Woody Allen's "Scoop"

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S-Jo in Annie Hall glasses, Woody in London, the ghost of Al Swearengen.

Even the trailer can't make it look like Scarlett has a personality or any sense of comic timing. I predict it will be better than Anything Else but worse than Match Point.

― milo z (mlp), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 00:45 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/scoop/

― milo z (mlp), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 00:45 (nineteen years ago)

eh, i don't know, it didn't look that bad too me. although i was probably so glad to see her out of that whole faux-50s look she's been going with, i probably was in no state to judge.

― pleased to mitya (mitya), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 02:00 (nineteen years ago)

Woody in full shtick mode! Wolverine! Al Swearengen! And Scarlett Johannson as Diane Keaton!

I'm in!

― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 10:39 (nineteen years ago)

woody: "we gotta put our heads together"

scarlett: "if we put OUR heads together you'll hear a HOLLOW noise"

bad woody jokes and awful scarlett deliveries. this will be 10000 times better than match point

― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 10:47 (nineteen years ago)

woody is playing opposite scarlett?

i suppose i would, given the choice.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 10:51 (nineteen years ago)

Nah, it looks like Woody is playing the mentor role, as he did in Anything Else (although perhaps with more screen time).

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 11:47 (nineteen years ago)

The weird thing about that trailer is that seeing Scarlett done up as Diane Keaton circa 1977 is about the same as if some other dude had her done up in rubber gear or something. It's all very fetishy!

― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 11:55 (nineteen years ago)

i'm amazed to say i'm really looking forward to this!

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:24 (nineteen years ago)

woody allen lost his sense of comedic timing years ago, and obviously scarlett hasn't developed one. maybe, through alchemy, they will be funny together.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:30 (nineteen years ago)

is it an adaptation of evelyn waugh?

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:35 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.dubman.com/spooky/books/pics/scoop.jpg

(xpost!)

― A Study In Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

Woody Allen never *lost* his sense of comedic timing. His problem (if he has one, I'm fine with him being himself to be honest - and really, how much can we expect a person to change so late in life?) is that he hasn't CHANGED anything about his comedy in the past thirty years or so.

― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 12:45 (nineteen years ago)

I like how Hugh Jackman is holding the “Death” card from Aleister Crowley’s tarot deck on the movie poster.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 14:38 (nineteen years ago)

could be good, could be awful

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 14:49 (nineteen years ago)

matt, if it were the case that he just hasn't changed his schtick, then some of his early movies wouldn't have withstood the passage of decades. yet they have. watch "hollywood ending" and tell me again that woody hasn't lost his teeth. he desperately needs to STOP writing himself into his own movies.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 14:54 (nineteen years ago)

you're kinda both right, he hasn't changed his shtick but he's run out of things to do with it

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 14:58 (nineteen years ago)

its still funny on occasion. I don't think anyone would deny - including Allen himself - that he's made some bad films.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:00 (nineteen years ago)

I know I'm in the minority, but I have to say I didn't mind "Anything Else." A lesser work certainly, something I watched with a certain detachment, the whole time half imagining how it would've been cast and how it would've looked if he'd filmed it in 1982, but on those terms unobjectionable. And whatsername was pretty good, I thought.

― pleased to mitya (mitya), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:00 (nineteen years ago)

There was a time when the words "Woody Allen film starring Christina Ricci" would've made me spontaneously orgasm, but I still haven't seen that.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:04 (nineteen years ago)

its bad. I wanted to kill both leads with an icepick.

the most recent film of his that really made me laugh was either "Curse of the Jade Scorpion" or "Sweet and Lowdown". The one with Tracey Ullman was okay but pretty slight.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

sweet and lowdown was great but you liked curse of the jade scorpion??? where he was romantically paired with helen hunt???

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:08 (nineteen years ago)

Hollywood Ending has still not been released in the UK!!!!

Curse Of The Jade Scorpion STANK.

I rather liked Anything Else, but am no longer holding my breath for Woody to be great or anything. He should make a sequel to September.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:09 (nineteen years ago)

in the tI love how the trailer sez "from the director of MATCH POINT" because when I think woody allen movies... yeah, match point is the first one I think of...

― Jimmy Mod: NOIZE BOARD GRIL COMPARISON ANALYST (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

what can I say, I found the whole post-hypnotic suggestion gimmick funny. it was very much a Bob Hope-style comedy. (tho yes the mismatch with Hunt was ridiculous)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:14 (nineteen years ago)

Scarlett Johansson was actually funny in a couple SNL sketches, which is quite a trick these days.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:56 (nineteen years ago)

I'm kinda surprised Woody hasn't cast Topher Grace in anything yet. Maybe he doesn't trust TV actors (I can't blame him if that is indeed the case)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 15:57 (nineteen years ago)

'What have you been putting in your Metamucil?' made me smile.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 16:01 (nineteen years ago)

apparently the method by which Woody stumbles on young actors is quite random -- when he cast Jason Biggs, he was only vaguely aware of "the Pie movie."

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 16:01 (nineteen years ago)

i saw scarjo on letterman a few months ago and she was pretty funny! she definitely has a sense of humor, even if it's not an LOL JOEKS HAW HAW kind of sense of humor.

― lavendra diamondheart (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 16:12 (nineteen years ago)

I'd like to see a film in which an attractive young American woman finds loved with a Brit who's NOT A GODDAMNED ARISTOCRAT.

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

Is the Crowley Tarot in the actual film???

― Total Fucking Darkness (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 17:57 (nineteen years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000023VTP.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

(xpost)

― antexit (antexit), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:04 (nineteen years ago)

Well, a Brit who's not all posh and dopey then.

(P.S. Scarlett in glasses = OH YES)

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:06 (nineteen years ago)

chap, who was the last Hollywoodized Brit star who could play working-class regularly? Malcolm McDowell? The default persona is Hugh Grant.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b8/Sid_and_nancy_poster.jpg/200px-Sid_and_nancy_poster.jpg

(xpost)

― antexit (antexit), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

HI DERE

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:13 (nineteen years ago)

"the last Hollywoodized Brit star who could play working-class regularly"

Ewan MacGregor. Altho I guess he hasn't done THAT much of it.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:14 (nineteen years ago)

AS WELL AS

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:15 (nineteen years ago)

I was just thinking McGregor.

Pumpkin and Honeybunny might be the most recent american/working class brit on-screen relationship I can think of.

― chap who would dare to be a nerd, not a geek (chap), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:17 (nineteen years ago)

so why exactly do people still watch woody allen movies? i could sorta understand the faith when he was just a mediocre director that occasionally lucked into a good movie (swing the bat enough times), but now that he's an awful director who occasionally lucks into mediocrity i really can't quite get the appeal beyond real estate porn or yuppie circle jerking (although apparently i guess his class yearnings have now reached the level of the cough cough british aristocracy?) or just never say die fanboyism. haven't pretty much all of his good movies been good for reasons that had little to do with woody allen ie. thank/blame the casting director in which case do people really think husky mcboobsalot or wolverine (who's romcom history approaches woody allen's in dull blechness) are gonna pull a diane keaton or sean penn and make a woody allen movie worth watching? is the scarlett-woody teamup the most fittingly dismal in recent movie history?

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:33 (nineteen years ago)

That kid that plays Ron Weasley is going to be the only one to have a successful post-HP career, MARK MY WORDS.

― mummy wrapped in bacon (nickalicious), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:37 (nineteen years ago)

chap, who was the last Hollywoodized Brit star who could play working-class regularly?

http://www.saxonbullock.com/images/General-Zod.jpg

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

i mean people hem and haw over altman's inconsistency despite him having a profoundly higher obp than allen (even the bad altman movies have something at least) and there aren't threads anticipating this or that new steve martin movie with 'well who knows' fingers crossed so what is it with woody allen?

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

To answer your question, blount: never underestimate the stubborness of heterosexuals still smitten enough with Annie Hall to attend each new Allen comedy in the hopes that It Speaks To Them.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:40 (nineteen years ago)

real estate porn or yuppie circle jerking

I'll admit that's part of it for me.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:42 (nineteen years ago)

I'm glad you bring up Altman and my attitdue towards Allen is similar - I just disagree about the respective hit-to-miss ratio. I admire both for their work ethic and willingness to spread their favorite themes and tics across a wide variety of settings.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:42 (nineteen years ago)

o come now nickalicious - i see big things in maggie smith's future!

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:43 (nineteen years ago)

(and if we're comparing recent output, Match Point >>>>>>> The Company)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:43 (nineteen years ago)

o shit i forgot - date flix for old folx! i totally get it now - soto otm. woody allen should write pfizer a thank you note (like he hasn't already).

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:44 (nineteen years ago)

Those are odd movies to contrast, though, Shakey Mo. Match Point is Woody's attempt at an operatic epic, whereas The Company is deliberately slight (but also wonderful, IMHO).

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:45 (nineteen years ago)

Bad Altman (sometimes even not-quite-good Altman) bores me way more than bad Woody - Anything Else was a piece, but I'll still take it over Dr. T and the Womyns.

― milo z (mlp), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:46 (nineteen years ago)

oh totally, those are just the two most recent films by each.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:47 (nineteen years ago)

I predict this thread will hit a 1000 by July 4th.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:49 (nineteen years ago)

(xp) Prairie Home Companion?

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

i remember when i first came back to america and i saw deconstructing harry in one of those big ass stadium seating cineplex things and i was literally the only person in the theater who wasn't a little old lady. about five 'cunts' into the movie - pow! they all bolted. maybe the hardest woody allen's ever made me laff.

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

In my case it's never say die fanboyism, but I started to say "die" around Celebrity.

All these threads about films no one has seen and we just regurgitate our oft-posted prejudices about the auteur NEVER get old, huh?

(like blountcunt, I hold out hope for more cunty Woody)

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 18:57 (nineteen years ago)

Unless it's Buñuel.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 19:12 (nineteen years ago)

and obv a big part of allen's appeal is that he's one of the few reliably distributed filmmakers who make entertainment for adults where you're not gonna have to think much or feel much (they're not art coughcough) and at the same time not have to tap into the 13 yr-old part of yr brain to enjoy it (even the adolescent tendencies in woody allen - 'haw haw i get that joke cuz i knows about strindberg' - is an adolescent yearning to be an adult)(cf. whit stillman flix). larry munson, voice of the bulldogs, ga broadcasting legend, does this one minute 'insight on sports' thing that pads the bank account and rarely does he talk about sports, alot of times he'll talk about movies and one thing he consistently bemoans is that hollywood (he always says 'hollywood' like it's a masonic order meeting somewhere) only makes kids flix now, he's amused/disgusted with the notion that we're supposed to be excited about a superman movie, and he pretty much ends up seeing every woody allen movie by default not out of any allegiance to woody allen or anything, and one thing that gets me is that in ten years time this market is literally dead and this market is basically what allows entertainment for adults to even get made and while it won't matter for altman or woody allen cuz they'll be dead by then too for guys like alexander payne or i don't know whit stillman this is a problem. obv i love love love kids flix - stoked for superman, talladega nights, etc. - but variety is the spice of life, etc. and for people who don't love kids flix, people of a generation say where the idea of a person over the age of 25 listening to rock music (nevermind hip-hop) or reading comics or playing video games or looking forward to a superman movie is repugnant, a sad commentary on blah blah blah, etc. for these people woody allen is gonna be alot of times damn near the only option out there.

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 19:35 (nineteen years ago)

Woody Allen = Lou Reed.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 19:47 (nineteen years ago)

YES

― Jimmy Mod: NOIZE BOARD GRIL COMPARISON ANALYST (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 19:52 (nineteen years ago)

blount thinks only old people who hate comic books and rock n roll watch Alexander Payne and Whit Stillman movies...? Both of those guys have audiences who will follow them thru their careers (I'll certainly follow Payne - I hate Stillman though, he doesn't make movies anymore anyway)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 19:58 (nineteen years ago)

really I don't understand blount's point beyond "Woody Allen makes films that appeal to his generation", which seems like kind of a no-brainer to me.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

If that were the point, though, it would be incorrect. If anything (though I know far more 20-something film nerds stoked for new Woody than old people) Woody Allen makes films that appeal to people a generation younger than he is. (ie he's my grandfather's age, but his movie career took off at the peak of my father's generation)

― milo z (mlp), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 20:03 (nineteen years ago)

so why exactly do people still watch woody allen movies?

Even at his worst he's still interesting to me. Matchpoint was a pretty good movie. Melinda & Melinda was alright. Sweet & Lowdown wasn't all that long ago, and that's one of his three or four best movies, and easily one of the best films of the 90s.

There's really not that many decent comedies being made, so really, I take what I can get. You try making a movie pretty much every year for a few decades and we'll see how consistent you are! I think better of people like Woody who just keep working rather than people who are overly precious and rarely finish anything.

― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 20:23 (nineteen years ago)

i think woody's the director(or he was for a certain age group) most teen cinephiles latch onto when they are first realizing that movies can be more than just popcorn & giggles. he does a lot of cultural namedropping in his movies, which appeals to the smart kid crowd. people have a soft spot for him, even tho they move on and eventually realize he's fairly shallow and limited. The more sentimental just keep hoping he'll make something that will remind them of when they were 16-20 and oh so smarter than the average moviegoing schlub. (in their mind)

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 20:37 (nineteen years ago)

Timmy absolutely OTM.

Funny that we're talking about both Allen and Altman, because it was the one-two punch of The Player and Husbands and Wives, which I saw on video when I was 14, that got me interested in film as an art form. Short Cuts and Manhattan Murder Mystery were the first movies I went to see chiefly because of the director.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 20:41 (nineteen years ago)

I'm just sort of curious about why his films necessarily HAVE to be so deep! He often makes a grab for that, but he's generally more successful when he's going for clever laughs and character studies.

Again, how many more people are making good comedies? Not all that many!

― Matthew Perpetua! (Matthew Perpetua!), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 20:43 (nineteen years ago)

dangermouse.jpg

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 20:43 (nineteen years ago)

Sweet and Lowdown is a halfway decent flick but to claim it as "easily on of the best films of the 90's" is utterly ridiculous.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 20:45 (nineteen years ago)

Woody Allen is pretty much the ONLY reason for me to see what would be conventionally tagged as romantic comedies. I can't think of anyone else working in the genre who I find consistently engaging (the only non-Woody romcom I can remember enjoying recently was "Down With Love", which was basically just an out-and-out paean to a different era/style anyway)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 20:54 (nineteen years ago)

Funny that we're talking about both Allen and Altman, because it was the one-two punch of The Player and Husbands and Wives, which I saw on video when I was 14, that got me interested in film as an art form.

Wow. You should been my best friend in college. That's how it worked for me.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 21:00 (nineteen years ago)

Results 1 - 10 of about 19,600 for "woody allen" "return to form".

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 21:10 (nineteen years ago)

His fall '07 project is called Return to Form, in which a senescent director (Paul Newman) rediscovers his muse upon meeting hip starlet (Lindsey Lohan).

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 21:19 (nineteen years ago)

The Django Reinhardt joke in Sweet and Lowdown is horribly timed, and he repeats it like four times!

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:26 (nineteen years ago)

I like the Django bit - the repetition is what makes it funny!

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:32 (nineteen years ago)

Speaking of repetition, how many times has Samantha Morton done that quiet-eyed spaccy ingenue thing?

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:35 (nineteen years ago)

you mean like her recent turn as Bettie Page?

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:37 (nineteen years ago)

Speaking of repetition, didn't Woody Allen use the magician's disappearing cabinet bit in at least two other movies? I know it was in his New York Stories segment, but I could swear I've seen him use it elsewhere.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

everytime I see your screen name I think it reads "slutbuddy"

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:48 (nineteen years ago)

Everybody has his price.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 22:51 (nineteen years ago)

But it drives me nuts with the deja-vu watching his movies. Allen doesn't just re-use certain motifs or themes as signposts in the narrative, like David Lynch doing that "swinging light or flickering flame that goes out suddenly" thing that's actually supposed to signify something or other; it seems like he lifts certain segments wholesale out of his previous films for no particularly good reason.

Like the dialogue in Anything Else between Jerry and Dobel about taking down fascist bullies with biting satire vs. driving the point home w/ bricks and bats that was straight out of Manhattan, or the scene between the Ricci character and Jerry where he dumps the supportive girlfriend for the batshit, enigmatic, damaged girl who expressly states she's incapable of being faithful, and spends the rest of the movie proving just that, exactly the same way it went down in Celebrity. I mean, that's ALL his movies, but none the moreso than those two.

Or that the batshit girlfriend had to be named "Nola" twice, or that his character in Scoop unconsciously uses his stage patter as his customary form of greeting in general daily use just like Danny Rose did, etc., etc.. C & M and Match Point having the same "murdering of the insistent other woman/ guilty party surprisingly free of conscience" angle as launching point for treatise on existentialist concepts of morality or whichever.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 23:54 (nineteen years ago)

good post slugbuddy.

i thought it was bizarre that Allen used "sing sing sing" by Louis Prima prominently in Manhattan Murder Mystery when he had used it just 4 years previously in "Deconstructing Harry".

i'm sure he has used variations of that masturbation="sex with someone i love" joke in a few films.

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 00:13 (nineteen years ago)

The repetitions in Anything Else were conscious - bringing in his old bits with a 'new Woody' (Biggs) while Woody plays the crazy old guy.

― milo z (mlp), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 00:44 (nineteen years ago)

it's almost like all of these films were made by the same guy!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 01:45 (nineteen years ago)

no but it's true, dude definitely has his pre-occupations and he returns to them a lot, not the least of which is pretty much all of match point (which i liked).

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 01:46 (nineteen years ago)

Smanatha Morton wasn't in the Bettie Page movie!

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 01:53 (nineteen years ago)

But -- I don't know if this is fanboyism -- but the reason I keep watching Woody Allen films is because I've seen so many of them -- and have enjoyed a number of them, although certain not all and, should I see them all, probably not most! -- but I have seen enough that I want to see them all, because I'm interested in where his thoughts go, in seeing the movement of ideas and the ups and downs that happen over a lifetime, because that is what is interesting to me. I am not nearly as interested in seeing "an awesome movie" as I am in seeing "an interesting career". And I think Woody Allen's career is interesting.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 01:54 (nineteen years ago)

blount thinks only old people who hate comic books and rock n roll watch Alexander Payne and Whit Stillman movies...? - i'm sorry shakey, can you show me where i (or anyone) said this?

― j blount (papa la bas), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 06:37 (nineteen years ago)

The internet sez there was a scene in Shadows and Fog where Woody Allen's character uses a magician's cabinet to escape the mob that's after him. So I was probably thinking of that, or maybe the hypnotist scene in Jade Scorpion.

Oh, and there's two movies which make reference to a character who collects bits of string as a hobby. Love and Death and the other one I can't remember.

I don't have a problem with revisiting favored themes and expounding on them with a fresh perspective, which is why I liked Anything Else. Milo's right, the movie was Allen answering himself. It just seems that he's one of those directors who say, "once I finish a film I never go back and watch it again," where maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea sometimes. You know, so you could change "bits of string" to "bottlecaps" or something.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

blount - what I was getting at was that your endless run-on sentence about Allen's audience (and ostensibly Stillman and Payne's, since you threw them in there for reasons I don't really get) was not entirely clear. You seem to be saying that Allen is the sole viewing option for "people of a generation say where the idea of a person over the age of 25 listening to rock music (nevermind hip-hop) or reading comics or playing video games or looking forward to a superman movie is repugnant" - and previously in your post you alluded to Stillman and Payne having a problem when this audience dies off...? If I'm misreading you, feel free to elaborate.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 14:44 (nineteen years ago)

The internet is correct about the magician's cabinet in Shadows and Fog, not quite correct on how it is used.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 18:18 (nineteen years ago)

Can I just say that Manhattan, Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters are marvelous, marvelous movies? That Take the Money and Run was fun? And that Purple Rose of Cairo wasn't?

― sean gramophone (Sean M), Thursday, 22 June 2006 09:37 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

Scar-Jo wasn't even the worst lead. Just second-worst.

― milo z (mlp), Sunday, 30 July 2006 19:41 (nineteen years ago)

is it that time, already?

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 30 July 2006 19:50 (nineteen years ago)

I heard this was meant to be good?

― kyle (akmonday), Sunday, 30 July 2006 19:56 (nineteen years ago)

It's very mediocre. Woody is just screechy and repeating one-liners and tics, Johansson has zero personality (but does look damn good in a bathing suit), Wolverine is OK, I guess. None of it fits well together, the timing's no good, but there are some funny lines.

― milo z (mlp), Sunday, 30 July 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)

I have to see this mostly for Scarlett. She made Match Point watchable. She could probably make Shit Sandwich watchable.

― Matt Olken (Moodles), Sunday, 30 July 2006 21:49 (nineteen years ago)

it was a bad film. Woody onscreen is more or less an embarassment, although I guess nothing can stop his masturbatory blather in the press about how ScarJo is his new muse. He's fucking sick. His dialogue is soooooooooo tired and completely uninteresting...I mean, I liked Match Point and was kind of prepared to believe in a career revival but this pretty much cements my suspicion that all I did in Match Point was hope that ScarJo's wet t-shirt scene would be an hour long. So in retrospect, I didn't really like that movie as much as I thought I did.

― don weiner (don weiner), Monday, 31 July 2006 00:41 (nineteen years ago)

I had this idea to rent every Woody Allen movie in backwards chronological order (Starting with Match Point) and see how far I could get (I haven't seen any since Deconstructing Harry), but I changed my mind after reading the "memorable quotes" to Anything Else.

― Zwan (miccio), Monday, 31 July 2006 00:44 (nineteen years ago)

I tried to watch Melinda & Melinda on an HBO sub-channel, but it was about as turgid and unwatchable as this one so I gave up pretty quickly. At least Anything Else didn't seem to last for three hours.

― milo z (mlp), Monday, 31 July 2006 00:49 (nineteen years ago)

According to the trailers, Scarlet is appearing in every major studio release this fall.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 31 July 2006 01:24 (nineteen years ago)

i'd only see this for ian mcshane, but then again why bother when i can watch 'deadwood' or 'sexy beast' on dvd?

― gear (gear), Monday, 31 July 2006 01:29 (nineteen years ago)

Swedgin was a wasted resource.

― milo z (mlp), Monday, 31 July 2006 01:37 (nineteen years ago)

I didn't dislike this, hell - it was easily the least irritating Scarlet performance ever. I even laughed out loud in places.

But I'd file it next to Curse Of The Jade Scorpion or something

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Monday, 31 July 2006 04:55 (nineteen years ago)

ouch

― gothic Buddhist meets Old Hollywood (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 31 July 2006 04:56 (nineteen years ago)

i can't believe everyone hated this! it's probably my favorite woody allen movie in...um...well, let's just say i never thought i'd use the words "favorite woody allen movie" again.

woody allen is one of those people who's somehow a lot more interesting to me now that he's like a thousand years old and still keeping to his insane pace of two movies a year than he was when he was making his officially sanctioned "masterpieces." even his crazy repetitive little trademark touches (pointless references to famous authors so he can prove he's heard of them, if not read them) and surreal out-of-touchness when it comes to the kids (does he really think that nerdy community college paper reporters get to sleep with the famous people they interview?) just add to the vaguely unhinged feeling i'm starting to get from these movies.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 11:13 (nineteen years ago)

two movies a year? maybe it only seems like it

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 12:02 (nineteen years ago)

it's closer to one a year - which is still a remarkable clip!

I'm lookin forward to seein this (maybe cuz I liked Curse of the Jade Scorpion)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 9 August 2006 16:50 (nineteen years ago)

Aw, I really liked this! Absurdly silly conceits, classic Allen schtick, Johanssen was pretty lousy but still managed to deliver some laugh lines properly.

I find Allen funnier and less irritating as a cranky old man than as a cranky young man. The first magician scene was fantastic physical comedy - just his presence on stage had me laughing.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Saturday, 12 August 2006 14:10 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

Revive because I just saw this and jblount is unusually crazy. There are so many awful directors and movies that maintain a higher level of success than Woody Allen that it's really disproportionate to attack him like this. So what if this isn't quite as good as Annie Hall (and what's wrong with "heterosexuals" liking that movie?); I'd rather see Woody Allen rehashing old jokes with slightly different contexts and themes than American Pie 3. I mean, what is the alternative proposed for this "adult" market--and btw, Alexander Payne will have little problem maintaining an audience for the same reason Woodyi has been able to--the ability to make the same old themes interesting for a long time through slight manipulation. Though I'll admit I hold out more hope for Payne's later stuff than Allen's simply out of optimism and that I LOVED Payne's contribution to I LOVE PARIS.

PS a bit of context- I saw this in France where opening night felt like Star Wars or maybe LOTR back in the States. I had to buy my ticket from a random dude in front, and ended up having to sit FRONT ROW! Is Woodyi even this popular in native NYC? Seems unlikely but I can't say...anyway another tick in his favor is that it's nice to have an image projected out of the US that isn't WAR WAR KILL WAR or SPRING BREAK WOOO, and practically no one else does this on a mass scale.

― richardk (Richard K), Thursday, 2 November 2006 15:45 (nineteen years ago)

Did you see this movie in Paris? If so, which place? There are some die-hard Woody fans in Paris (and in certain arrondissements in particular duh!) but I'd guess that pretty much everywhere else there wouldn't be great crowds to see his latest.

― Jibé (Jibé), Thursday, 2 November 2006 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

Well, yes Les Halles is always a nightmare, but the weird thing is even people from the suburbs at my (not particularly hip) job had seen it and were talking about it. This is inconceivable where I'm from in the US, to say the least!

― richardk (Richard K), Thursday, 2 November 2006 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah I agree. There's this mad love for Woody out here! There's gotta be a reason but I can't quite see it. Any ideas why Woody is so liked by French ppl?

― Jibé (Jibé), Thursday, 2 November 2006 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

five months pass...

I wish my girlfriend wasn't a Woody Allen fiend. This movie, terrrrible.

― Drooone, Friday, 20 April 2007 00:14 (nineteen years ago)

i was in line at the video store the other day n' mentioned to my girlfriend that i liked this movie and the dude in front of me turns around and gives me a LECTURE on how it was "ok for hollywood but poor by woody's standards." jesus.

― J.D., Friday, 20 April 2007 07:56 (nineteen years ago)

I still say Woody's first scene (doing his magician act) is up there with his best work. Rest of it was fine - a nice light comedy not aspiring to much.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 20 April 2007 13:43 (nineteen years ago)

Will it ever come out in the UK?

― Pete, Friday, 20 April 2007 14:02 (nineteen years ago)

i thought it was bizarre that Allen used "sing sing sing" by Louis Prima prominently in Manhattan Murder Mystery when he had used it just 4 years previously in "Deconstructing Harry".

yeah, I hate that kind of thing, repetition like that is a good argument against directors just filling the score with whatever music they really like. I really groaned when Scorsese used "Gimme Shelter" again in The Departed.

― Alex in Baltimore, Friday, 20 April 2007 14:18 (nineteen years ago)

(also Deconstructing Harry was 4 years AFTER Manhattan Murder Mystery, but maybe you knew that and just phrased that wrong)

― Alex in Baltimore, Friday, 20 April 2007 14:19 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

Rented this last night. Christ it was bad. The script felt like it was a lousy first draft. Johansson still can't act. Woody too old even for the mentoring part. Everything felt like it was rehashed from a previous Woody Allen movie, only done much worse. I cannot believe anyone liked this. A sturdy contender for Worst Woody Allen Film Ever, in a strong field of competitors.

― underpants of the gods, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 12:39 (nineteen years ago)

I agree but have never seen it

― RJG, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 12:43 (nineteen years ago)

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