award- winning actor Josh Brolin, who is a good two decades older than her, in Woody Allen's upcoming film. The 43-year-old Brolin who won an Oscar for his supporting role in the biopic 'Milk' this year, is married to Hollywood actor Diane Lane for the past five years.

'Slumdog Millionaire' star Freida Pinto has been paired opposite Academy-award- winning actor Josh Brolin, who is a good two decades older than her, in Woody Allen's upcoming film.

The unlikely pair was seen shooting together in London, with Woody Allen having to order artificial rain for a romantic sequence in the as yet-untitled film, reported Daily Mail online.

Earlier this month, the 25-year-old actor had made her first public appearance with actor Dev Patel, who is six years her junior, together as a couple at Somerset House for an outdoor screening of 'Slumdog Millionaire'. The couple met while filming the hit rags-to-riches film in Mumbai, which won eight Oscars.

The 43-year-old Brolin who won an Oscar for his supporting role in the biopic 'Milk' this year, is married to Hollywood actor Diane Lane for the past five years.

Pinto and Brolin are a part of the star-studded project which includes names like Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, and Naomi Watts.

[directhit]

[tscii:8078823566]
Whatever works for Woody

THERE is something very unnerving about the prospect of interviewing Woody Allen (picture). This man is an Oscar-winning auteur-screenwriter-actor. After all, this man made Diane Keaton. This man married his girlfriend's much younger adopted Korean daughter.

A little creepy ... but a lot brilliant.

What if my questions were not smart enough? What if he rambled on neurotically and I had no idea how to interject?

What if I was unable to expound on why I thought his astute insights on human relationships worked marvellously in some of his earlier pieces (Manhattan, Annie Hall, Hannah And Her Sisters) but fell flat in others (Scoop, Melinda And Melinda, Everybody Says I Love You)?

Thankfully, the 73-year-old turned out to be quite a nice man who isn't as media shy or cranky as he's made out to be. He called from his home in New York City to chat about his 40th film Whatever Works - where an abrasive, egotistical and beyond neurotic misanthrope (Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David) lightens up when he meets an impossibly sunny 21-year-old runaway (Rachel Evan Wood) - and we ended up having a lovely chat about zombie journalists.

He's even looking forward to maybe meeting me someday when he's in Asia. And, it's not because I'm a much younger Asian girl ...

Good morning Mr Allen. You're up early.

Good morning! Well, I have children who go to school and I have to take them … So I got up a long time ago.

What would you say is the best thing about being Woody Allen right now?

Well, I have a good home life. I like being a father and husband. And I have two great kids. That's much more fun than everything that has happened to me professionally.

And the worst?

That I am a chronic malcontent and I have a gloomy view of life. I have always been a gloomy person despite the fact that I have a very nice life, and know and worked with very nice people. Sigh. (Laughs)

Any chance of that changing soon?

(Laughs) I think the boat has sailed. It's too late for that.

Dare we ask if Larry David's Boris Yellnikoff is a reflection of some part of you? He's quite the neurotic malcontent, no?

People always look for clues to see if the movie is really about me, no matter how many times I've gone on record to say I make stuff up. (Laughs) I wrote Whatever Works for Zero Mostel in the 1970s and then he unfortunately passed away. It was sitting in my drawer and I decided to dust it off and update it.

Why didn't you play the role and how did you come to cast Larry in the end?

Well, to be honest, I envisioned a fat man when I wrote the character, so, no. And Larry? Well, it's because he's very funny. And 10 years younger than me.

(With Boris) I felt that it wasn't something I could act out well. There are a number of emotions in play, and some of which I think I could act out very well … some I didn't think I could at all. I'm a fan of Larry's, I mean he's been in two of my movies (Oedipus Wrecks and Radio Days) and we all thought he could do this material very well.

Tell us more about your big New York return. You haven't shot there in a while.

I love shooting in New York. But I just don't want to work out of New York exclusively. Every few countries, I would like to come back to New York. I've done four movies abroad - three in London, one in Barcelona. So I thought, maybe it would be good to come home. My children go to school here, all my friends are here. Everything I know is here …

How do you react when people say: 'It's Woody and his muse'?

I never think in terms of muses at all. All it took was for one journalist to say: "Diane Keaton is Woody Allen's muse." And then every other journalist with no imagination would write the same thing. Like zombies!

Mia, Diane, Scarlet ... They are all very talented actresses that any director would use. I use them because they are very good at what they do, not that they inspire a plot or storyline.

Hollywood's Who's Who is always clamouring to be in your films. Does everyone need to audition for you?

I usually see tapes of the films they have been in. Unless they've become drastically obese since their last work or have a terrible rash, that's usually a good indication. And then I'll just have the person come in for a quick chat.

I never make an actor do a reading because they can do a wonderful reading and be terrible when we shoot. Or they could read horribly but actually be perfect for the part. I like to meet them ... even if it's just for a second.

Okay, I am going to geek out and ask: Which of all your films is your absolute favourite?

If I had to choose, I'd say Purple Rose Of Cairo. I think I brought my idea off well. I took my time, told the story I wanted. I showed the audience exactly what I envisioned.

Any chance of shooting in Asia?

I have never been! Once I visit the place and get a feel, only then could I see if it's a place I could shoot a movie at. I have never been west of California. I like grey weather. I like Paris. I like London. I like the east coast, New York.

That said, I would really like to visit. My wife very much wants me to go to Asia. After all, she's from there and so are my daughters. If I'm ever in Asia … maybe we'll meet? My wife is dying for me to get out there so I am sure one day we will.

Whatever Works opens in cinemas tomorrow.[/tscii:8078823566]

[kid-glove]

I never think in terms of muses at all. All it took was for one journalist to say: "Diane Keaton is Woody Allen's muse." And then every other journalist with no imagination would write the same thing. Like zombies!

:lol:


Mia, Diane, Scarlet ... They are all very talented actresses that any director would use.

:twisted: Blasphemy.

[crajkumar_be]

Scarlet a yen pa ippadi attack panreenga? :twisted:
Naan "aadharavu" kudukkaren ammanikku!

[directhit]

Scarlet a yen pa ippadi attack panreenga? :twisted:
Naan "aadharavu" kudukkaren ammanikku! aadharavu ellaam naanga kuduthuttom :twisted: neenga orama kooda nillunga :P

[kid-glove]

Scarlet a yen pa ippadi attack panreenga? :twisted:
Naan "aadharavu" kudukkaren ammanikku!

illa..'very talented' actresses and clubbing her with Farrow and Keaton - a bit much.

Woody used to use likes of Louise Lasser in bit roles. Scarlett kaal doosukku samaanam..

[Bala (Karthik)]

illa..'very talented' actresses and clubbing her with Farrow and Keaton - a bit much.


Actually i hate Mia Farrow - nalla nadippaanga aana somehow the proverbial "oru inampuriyadha idhu".. that voice :x
Only Rene Zellweger is more loathsome i think....

[kid-glove]

Agree about Rene Zellweger. But I like Mia Farrow's voice. :oops:

[rangan_08]

Recently, there was a news in The Hindu which said that Woody Allen is willing to work with Anupam Kher !! Kher was invited by Cambridge University to give a lecture as part of Cinema Festival.

[kid-glove]

[tscii:89461bd233]
"Whatever works" works with some qualifications. That is to say, there is typical Woody Allen humor. "Highbrow condescending cretins" at its best Although at places, it's brashly impudent. Partly due to Larry David's monotonously rendered performance as Boris Yellnikoff. If you haven't guessed it, he is playing a Woody-Allen-prototype. In that, he has no neurotic fits (and even if it exists, it's not apparent), but we do see more of a physicist type (by that, it's natural to be impatient with simpletons). Woody Allen's intention is to create a reclusive bad tempered misanthropic hypochondriac with obsession for death and morbidness in life. I paraphrase Boris Yellnikoff's self-estimation. It's no surprise to cast a younger(relative to Woody of course) actor who is able to deliver the lines with a straight face, and in a deadpan sitcom-ish way, that it is more of a savoir-faires (watch Boris address "us" like a PhD physicist than recite/narrate in ways of Alvy Singer from Annie hall). He also admits so himself, "I’m not a likeable guy. Charm has never been a priority with me." But make no mistake, this is no curmudgeon. But a 60 year old in full equanimity, able to see the whole picture, so to speak.

It's ironic that we also laugh at things we'd cry about. It's not so strange an inclination to take up morbidness with humor. This has become woefully apparent for yours truly. Perhaps I am much pampered by Woody's style over the years. But sadly it's misleading people into deriving "feel-good"-ness. No wonder Woody writes a monologue for Boris addressing it to the audience, "if you’re one of those idiots who needs to feel good, go get yourself a foot massage". LOL. Woody's works, at least to me, have been void, and indifferent as universe itself. He never sets out to make a life-affirming hymn, but it sustains interest in showing its characters sustaining their own lives. Life is more of a moot point, and the protagonist (often played in Woody prototype) is shown to be obsessed by death that it makes life defeatist, and something of a "ritual for death". but through course of the film, there is a consensus reached. To make life interesting with our quirks, inclinations, art, Love, etc. Essentially bohemian, confined to Manhattan, his outlook comes to fore. Which leaves room for criticism by critics such as Rosenbaum.

Rejection of religious inclinations also sticks its head. Picture this, a deeply religious couple get separated. Both have been suppressed to lead a lie, and by their separation, conquer better understanding of themselves. One finds it in Menage a trois, and the other realizes his suppressed homosexuality. And both have quenched their religious conformism, and found something "better" to hold onto. Woody is careful to point out. Everything hits at this point (not so subtly) - the absurdity of existence, the "blind chance", search for love, and well, whatever works! "Search in Life is something to give the illusion of meaning to quell the panic" says Boris, in verbatim.

As a film, it works in a qualified way as I first began this post.I'd suggest you to watch at ease. It's not something new. Yet, "Sometimes a cliche is finally the best way to make one's point." retorts Boris. And with laughs.[/tscii:89461bd233]

[groucho070]

Movie never made it here, don't think it would. Interesting to know how David's Woody Allen type works.

One of the worst, in my opinion, was Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity. The man just mimics Allen. How's that for laziness?

[kid-glove]

One of the worst, in my opinion, was Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity. The man just mimics Allen. How's that for laziness?

The impersonation got approved by the man himself. :lol:

The "worst" in my opinion, Jason Biggs in "Anything Else" was nailed-on. Now that QT recommended it, there's an urge to watch it again.

Larry David works for aforesaid reasons. Given a thought or two, I'm not sure of one thing I had said. He's perhaps curmudgeonly at occasions, but by sapience and not age. And the ability to see the whole picture. :)

[kid-glove]

Woody Allen employs a homage to Marx, with Hello, I must be going (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6yLRmo7CjU) in opening title. Marx-ian detachment of soft sentiments, decadency of artistic taste, & contempt for counter-culture omnipresent in Allen-esque universe. :)

[groucho070]

Just watched Animal Crackers recently. I wonder who else saw Anything Else. QT recommended it? Whoa!

[kid-glove]

[tscii:a7a03e0714]Quotes I much cherished. :)


Our marriage hasn't been a garden of roses. Botanically speaking, you're more of a Venus flytrap.



I’m sure you're all obsessed with any number of sad little hopes and dreams. Predictably unsatisfying love lives. Failed business ventures.
"Oh, if only I'd bought that stock!", "If only I had purchased that house years ago!", "If only I had made a move on that woman."

If this, if that. You know what? Give me a break with your "could haves" and "should haves." Like my mother used to say, "lf my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a trolley car."


I was considered for a Nobel Prize in physics. I didn't get it. But, you know, it's all politics, just like every other phony honor.[/tscii:a7a03e0714]

[Bala (Karthik)]

Just watched Animal Crackers recently. I wonder who else saw Anything Else. QT recommended it? Whoa!
Anything Else (spanish audio with English subtitles :lol2:) - pudhusa/perusa edhuvum illa.

[kid-glove]

Just watched Animal Crackers recently. I wonder who else saw Anything Else. QT recommended it? Whoa!
Anything Else (spanish audio with English subtitles :lol2:) - pudhusa/perusa edhuvum illa.

My sentiments exactly, so I wonder why QT went for it. :roll:

On the other hand, I could see why he went for "Chasing Amy". That's a pretty good movie. One of the strangest love triangle I've seen. While doing that, It's also palpable to senses, one could relate to the characters. Kevin Smith writes interesting dialogue. And hold on a minute, that's perhaps Ben Affleck's best performance. No wonder Qt wanted to cast him once. Think he might still, to surprise us all. :)

[P_R]

Whatever Works

Absolutely nothing new
In facts puts in words subtleties of older films
But but but I thoroughly enjoyed it
I guess I like pretty much nearly everything this guy writes on these subjects

[P_R]

Interiors

That there was a decided absence of humour and adoption of Bergman's style meant I was never going to take the effort of watching it. Was surfing channels today and caught it on MGM.

It was not as bad as I expected. I was expecting a thorough borefest.

[groucho070]

It was not as bad as I expected. I was expecting a thorough borefest.Me too...not bad eh. Been avoiding it. What are there to look for? I know, the writing eh?

[P_R]

It was not as bad as I expected. I was expecting a thorough borefest.Me too...not bad eh. Been avoiding it. What are there to look for? I know, the writing eh?

Yeah, three daughters. Father moves away from an artistic but imbalanced mother and moves to a 'simpler' woman. The daughters, their husbands, anguishes, concerns, their relationships and despair. In terms of content very Woody Allen, but quite daring to go without his brand of humour.

That I quite liked got me thinking if I was more patient and willing to 'absorb' because it was Woody. I mean 'its got its fifteen seconds of silent descent down the stairs' scenes which I would have railed against had it been anyone else's film. If I persisted on that line of that it looked like I may be tempted to revisit Cries and Whispers. I google for some Gounder videos and restored myself.

[groucho070]

I google for some Gounder videos and restored myself. :lol: Good maahn.

I am guilty of being Woody's fan the same way I am of Eastwood's. I want them, and their brand of content in those films. You'll never get it in non-Eastwood starring Eastwood films. But you do in the former's film, our man lurking within the Branaghs, the Cusacks, the Keaton/Farrows and sometimes even more than one characters per film. But intha padam, poster paarkum-bothe padu-pretentiousnous velipatturuchi. That's why...maybe when I am much older and am with more patience, time and have complete control over the remote err..control, I'll revisit it.

[kid-glove]

I mean 'its got its fifteen seconds of silent descent down the stairs' scenes

:lol:

I recollect. Is the one that precedes or follows the scene with eldest sister (played by Keaton) unable to write and gets another cold realization. She would be seeing out the window (which seemed to be a deep metaphor almost like "Blindness" in Crimes & Misdemeanors) at trees with no leaves. The idea of placing the narrative from winter to summer coincides with passing on from one (distant and cold) mother to another (warmly and colorful). That's just one apart from the opening of the film. It's paced with verbal exchanges and introspection through other devices (voice-over, to analyst, diary). As you said, Woody Allen in content. But then that's pretty much Bergman style. Bergman indulges in deeper verbolatry than predominant visual narrative like Antonioni, for example.

[kid-glove]

I am guilty of being Woody's fan the same way I am of Eastwood's. I want them, and their brand of content in those films.

Oh man, once again, frighteningly close to my taste. :shock:

[P_R]

The girl who played the middle sister - Joey- was very good. But then acting is invariably good in Allen films. Diane Keaton is arguably an all-time great.

The overlapping lines/arguments between the father and the first two daughters about his new girlfriend. Good scene and great acting. Multiple emotions, subtle and yet brought out with clarity. Diane Keaton consoling her sister, restraining her sister, clawing at her sister all at the same time. Whoa !

Can't imagine how something like that can be conceived of and written in the first place. Such a 'you've got to be there' moment. After that imagine the acting and execution of the whole scene. Woody :bow:

[kid-glove]

All the characters got a fair due. None of them seem alien or lazy sketches. Great writing.

Uploaded what Woody made of the film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVrJzcXDTyE).

[groucho070]

I am guilty of being Woody's fan the same way I am of Eastwood's. I want them, and their brand of content in those films.

Oh man, once again, frighteningly close to my taste. :shock:It's all about what we liked about them in the first place, I suppose. In Eastwood's case, he does not write those films, so we can't find "him" in the films he does not star.

By the way, for fans of White Hunter Black Heart, I found this :shock: http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/fichero_articulo?codigo=821031&orden=75399

[Sid_316]

Loved Annie hall,Crimes and Misdemeanors,Vicky Christina Barcelona... Liked match point,whatever works. Woody allen :notworthy:

[P_R]

Yet to see the video thilak (blocked at work). I read he was very worried about Interiors.

There were so many places where I saw the situations could have been clowned about in a very Woody way. Like couples operating on different planes.

There's a little bit of that in the dinner where Pearl is introduced to the family. She was like a breeze of fresh air - even to me the viewer :lol:

But apart from that there were so many moments that could have easily lent themselves to Woodyish humour. Diane Keaton's husband talking about 'being afraid of his anger' because he cruelly trashed his friend's book - which he acknowledges was bad, reassuring Diane Keaton who gets the sudden fear because of being hyper-aware of her self. Joey having all the "despair and angst of an artist but none of the talent". I was ready to laugh in all these places but Woody wrote it 'straight as life' (to use Alan Alda's expression from C & M).

Imagine the amount of self-restraint Woody should have exercised :lol2:

[kid-glove]

Yet to see the video thilak (blocked at work). I read he was very worried about Interiors.

There were so many places where I saw the situations could have been clowned about in a very Woody way. Like couples operating on different planes.

There's a little bit of that in the dinner where Pearl is introduced to the family. She was like a breeze of fresh air - even to me the viewer :lol:

But apart from that there were so many moments that could have easily lent themselves to Woodyish humour. Diane Keaton's husband talking about 'being afraid of his anger' because he cruelly trashed his friend's book - which he acknowledges was bad, reassuring Diane Keaton who gets the sudden fear because of being hyper-aware of her self. Joey having all the "despair and angst of an artist but none of the talent". I was ready to laugh in all these places but Woody wrote it 'straight as life' (to use Alan Alda's expression from C & M).

Imagine the amount of self-restraint Woody should have exercised :lol2:

Yeah, It's like Woody had passed it through high-pass filter to suck out humour. Such restraint.

In the video, Woody explains his intentions in the characters and the story. Pretty useful. As in to avoid intentional fallacy. :D

[P_R]

Oh ! appo innikkE paathura vENdiyadhu dhaan. :-)

[kid-glove]

"Don't Drink the Water".

Woody's original play adapted as a movie-made-for-tv.

I don't think I could reject any of this man's work. The lines, situations, themes et all appeal . Even if he wrote something in his sleep, It wouldn't be an utter farce. There would be something in it that works at some level and/or engage.

Now, I have watched all Woody Allen films (incl. Oedipus Wrecks in NY stories & short film for NY 9/11) except one - "Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story" which I think is impossible to get hold of.

:notworthy: to Woody for saving from mundanity of existence. Will rewatch his stuff again & again till I die.

Can't wait for his next film.

[P_R]

All the characters got a fair due. None of them seem alien or lazy sketches. Great writing.

Uploaded what Woody made of the film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVrJzcXDTyE).

Thank You. Perfect. Just perfect. :-)

[rangan_08]

Saw " Hollywood Ending " in Sony Pix.

I know big daddies are watching & that I'm just a kid to say anything at all either about Woody or his films. But, all I can say is that, I immensely enjoyed the film.

Nearly about 18 years ago, I watched " Annie Hall " in TV and much later, a few scenes from " Manhattan " . But, I used to read a lot and the hub also served as a great source of information for me to know about this man.

Now, from a kid's point of view :

He meets his young abandoned son, who is actually sort of a punk, after a long time ( I noticed a picture of Lord Ganesh stuck on the door ! ). He used to complain about his son for wearing ear-ring, nose ring, nipple ring :D :D - and then eating a live rat in a concert. Later, when he calls his son by his name, the son replies that he has changed his name to Scumbag X. The father is shocked & surprised and then in a very low tone, says as a matter of fact, I love you Scumbag. I just burst out laughing. There are many scenes like this one.

The concept itself was funny, I mean, not a person suddenly becoming psychosomatically blind, but that man directing an entire feature film !! But then, why not , when it leads to many interesting & funny moments.

As I said, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Waiting to watch his master-pieces.

[kid-glove]

I remember this film. Not bad at all compared to some of his recent films.

The son saying something about critics being the lowest form of beings and so on. Woody says "but they were right this time". Son says something like "when I get mauled by critics, I eat another rat". :lol:

And also, "Thank God the french exist" after agent reveals to him about next film in Paris. :D

[kid-glove]

He used to complain about his son for wearing ear-ring, nose ring, nipple ring Very Happy Very Happy - and then eating a live rat in a concert.

Oh yes. Woody says "don't call it a concert", "that's not my concept of a concert", etc. Very funny. :D

[Bala (Karthik)]

Watched Interiors last night - I felt a more or less similar reaction that i had after watching Scenes From a Marriage

A very good discussion on the film here and a big :exactly: for PR for all his points on the film

[kid-glove]

I felt a more or less similar reaction that i had after watching Scenes From a Marriage

:thumbsup:

There are similarities to the SFAM lead characters. Of course, they lend quite a few features to many Woody Allen characters. :)

[rangan_08]

Yes. I too have read that Mr. Bergman is Woody's idol.

BTW, SFAM poster-dhaney Selvaraghavan suttaru, for his Maalai nerathu mayakkam ???

[rangan_08]

[tscii:7f6870d222]
I remember this film. Not bad at all compared to some of his recent films.

The son saying something about critics being the lowest form of beings and so on. Woody says "but they were right this time". Son says something like "when I get mauled by critics, I eat another rat". :lol:

And also, "Thank God the french exist" after agent reveals to him about next film in Paris. :D

Yes, you're right. Particularly I liked those scenes where he played a blind man. Very natural.

And, from your earlier posts, I would say that you are an expert in film analysis. You have abundant & profound knowledge, sharp analytical skills and great articulating talent. You deserve a doctorate to be bestowed upon you :D

From now, I hereby declare you to be called as Dr. Kid-glove and welcome you to the prestigious club of talents which includes, Dr. Prabhuram, Dr. Equanimus, Dr. Kannan, Dr. Bala (Karthik), Dr. Ajithfederer………...........

Dr. Kid-glove – Dr. Strangelove, ah !! what a rhyming similarity !!! Hope you don’t have a Nazi background and that your right arm is as normal & active as your left :D


[/tscii:7f6870d222]

[kid-glove]

[tscii:1c785bf802]Thanks for the excessive praise, Dr. Rangan


Dr. Kid-glove – Dr. Strangelove, ah !! what a rhyming similarity !!! Hope you don’t have a Nazi background and that your right arm is as normal & active as your left[/tscii:1c785bf802]

:lol:

[P_R]

Alice

What a lovely film.
Woody everywhere and nowhere kind of film again.

What terrific acting, the characterizations are impressive and everytime we start getting absorbed in the seriousness of the situation, he whacks us on the head with it.

Possibly the most self-conscious filmmaker ever.

Alice discussing the script idea with her friend and her reactions/pigeonholing - it is impossibly well-written.

When time passes we think things about ourselves and go on to self-fulfill what we think. Things can be undone, which may render time-passed to be meaningless. But that would imply we considered there was meaning in the first place. Are we are relations, with their insecurities, convictions, inheritances and 'morals'. What happens when thoses bases shake, do we want to shake them.

The ending is so gleefully contrived but hey this movie had ghosts, invisibility, an angelic music and sokkupodi. What the hell am I talking about !

To quote Penelope Cruz from VCB
: "I am not talking about talent. Genious ! Genious !"

:bow:

[P_R]

இப்பிடி எல்லாம் கோர்வையே இல்லாம என்னை உளர வைக்க...வுடியால மட்டுமே முடியும் :clap:

[kid-glove]

I watched it again in Sony pix quite recently.

[kid-glove]

[tscii:86d83390b8]Thanks for the excessive praise, Dr. Rangan


Dr. Kid-glove – Dr. Strangelove, ah !! what a rhyming similarity !!! Hope you don’t have a Nazi background and that your right arm is as normal & active as your left[/tscii:86d83390b8]

:lol:

Ironically, changed into that avatar. :lol:

[P_R]

His precision is unnerving.
What a writer :bow:
In a way Crimes & Misdemeanours is quite a scary film.

[kid-glove]

Scene by Scene with Woody Allen. BBC's Mark Cousins (Who has the knack of asking irritating questions and pissing off filmmakers. Polanski (http://vodpod.com/watch/2571009-scene-by-scene-roman-polanski-free-entertainment-videos-watch-entertainment-videos-online-veoh)completely dismisses him, watch towards the end of the video. Admittedly though, Polanski is somewhat stubborn and arrogant, to personal questions. In this respect, Woody had handled the below interview quite well)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6usXq8RgV8&NR=1

That's part I. Other parts to be found in the user's profile.

SbS with DePalma, Scorsese, Demme, and Lynch, are all available in the web.

[P_R]

Match Point

Liked it more.
I was annoyed by YohanEsan last time. Must be admitted that she acted quite well.

[Bala (Karthik)]

Match Point

Liked it more.
I was annoyed by YohanEsan last time. Must be admitted that she acted quite well.
Enakku therinju enakkum W.A ku mattum dhaan MP > CAM :razz:

[P_R]

What ! WA said MP >CAM ??

CAM = MP + estra estra estra even in the storyline. allavA ?

And even the storylinewise I found the Judah-Dolores, line just another level.

MatchPoint is also good. Corporate Image maindans. Too much to lose when one is not sure eitherway - not a film to watch on a Monday morning :-)

[Bala (Karthik)]

I read it sometime back (ennalayum namba mudiyala :lol: ). Not able to find the link now :x
It was in an interview or a biography. He also mentioned Purple Rose Of Cairo as another favorite, dismissed Stardust Memories...

[kid-glove]

I had bookmarked the link before. One of his revealing interviews. Makes some excellent point, but sounds disgruntled about parallel storylines of CAM, which I quite like...

[tscii:d1fd3b88a6]
February 2006

EL: Some of the themes of Match Point are in Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which there is a Woody Allen character. How did the writing of these two scripts differ, having you in one and not the other?

WA: In Crimes, nobody had any interest in my aspirations [those of Cliff, the obscure documentary filmmaker]; they were only interested in success. My part of the picture was for comic relief. The real story of Crimes and Misdemeanors is Martin Landau’s.

EL: Who gets away with murder.

WA: There were a lot of people who felt that Marty was haunted and he had to keep telling the story like the Ancient Mariner. But that was not it at all. He was in no way haunted. He was just fine. He realized that in a godless universe you can get away with it and it doesn’t bother him.

EL: How does Crimes and Misdemeanors stand in your estimation?

WA: It was okay, but it was a little too mechanical for me. I think I was working too hard, whereas Match Point just flowed organically. I just happened to have the right characters in the right place at the right time.

EL: You also were fourteen years ahead in terms of experience. When you were writing Match Point were you thinking, I’ve dealt with this subject somewhat before in Crimes and Misdemeanors but I have these other things I want to say?

WA: No, I was saying that I want to obey the story and if you obey the needs of the creation of the piece of fiction, the meaning reveals itself. And for me, naturally, it’s going to reveal itself in a particular way. Years ago Paddy Chayefsky said to me,“When a movie is failing or a play is failing”–he put it so brilliantly–“cut out the wisdom.” [He laughs.] Marshall Brickman said it a different way–I told you this before–but just as cogently, just as insightful: “The message of the film can’t be in the dialogue.” And this is a truth that’s hard to live by because the temptation is to occasionally take a moment and philosophize and put in your wisdom, put in your meaning. I did that in Match Point to a certain degree–they’re sitting around the table and they’re talking about faith being the path of least resistance. But the truth of the matter is, if the meaning doesn’t come across in the action, you have nothing going for you. It doesn’t work. You can’t just have guys sitting around making hopefully wise insights or clever remarks because while they’re saying these things the audience is not digesting them the way the author intends–“Hey, did you just hear that Shavian epigram?” They’re looking at it as the dialogue of characters in a certain situation: “He’s saying this because she’s thinking this and he wants to get on her good side. . . .” They’re watching the action of the story. When you lose sight of that, and we all do–I certainly do–you think you’re making your point, you think you’re infusing your piece with wisdom, but you’re committing suicide. You’re just militating against the audience’s enjoyment.

EL: But Match Point fits into a long-standing theme of yours, that in a godless universe the only check you have on yourself is your own morality. No one else is going to punish you if you’re not caught.

WA: Interestingly, I read an article someone sent me that a Catholic priest wrote about the movie. It was very nice, but he made a wrong assumption. The assumption was: if, as I say, life is meaningless and chaos and random, then anything goes and nothing has any meaning and one action is as good as the next. And it immediately leads someone with a religious agenda to the conclusion, Well, you can just murder people and get away with it if that’s what you want to do. But that’s a false conclusion. What I’m really saying–and it’s not hidden or esoteric, it’s just clear as a bell–is that we have to accept that the universe is godless and life is meaningless, often a terrible and brutal experience with no hope, and that love relationships are very, very hard, and that we still need to find a way to not only cope but lead a decent and moral life.

People jump to the conclusion that what I’m saying is that anything goes, but actually I’m asking the question: given the worst, how do we carry on, or even why should we choose to carry on? Of course, we don’t choose–the choice is hardwired into us. The blood chooses to live. [Laughs.] Please note as I pontificate here, you’re interviewing a guy with a deficient denial mechanism. Anyhow, religious people don’t want to acknowledge the reality that contradicts their fairy tale. And if it is a godless universe [he chuckles], they’re out of business. The cash flow stops.

Now, there are plenty of people who choose to lead their lives in a completely self-centered, homicidal way. They feel, Since nothing means anything and I can get away with murder, I’m going to. But one can also make the choice that you’re alive and other people are alive and you’re in a lifeboat with them and you’ve got to try and make it as decent as you can for yourself and everybody. And it would seem to me this is so much more moral and even much more “Christian.” If you acknowledge the awful truth of human existence and choose to be a decent human being in the face of it rather than lie to yourself that there’s going to be some heavenly reward or some punishment, it seems to me more noble. If there is a reward or a punishment or a payoff somehow and you act well, then you’re acting well not out of such noble motives, the same so-called Christian motives. It’s like the suicide bombers who allegedly act out of noble religious or national motives when in fact their families get a financial payoff, revel in a heroic legacy–not to mention the promise of virgins for the perpetrators, although why anyone would want a group of virgins rather than one highly experienced woman is beyond me.

Anyhow, I disagreed with what the Catholic priest wrote, but I didn’t engage him. He was very nice; this was not a hostile thing he was writing. He was imputing to me a point of view and was trying to refute it. But he was refuting a point of view that I do not hold with what I feel is a preconceived religious agenda–and the film can’t honestly be read to imply I’m saying anything goes and that’s fine with me.

I saw another piece written by a priest-philosopher at St. John’s University, who thought the film was perhaps the most [laughs] atheistic film ever made. But he was very nice, very complimentary. His point of view was more lenient toward me because he felt that over the years the fact that I constantly espouse an atheistic and hopeless and godless and meaningless universe means I am saying that the absence of God in the universe matters. And I feel that he’s right, I am saying that it matters. I said that explicitly in Crimes and Misdemeanors. To me it’s a damn shame that the universe doesn’t have any God or meaning, and yet only when you can accept that can you then go on to lead what these people call a Christian life–that is, a decent, moral life. You can only lead it if you acknowledge what you’re up against to begin with and shuck off all the fairy tales that lead you to make choices in life that you’re making not really for moral reasons but for taking down a big score in the afterlife.

So the film inspired a lot of talk in that area and I’m glad. I’m glad it wasn’t regarded just as a suspense murder mystery, which, mind you, I’m not knocking. I love those as much as or more than anybody as a movie viewer. But I had hoped to use Match Point to at least make one or two points that are my personal philosophy and I feel I was able to do that.

EL: What do you think happens with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers [who murders his pregnant lover, played by Scarlett Johansson, and her elderly neighbor]? The same as with Martin Landau?

WA: Yeah. I think he’s in a situation that he’s not delighted with. He’s married to a woman he’s not passionate about. He’s a son-in-law who likes the easy life he’s married into but is claustrophobic working in the office. His wife is already saying to him that she wants another child.

He has no thoughts about the crime. He’s got what he wanted and he’s paid the price for that. It’s a shame that that’s what he wanted. I can see down the line that he won’t be content in that marriage and maybe he’ll be on such a good financial footing that he’ll leave her.[/tscii:d1fd3b88a6]

Btw, Jonathan Rosenbaum's review (largely favorable) of "Match Point" in context of "Crimes and Misdemeanors" is one of the best I've read...

[P_R]

Thanks k-g.
I like Landau's situation more than Jonathan Rhys-Myers' situation.
In the latter case it is presented as if the pressures are always social, Nola not being great enough for him to lose what he has. But he was shown to be attracted to her and all that.

Judah was even more. There was a liberal hint of condescension. He started the relationship with Dolores not because he was attracted to her in the simple sense, but because it was simply something he could do. He shared next to nothing with her. A passing fancy she stoked and he tried. It is not a question of 'love fading' but more a question of having had enough of the novelty he tried late in life. That he has bared his vulnerabilities with someone with whom he shared little is itself something that may have repulsed him - with or without the blackmail.

Mispronunciation being a turn-off/ jabbing reminder that this won't work - ellAm Woody :bow:

[P_R]

And I am surprised WA is calling his role as Cliff as comic relief. Yeah it was funny but it was quite tragic. The question of "class" is important in his story too. He regards "great depth" as his long suite but he loses Mia Farrow to the Lesters of this world. "It's the caviar that did it"

Its easy to take it as the regular woman selling-out (indha pombaLaingaLE ippidi dhaan etc.). That her 'perception' of class is influenced by the possibilties. Her feelings for Cliff were never strong anyway. Were her feelings for 'depth' strong ? Perhaps not.
On the other hand the possibility that Lester has more to him, is more unsettling for Cliff to even consider.

[Plum]

[tscii:a46e425474]
I remember this film. Not bad at all compared to some of his recent films.

The son saying something about critics being the lowest form of beings and so on. Woody says "but they were right this time". Son says something like "when I get mauled by critics, I eat another rat". :lol:

And also, "Thank God the french exist" after agent reveals to him about next film in Paris. :D

Yes, you're right. Particularly I liked those scenes where he played a blind man. Very natural.

And, from your earlier posts, I would say that you are an expert in film analysis. You have abundant & profound knowledge, sharp analytical skills and great articulating talent. You deserve a doctorate to be bestowed upon you :D

From now, I hereby declare you to be called as Dr. Kid-glove and welcome you to the prestigious club of talents which includes, Dr. Prabhuram, Dr. Equanimus, Dr. Kannan, Dr. Bala (Karthik), Dr. Ajithfederer………...........

Dr. Kid-glove – Dr. Strangelove, ah !! what a rhyming similarity !!! Hope you don’t have a Nazi background and that your right arm is as normal & active as your left :D


[/tscii:a46e425474]
IMO, Equa doesnt publish enough papers to keep his qualification :-)

[kid-glove]

P_R
Woody's problems (not that I concur or accept !) might be the fact it seems littered with his trademark handles and character arcs (as much as layered it might be), that would seem very mechanical and explicit. Almost all work of fiction seems to suffer from this, only the level differs. As he says, I was saying that I want to obey the story and if you obey the needs of the creation of the piece of fiction, the meaning reveals itself. In CAM, the meaning and the subtext doesn't reveal organically, but seems deliberately wrought-up by Woody.

The core of the film, the central Dostoevskian themes had to be dealt very succinctly and by action, not overbearing thoughts/lines poured over (As he aptly quotes “The message of the film can’t be in the dialogue.”).

Landau's situation, seeking for moral structure, and the gradual realization. The allegorical representation of religion inhibited morality in the rabbi character, conversely turning blind - might seem so mechanical and over elaboration, yet the dilemma is in deed rendered like a Dostoevsky, much more explicitly than in Rhys-Myers' situation. The latter's case is merely used to emphasis on crime and punishment (or the distinct lack of one) in "Match point" (as the title seems to suggest, it gets to the f-ing point). We don't see the violence, but the absolute "necessity" of the crime, happened to have the right characters in the right place at the right time, as he aptly puts (and not uptight either, with its upper-class elitism as in CAM). And is played out like a "procedural" with the artifices, creating a suspense murder. Only suggestive of its core philosophy, without flapping with different sticks (Apart from the Rabbi, the documentary of the fictional philosophical figure, functions as the allegory to Cliff's storyline, and its/his ensuing death), and the spelled-out wisdom, blah blah (the final VO in CAM :lol2:)[tscii:fbd34fcb2d][/tscii:fbd34fcb2d]

[ajithfederer]

[tscii:2b6773c389](Ippo than idhai paakuren)
Gundoosi vikaravanai thozhil adhibargaloda compare panringa. And Dr. KG is like Ambani and Warren buffet put together in philims. KG Has your foreign count crossed 1000?.


From now, I hereby declare you to be called as Dr. Kid-glove and welcome you to the prestigious club of talents which includes, Dr. Prabhuram, Dr. Equanimus, Dr. Kannan, Dr. Bala (Karthik), Dr. Ajithfederer………...........
[/tscii:2b6773c389]

[P_R]

k-g I get why he would rue CAM as more telling while MP is more showing. In fact the final conversation between Judah and Cliff, where they discuss may even be seen as a let-down (I didn't feel that way) and explaining what was already told.

Looking purely at the Judah-Dolores vs. Myers-Scarlett stories, there was just so much more in the former. That is what impressed me very much. It is a very subtle shade of depiction The kind of 'superiority' - deserved or not - and the problems caused by it is something people who like can Woody relate to a lot. Which is perhaps why Jadah managed to evoke a bit of empathy.

Many of us intellectual, sensitive, arty types are middlebrow in our tastes and middlebrow in our sensibility. Like Allen, we too regard high culture with awe. If we can't drink deeply from it, we want to at least partake of it, want it to rub off on us.

[kid-glove]

k-g I get why he would rue CAM as more telling while MP is more showing. In fact the final conversation between Judah and Cliff, where they discuss may even be seen as a let-down (I didn't feel that way) and explaining what was already told.

Looking purely at the Judah-Dolores vs. Myers-Scarlett stories, there was just so much more in the former. That is what impressed me very much. It is a very subtle shade of depiction The kind of 'superiority' - deserved or not - and the problems caused by it is something people who like can Woody relate to a lot. Which is perhaps why Jadah managed to evoke a bit of empathy.

Many of us intellectual, sensitive, arty types are middlebrow in our tastes and middlebrow in our sensibility. Like Allen, we too regard high culture with awe. If we can't drink deeply from it, we want to at least partake of it, want it to rub off on us.

I agree. Besides of course, Anjelica Huston's appearance manages to be much less a movie star on screen and really really be the part. And Johansson is such an object of desire, and a star that it adds a bit more detachment to Woody's insular view, in Match point. I suppose the point is, regardless of our empathy to the victim, the crime is no less censurable..

[kid-glove]

It's a sarcastic poke at all of us, I think, from Dr.Rangan. :lol:
[tscii:fde10233ab][/tscii:fde10233ab]
KG Has your foreign count crossed 1000?

8881/2 :lol2: :P

[rangan_08]

It's a sarcastic poke at all of us, I think, from Dr.Rangan. :lol:


Now, things are straight, I believe. :D


BTW, it was a genuine & real comment.

........adding Plum to the list :D

[ajithfederer]

(This is Non- Indian and Non-English(Hollywood and British Cinema) right??).
Seekiram oru 1000 adinga. Enlighten us all with good movies from around the world :bow:.

It's a sarcastic poke at all of us, I think, from Dr.Rangan. :lol:
[tscii:7a627a6bac][/tscii:7a627a6bac]
KG Has your foreign count crossed 1000?

8881/2 :lol2: :P

[kid-glove]

I was of course joking. :)

[Plum]

It's a sarcastic poke at all of us, I think, from Dr.Rangan. :lol:


Now, things are straight, I believe. :D


BTW, it was a genuine & real comment.

........adding Plum to the list :D

rangarae, enna dhAn fellow-pGW fan-nAlum ivLO paasam aagadhu. Be clear, you are praising Dr Kid Glove, Dr Frabhu Raum Dr Bala Karthik etc or poking them? If praising them, ennai listlErundhu delete paNnidunga :-)
( and I am saying this with all the arrogance I can muster!)

[complicateur]

Watched Hollywood Ending. I've seen it before and had completely forgotten about it. Psychosomatic Blindness ! :rotfl:

I am quite liable to pull such a stunt at some point. Just for the hec of it.

[P_R]

Husbands and Wives : Started out pretty well but at the end it was like watching "Paarthale paravasam" in inglees. May be its bcos of the subject matter.
padaththai naan paarthadhillai.
irundhaalum kambErisanai kaNdikkarEn

:hammer: :effigyburning:

[P_R]

I repeat, he writes people so damn well.

The fragility of situation, the inevitability of untruth, the discomfort in the company of people who know where you are coming from, the judgements that constantly morph, the rationalizations.

An artist's "intimate acquaintance with truth" 'mbAingalE. :bow:

[kid-glove]

Btw, is this the film where the characters speak about Riefenstahl, etc ? Or was it Anything Else.. :think:

[P_R]

Btw, is this the film where the characters speak about Riefenstahl, etc ? Or was it Anything Else.. :think:

Yeah the girl first calls Woody's novel brilliant then starts dissing it. When asked, she continues to say it is brilliant. Then she says : "Triumph of the Will is a great movie but you despise the ideas behind it' :rotfl3:

[kid-glove]

Btw, is this the film where the characters speak about Riefenstahl, etc ? Or was it Anything Else.. :think:

Yeah the girl first calls Woody's novel brilliant then starts dissing it. When asked, she continues to say it is brilliant. Then she says : "Triumph of the Will is a great movie but you despise the ideas behind it' :rotfl3:

Yeah yeah ! :lol:
I'm in total agreement with what she is saying, hence the remembrance !

[P_R]

A certain degree of oppression, imbalances, certain equations, relation possibilities (heck even topics of conversation) being out of question - even if by claustraphobic social arrangements - was what kept/keeps the institution ticking. All along you know the truth in this.

When conservatives foam in the mouth, the natural urge to despise them is imperceptibly tempered by the fact that one is not supremely confident of a situation, where one's rational self has to be completely responsible for oneself.

When we think about the future, are we thinking about future experiences of the memories for the further future, that the future generates. Do we want to bind ourselves to the mast like Ulysses did, so he couldn't hear the song of the Sirens. There are a variety of masts on offer: religion, deceipt,denial, responsibilities, inertia...

Again, இந்த மாதிரி எல்லாம் தங்குதடையில்லாம என்னை உளர வைக்க, only Woody fossible. :oops: :clap:

[rangan_08]

Again, இந்த மாதிரி எல்லாம் தங்குதடையில்லாம என்னை உளர வைக்க, only Woody fossible. :oops: :clap:

ennai pondra neyargal irukkum varai..

ularunga

ularunga

ularikitte irunga :D

[kid-glove]

There are a variety of masts on offer: religion, deceipt,denial, responsibilities, inertia.

:lol:

[kid-glove]

Again, இந்த மாதிரி எல்லாம் தங்குதடையில்லாம என்னை உளர வைக்க, only Woody fossible. :oops: :clap:

ennai pondra neyargal irukkum varai..

ularunga

ularunga

ularikitte irunga :D

:thumbsup:

[P_R]

Everything you wanted to know about sex (but were afraid to ask)

The first skit (jester) was moderately funny
The second skit (sheep) was uber blade
Third skit (Italian) was a bit funny but was like one joke drawn too long

Yet to see the rest

[kid-glove]

Paraphrasing what Qt once said about a Douglas Sirk's film, Any film with such a great title should be (he said "great") released. :P

Godard (or maybe QT) said something similar, "That Title is so great, you could just release the title without making the film" :lol2:

[groucho070]

Everything you wanted to know about sex (but were afraid to ask)

The first skit (jester) was moderately funny
The second skit (sheep) was uber blade
Third skit (Italian) was a bit funny but was like one joke drawn too long

Yet to see the restNot your kinda Woody, I'm afraid. Leaning towards, "hey, he was funnier in the early films" old farts like me. My favourite: The Gene Wilder episode of course :lol:

[kid-glove]

Oh, the third skit apart from being mildly funny, succeeds at being "pretty". And Is one of my favorite parts of the film, and has well-paid homage to Italian films. That's just Woody paying respect to a certain style of filmmaking and it needs a certain amount of talent to do that well. I can't think of anyone else pulling that off.

[P_R]

pArthuttu solrEn.
I liked Love and Death - but I guess that is the last of his early films - or perhaps it is does not count as an early film at all !

I liked the jester episode

The st suffixing of everything :lol:

I'm all out of naked flesh but would the velvet do? :rotfl:

Remember you said that if was ever in town I should look up your wife? :rotfl3:

[P_R]

Oh, the third skit apart from being mildly funny, succeeds at being "pretty". And Is one of my favorite parts of the film, and has well-paid homage to Italian films. That's just Woody paying respect to a certain style of filmmaking and it needs a certain amount of talent to do that well. I can't think of anyone else pulling that off. It is exactly in this context that he talked about funny v. pretty. He said this was one very rare occasion when he could do stuff in terms of 'look and feel' that he would otherwise not have a lot of occasion to do when making his movies.

[groucho070]

:lol: Yeah, definitely some of the best moments there. And yeah, the Italian film homage/spoof too. Heck I love the whole movie, just the sperm episode was a bit of a turn off.

[P_R]

Woody wrote a segment about where he is a spider who gets eaten up after mating by Louise Lasser who is a black widow. He didn't get a good ending - so he abandoned it after shooting. It is quite funny.

[groucho070]

Woody wrote a segment about where he is a spider who gets eaten up after mating by Louise Lasser who is a black widow. He didn't get a good ending - so he abandoned it after shooting. It is quite funny. :shock: For this film? Whoaaa.....

[P_R]

Woody wrote a segment about where he is a spider who gets eaten up after mating by Louise Lasser who is a black widow. He didn't get a good ending - so he abandoned it after shooting. It is quite funny. :shock: For this film? Whoaaa.....
Yes. It is part of a book I read recently that I have been telling whoever will care to listen (and even those who won't) about. It is an early biography of Woody Allen by Eric Lax. It was written around the time Woody finished Sleeper. It walks us through the way he works, his idiosyncracies, the way he thinks about writing comedy, the challenges of writing comedy for films (as opposed to stand-up routines etc.).

[groucho070]

I have that book...guess I totally forgot that piece of trivia :oops:

[kid-glove]

Oh, the third skit apart from being mildly funny, succeeds at being "pretty". And Is one of my favorite parts of the film, and has well-paid homage to Italian films. That's just Woody paying respect to a certain style of filmmaking and it needs a certain amount of talent to do that well. I can't think of anyone else pulling that off. It is exactly in this context that he talked about funny v. pretty.
Thought so !

[P_R]

I spoke too soon

The last two skits were hilarious :rotfl:

You shoot this girl, I'll sue you for malpractice :rotfl3:
(after he defeats the giant breast) I thought you'd be nursed to death :lol:


The sperm episode was side-splitting.

Norman Mailer has this same kind of relevance :rotfl2:

[kid-glove]

Premiere in Cannes (out of competition): Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, with Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin and Freida Pinto. Description on the film's Facebook page: "A little romance, some sex, some treachery, and apart from that, a few laughs. The lives of a group of people, whose passions, ambitions and anxieties force them all into assorted troubles that run the gamut from ludicrous to dangerous."

[P_R]

Norman Mailer has this same kind of relevance :rotfl2:This line is side-splitting.
How the brain-cell colleagues checking out the girl :rotfl:

The hauling up of the priest who was found sabotaging the cerebral cortex :lol:

[P_R]

VCB on Zee Studio
After getting shot...
Vicky: This is NOT my life
:clap:

As Mudaliar said about Kamban KaNNagi. adhu ennamO andha poNNu manasula ninna aLavukku, pEr nikka mAttEngudhu.

[P_R]

Annie Hall on MGM

The phyrric triumph of seeing her take her guy to: The Sorrow and the Pity. :bow:

[rangan_08]

I dont' get Zee studio & MGM in my cable - planning to get dish tv soon. Hope you had a whale of a time.

Read a few stories from Side Effects. Remembering Needleman & An Apology were good read.

And then....Appraisal in Purananooru----- a blogger at last :)

Blades of grass reminded me of Whitman's Leaves of Grass .

Nice one.

[P_R]

rangan_08, if you are still deciding on the DTH ensure you get UTV World Movies and/or NDTV Lumiere.

Yesterday morning on UTV World Movies they were showing Kikujiro (the film based on which NandhalAlA is being made by Myshkin)

[P_R]

[tscii:b6d5439dce]Woody's inteview to Commonweal (http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/woody)


My friends were more preoccupied with social issues—issues such as abortion, racial discrimination, and Communism—and those issues just never caught my interest. Of course they mattered to me as a citizen to some degree…but they never really caught my attention artistically. I always felt that the problems of the world would never ever be solved until people came to terms with the deeper issues—that there would be an aimless reshuffling of world leaders and governments and programs.



we all know the same truth; our lives consist of how we choose to distort it, and that’s it.
<expletive> :bow:[/tscii:b6d5439dce]

[kid-glove]

Some pearls there.

But of course, I've read him use lemonade analogy.. Perhaps it's another shortened version of this interview..

[P_R]

Play it Again Sam

Excellent

It's the same goddamn movie all over again and still he manages to impress :clap:

[P_R]

Stardust Memories

Rules padi enakku pudikka koodAdhu.
It is too straight, dangerously borderline meditative, not funny enough etc. But ennavO therila enna maayamO therila I liked it very much. :clap:

Simply by pre-empting every possible reaction and counterreaction, explanation, misunderstanding etc, in-your-face laziness he wins you.

What can you say to a work which shows a member of the audience crying out "cop out artist"

a member of the audience winking at another who asked a 'clever' question

two members of the audience having the following conversation

She: what do you think the Rolls Royce represents
He: I think it represents his car


I wouldn't have liked this film had it been made by anybody else. But then no-one else would have made this kind of teasing film.

Genius :clap:

[P_R]

Deconstructing Harry

I was inexplicably moved in several parts of this film :clap:


Mind is likely dictate Manhattan, Crimes.. etc as the best film in the long run. But this one is one going to be an all time special film.

நான் ரொம்பொ ஆர்டிஸ்ட் சார்-னு சொன்ன ராஜூ கூட குறைந்தபட்சம் புரட்சிகரமான கருத்தோட ஒரு நாடகம் போட்டார். அது கூட செய்யாம ஒரு கலைமன பாவனையை கிடைபிடிக்க கூச்சமா இருக்கு.

But those who love Woody in some ways in some degree are guilty of this. Some degree of empathic relation to the intellectual, out of step with the world, artistic spirit. So must some day seek confidence in the strength in this brotherhood and write at length unabashedly.

Wrestled with certain questions which were unnervingly precise. So the whole film felt like I was flitting between enjoying the self-deprecation and empathizing with the one being depcrecated much more than has ever been the case before.

Excellent excellent film.

[P_R]

Wild Strawberries and Through a Glass Darkly

Me: flow-la irukkumbOdhu idhu reNduthaiyum paathuralaamE.

Mini Me: unakku edhu varudhO, adhai mattum seyyi. podhum enRa manamE pon seyyin marundhu.

[kid-glove]

As much as Woody derives from both the films & Bergman quite a bit, the reason it worked for you is because the film, from start to finish, is fully and utterly Woodyesque. And I personally think it's an original film using Bergmanesque narrative "devices".

For similar reasons, I could make out from your post that it's the Woody part that made you sit through (& applaud) Stardust. Not the Fellini side of it.

Let me admit that both these masters don't get diminished but richened by looking through Woody's glass (not 'darkly' any more but with a lighter idiosyncratic personal tone) which at times encourages one to watch the original films and at least appreciate at a subconscious level, even if not easily reduced to words.

I'm equally guilty of feeling a part of this 'brotherhood', of inner vices of self-importance, pretentiousness, condescension, as you say "empathic relation to the intellectual, out of step with the world, artistic spirit." at a slightly lesser degree too..

[P_R]

For similar reasons, I could make out from your post that it's the Woody part that made you sit through (& applaud) Stardust. Not the Fellini side of it.
Actually I've not seen Fellini at all thus far excepts parts of Amaracord - which was kind of a :huh: :confused2: film for me.

Though I am not sure I will give Fellini a try I am inclined to give Bergman one. I feel the two movies I saw (Cries and Whispers and Virgin Spring) may not be 'typical'. Or atleast he may have made different 'types' of film given he was such a prolific filmmaker. That's why I felt if there was a time to try, it would be pretty soon with memories of Stardust and Decon. still fresh.



I'm equally guilty of feeling a part of this 'brotherhood', of inner vices of self-importance, pretentiousness, condescension, as you

Yeah and in many ways this stands in way of writing at length about it because it somehow feels like giving a lot of oneself away :-)

A few deep breaths later it seems perhaps that one wouldn't give oneself away as much as put on display the exaggerated impressions of oneself. Now that's even more worrisome :-)

I loved Stardust's portrayal of the artist's predicament. No longer being what you used to be, what you are liked for (he is going to a retrospective!) and being thought of as the 'one with the answer to everything' and continuously emphasizing this is not the case (and being liked even more for it) all of that came out very well. He isn't impacting people's lives or perhaps not in the way he thinks one ought to, but seeks h reassurance that there is some justification of his existence and manages to find some again through his imagination - his only mode of existence.

In a way it said exactly the same thing as Decon Harry, that he 'exists' in his work. The couple of seconds of suspension when the woman at the beach says "don't you remember me, your mother" makes the point well. But it is pretty much there throughout in the frog jumping in and out of screen, film and real, as if to him the difference is marginal. He exists in the reactions to his work, the winking audience member who thought he'd trapped him etc.

But all this will be swept away. Nobody cares even when he tries to cloak the question nobly by saying even Beethoven and Shakespeare will be his fellow victims.

He has to make decisions which are not imaginary. They as real as two noisy kids can get. Does he have emotions or is he expressing emotions to 'fit in'. Can he hold that line long enough to make things work in a world where he can't just imagine things the way he wants them to be. (And not as if the imaginations guarantees realization there either, you have people being sent to jazz heaven ! So even in the 'easy' world things are tough). He has to grasp at the memories, the perfect moments that are bound to be evanascenet. (Nothing is as fatal to an ideal as its realization - Schopenhauer) Acknowledging that that's all he's going to get.

As an artists you feel several lives - so you can't live one life as easily as the rest of the world seems to. As an artist you have heightened aesthetic sensibilities, a complicated personality and you never ever relate to anyone fully as much always deigning to put on an agreeable personality. Perhaps he will hold on to it long enough, perhaps not. And perhaps he will be the peddler of profundity who makes gaping admirers feel clever by coining corny descriptions like 'peddler of profundity'.

[P_R]

I may be guilty of reading it the way I want to, based on the flavor of month in terms of 'ideas I obsess about ' now.

Woody seems to think that is inevitable too :-)

He watches Bicycle Thieves and tries to divorce it from the social context and relate it to wider problems of the human condition (i.e. things his character obsesses about :lol: )

What a terrific artist. :bow:

[rangan_08]

In the last couple of weeks, I really don't know how many times I saw the first half an hour of Annie Hall. I am obsessed.

True Genius.

What a source of inspiration - not in the technical aspect ( for me, of course), but just to live life....with all the crisis, traumas, agonies & miseries. Truly one of the greatest, sensible & brilliant films ever made.

:notworthy:

[kid-glove]

I don't like to stress on birthdays. But it so happens that one gets to remember their favorite filmmakers. Today it's Woody's 75 or 76th. Still have enough time to meet the tall dark stranger. Until then keep giving us many more films to laugh, feel, ruminate and indulge with.

[P_R]

Everyone Says I Love You

Beautiful :clap:

This guy is just awesome :clap:

His perfection is scary :bow:

Elusive search of louu, mErEj - idhellAm eththanai thadavai-nu kEkkuravanga - pliss to skip

[P_R]

Grouch, have you seen this film?

There is a Marx Bros. part in Paris with Hooray for Captain Spaulding sung in French !

All the invitees are wearing groucho moustaches and smoking cigars (including Goldie Hawn) and Woody exits the scene making a brief Groucho impression.

The ending shot of the movie is :lol:

[kid-glove]

Yeah, right after the party (I specially like Woody's makeover with the tache and cigar) comes one of the most beautiful ballet/duet ever shot in cinema. Wonderful direction by Woody. And Goldie Hawn flies so gracefully here. It's so magical. Perhaps that's the whole point of 'musical'.

And a nod to what Chris Rock says, that this guy (Woody) happens to be at center of some of the most romantic scenes ever captured on cinema is one of life's great ironies ! :lol:

[P_R]

Actually I didn't like many of the songs. I mean, I could the lyrics were fun and all that. But even if he has stripped away the frivolousness and made it a 'serious' funny film, it would have still worked quote well for me.

[kid-glove]

I didn't like the singing & dancing routine as much as the classical dance ballet near the banks (that also Paris, no?). All along it seems like something magical. But Woody closes it with policeman watching over (or not?). Like it all happens for real.

But when I think of it, the musical aspect of it doesn't matter to me at all..

[P_R]

I didn't like the singing & dancing routine as much as the classical dance ballet near the banks (that also Paris, no?).

Yes. The place where they had spent all night in the open once (when Woody claims to have decided he would one day live in Paris).

The whole end-in-Paris had me laughing. It starts with Natasha Lyone's v-o about how winter is awesome in NY (she actually says that about the other seasons too earlier). And after some shots of snow in Central park etc. And then she goes "we are not a family that spends Christmas singing carols, we go to Paris and spend Christmas in the Ritz" :lol:


Like it all happens for real.
:sheepishgrin: yes

The penultimate line was awesome:

I told skylar someone should write it up into a movie.
She said, better a musical, else nobody would believe it

:lol: :bow:

[kid-glove]

Right. And the film seemed a bit banal at first that I was surprised how the family (who were introduced) became interesting right after Tim Roth and Julia Roberts entry..

[groucho070]

I did, PR. I thought the final was where Woody giving the finger to those who only recognise the Groucho mask and not the real talent. Title is a song from Horses Feather, not a great Marx Bros flick, but definitely awesome.

[rangan_08]

[tscii:7cd3cf2b00]The Indian release of Woody’s next film, “ You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger “ is slated for December 17. Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto plays the character of Dia, a mysterious woman at a window who becomes the object of a novelist’s (Josh Brolin) affections. The film has been shot in London and the casting includes Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Naomi Watts & Anupam Kher.

A few months ago saw Kher’s interview in one of the channels where he interestingly narrated a few incidents that took place during the shoot.
[/tscii:7cd3cf2b00]

[P_R]

What's up Tiger Lily :rotfl2:

Grouch, have you seen this one?

[kid-glove]

Horrible film..

[P_R]

Ah come on... a series of LOL moments

Hmmm...an Oriental :rotfl3:

[kid-glove]

It all felt flat to me.

[P_R]

In the ship....surveying the 'comfort women' one after another

Hi, hello there...how is it going.....mom! :rotfl2:

[kid-glove]

That's rather good. My memory of the film isn't really great, but I don't think such moments really worked for me when I watched it. Have to see it again.

[P_R]

It is a very Groucho-ish movie.

They enter the ship, there are a couple of sailors who are walking. They are in the frame for a mere second and the conversation goes

P1: So, what time's the mutiny :rotfl:

At one point he wants to have one of the villains talk long on phone and doesn't have enough lip-movement on the video, so he says

this conversation is so important I am going to use a ventriloquist :lol:

The minister who is looking for a country to open up in the world map :lol:
We have the whole population in crates :rotfl3:

And the death of the cobra with the shadow hands :lol:

Almost everything worked for me.

[P_R]

The girl who's with the sex-obsessed spy is viewing the harbour using binoculars and comments

Check out the smokestack on that ship :lol:

Pure comic brilliance

[Vivasaayi]

Annie Hall

I dont remember enjoying a movie so much in a revisit...by far the best experience in revisits.

:notworthy:

[P_R]

A Tall Dark Stranger - sumaar

[P_R]

Take the Money and Run

konjam thiNarittApla. But overall quite good.

Parts like, Dr.Epstein's Freudian explanation of the cello :rotfl:

[P_R]

Anything Else

:clap: Excellent. A filmmaker after my own heart I say.

It is the same film.

There's nothing out there
You can grow up and you can't avoid situations where you feel like a kid - not knowing what is ahead
How is will you go on with life and make decisions when there is no semblance of certainty
The Analyst who is like God, who never ever answers
Wierd, wierd situations

Pitch perfect movie


Jason Briggs in character and acting is a Woody. So it's like watching a younger and older Woody.


I worry that I am watching his films at a faster rate than he is making them.

[P_R]

Wordiness

Film is a medium fraught with uncertainty and it is perfectly fine to overcommunicate. Just mask it so it doesn't hurt the viewer's ego :P

Jason Briggs has this psychoanalyst in Anything Else.
Hilarious guy. He does nothing. Says nothing. Has no answers. Only restrictions and impositions.

He listens to him long and hard. Does not ever give him an answer. Woody's character says nobody has answers, from time immemorials charlatans have pretended to have an answer, everyone tries to guide each other's lives, when obviously such a thing is absurd and impossible. He says it in so many words. But then that is impossible too. As, based on Woody's advice, Briggs tries to shake out of character with disastrous consequences and Woody himself gets into a situation.

The psychoanalyst deflects real life questions in favour of making sense of dreams. And there too he is always 'what does it suggest to you' mode. He threatens to discontinue analysis if Briggs decides to keep a gun in his apartment (which he says is an 'acting out').

In a moody, do it yourself movie it would probably have been expected of me to think of the psychoanalyst as a stand-in for 'God'. And if I had gotten that it would have elevated the movie. But it is more likely I will be plagued by uncertainty and not dare to make such a reading without some strong encouragement/suggeston etc. And an overdose of that has me sufficiently annoyed to shut shop.

Woody's character speaks derisively of the analyst: 'like he is God or something'. Which is pretty much unsubtly, bluntly telling us what the character was meant to be. That's such a "ah yeah !" moment. Elevates the whole sequence and movie so damn much.
Again I am sure if he had said it in a serious dialock: isn't your psychoanalyst so much like God...etc. I would felt 'ouch'...why did you have to say that.

So I guess explanation cleverly made to look 'in-passing', a reading sold through an 'anti-sell' are the kind of thing that works extremely well.

Briggs: I am going to have to terminate analysis
Analyst: ........
Briggs: What do you think about it?
Analyst: what do you think about it?

:rotfl:

This guy is just fantastic.

[Nerd]

Midnight in Paris - Quite possibly the film of the year. Loved the way the entire thing was shown in an unassuming/undramatic manner. Set of interesting scenes put together superbly. I saw a lot of woody in owen. And Paris.. what a beety, first time I wanted to visit a place after having watched it in a movie.

[kid-glove]

hmmm, naan oruthan thaan innum pakkala pola.

Look forward to this, more than his films...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16B-L-5eHkU

[Sid_316]

Midnight in paris was disappointing :fatigue: No idea why its rated so high.. Allen could do much better.

[groucho070]

Trouble with latter day movies is, we see Woody in this feller and that feller, sometimes even girl. Most outrageous was Celebrity, bleddy Kenneth Branagh was doing a Woody. Just because he's older and can't do young bugger rule, change the character man. Like Eastwood, I prefer watching films with Woody in it, illana, with exception of few cases, rejetted.

[Sid_316]

Trouble with latter day movies is, we see Woody in this feller and that feller, sometimes even girl. Most outrageous was Celebrity, bleddy Kenneth Branagh was doing a Woody. Just because he's older and can't do young bugger rule, change the character man. Like Eastwood, I prefer watching films with Woody in it, illana, with exception of few cases, rejetted.

Louu'd vicky christina barcelona.

[Sid_316]

The problem for me in midnight in paris was i had no idea about the literary periyavas who lived in the past and the fantasy aspect was :meh: . It moved in snail's pace..Very unlike woody ( Atleast that i know)

[wizzy]

^I had similar issues..cheat codes for folks like us :lol2:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/hemingway-said-what-a-cultural-cheat-sheet-for-midnight-in-paris/240198/#slide1 (http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/hemingway-said-what-a-cultural-cheat-sheet-for-midnight-in-paris/240198/#slide1)

[P_R]

MiP is the best movie I have seen this year
I have not seen any other film this year, but even if I did I am reasonably sure MiP would remain at the top of my list.
பிற பின்.

[kid-glove]

^I had similar issues..cheat codes for folks like us :lol2:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/hemingway-said-what-a-cultural-cheat-sheet-for-midnight-in-paris/240198/#slide1 (http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/hemingway-said-what-a-cultural-cheat-sheet-for-midnight-in-paris/240198/#slide1)

I'm not sure people like the film for these literary references. But it's wonderful to know, thanks for posting.

[Sid_316]

I'm not sure people like the film for these literary references. But it's wonderful to know, thanks for posting.

Yes but too many references it was like (hmmm yeah so what now? move on) and i generally hate fantasy sub plots..the film's pace is super slow.Fast forward panlam ah nu lam thonuchu :evil: Woody generally makes slick movies this one was a drag

[Sid_316]

Thanks wizzy :)

[kid-glove]

MiP

30 minutes. Dozed off.

Never happened before for a WA film.

Usually I blame myself for this, nothing's changed. Will try again.

[Sid_316]

MiP

30 minutes. Dozed off.

Never happened before for a WA film.

Usually I blame myself for this, nothing's changed. Will try again.


:lol:

[P_R]

kaapikeepi saaptu paarunga.
Fliyum is a slow starter.

[ajithfederer]

:lol: I should have done the same to Husbands and Wives(ala Paarthale paravasam).

MiP

30 minutes. Dozed off.

Never happened before for a WA film.

Usually I blame myself for this, nothing's changed. Will try again.

[groucho070]

kaapikeepi saaptu paarunga.
Fliyum is a slow starter.So, next time they should provide coffee at the movie theaters for his new films, like how they provide 3D glasses for 3D flicks.

[AravindMano]

Midnight in Paris uh? I also slept :redjump: Midnight no? No wonder. I didn't know half of the guys who were apparently important people from the past and so I didn't have any other option.

Never knew he was a stand up comedian. A special on him going on in American masters. Saw some of his clips, impressive.

[groucho070]

Stan-up comedian and an excellent published humourist/satirist. I guess this one must have been inspired by one of his short stories, where each time he and Hemingway would put on boxing gloves, and Ernest would break the author's nose :lol: These days I revisit his short stories than the films.

[AravindMano]

oh, ivLo irukkA. His films doesn't seem to work for me, will try books atleast.

[kid-glove]

I re-read Whore of Mensa recently. I'm most attracted to that concept. It's very high-brow.

[wizzy]

any link to American Masters Woody Allen's docu? plis to pm :???:

[groucho070]

Woody the comedian - Good (Groucho Marx naming him as the fourth Marx brother ellam remba too much, he forgot that there was a fourth (and fifth) bro in the group).
Woody the filmmaker = overrated
Woody the short story writer = Brilliant!!! Nay, Genius.

[kid-glove]

As a filmmaker, he's underrated..

[kid-glove]

I've said this before. A film's script is best compared to short fiction..

[groucho070]

I know Queenan is one of my favourite writers and all, but I so agree with him here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/may/19/cannesfilmfestival.festivals)

[P_R]

:x Naansens maadhiri pEsaadheenga

Whatever Works was excellent
VCB - palatharappatta rasigargaLai kavarndha - excellent. Maria Elena Oscar
Match Point - a beautiful contemporary rework of his masterpiece Crimes and Misdemeanours
Anything Else is fast becoming one of my favourites

I haven't seen Cassandra's Dream, but what little I caught on tv was impressive

Scoop, YWMATDS were sumaar

MiP was lovely.

The man is in fine flow. Can't wait to watch him return to acting in his next...paired with Penelope Cruz :lol2:

[P_R]

The result was a glum trio of daft, extraneous London films: the sycophantic, culturally benighted Match Point, the paleolithic murder mystery Scoop, and the lugubrious drama Cassandra's Dream. enna ezhavu adjectives idhellAm?


This tactic paid off with Match Point, a deceptively repugnant film that did shockingly well at the box office considering its shallow premise and asinine plot, but Scoop was not a hit. Repugnant core IS the point. Ebert mentions that when reviewing Crimes & Misdemeanors. asinine plot it seems - right vidu. appadiyE Dostoevsky-ai sattaiyai pudikkalaam.


possibly the only actor on the planet who is more annoying onscreen than Allen himself.

Allen - who simply has no idea how cadaverously gross he looks onscreen
Oh it is such a visceral hatred is it. idhu theriyAma, idhu varaikkin padichchittEnE.


Bergman for Beginners. Hahahaha. Amaam...ippo idhukku ennaangara?


Match Point is actually yet another opportunity for the notoriously craven, Wasp-obsessed director to suck up to the wealthy, heaping all the abuse on the depraved - Irish! - working-class slob :confused2: shoulder-la edhunA chip-A?

[kid-glove]

He makes some valid points (on highbrow posturing) but ultimately sounds as deficient as David Denby.

Match Point so ostensibly refuses to be a Leigh film. Leigh's class concerns are rooted in 'reality' as it were & the characters are a thoroughly collaborative calibration (extensively researched with the actor), a far-cry from a WA film. Woody's tends to be about 'intellectual' class than social. He's more concerned by the existential, mortal, & atheistic universe. It's about a deep sense of meaninglessness in moral framework. None of his films function in an allegorical manner as Leigh's tends to be. Leigh's is socio-political. He's shares a lot more in this mode with another NY filmmaker, his phonetic namesake, Spike Lee. In a way, the specifications ala Irish working class isn't quite healthy for a WA film. Also, the Manhattan(s) of early Woody weren't anymore 'real'. It seems every aspect was filtered through the dark-rimmed looking glass. With humor, but nevertheless very affected by Jewish stereotypes ( neurotic schlub, talented schlimazel, unattractive shiksa) who make for compelling tools needed to tell (more so, than 'show', admittedly) the story, in an engaging manner.