Woody Allen's "To Rome With Love" w/ Juno, Zuckerberg, Joan Frost/Lee, Jack Donaghy etc...

...once known as both Bop Decameron and Nero Fiddled.

Trailer's Out

Set photos & Soundtrack info

http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/to-rome-with-love-woody-allen-penelope-cruz-image.jpg

yuck

just a little squeeze

was about to make a thread for this. it... looks pretty good! judy davis!!

this thread title sucks. nobody would ever search for 'woodman' and to rome with love is gonna get you a zillion results. leave it to the pros, mccain

judy davis!!

Totally. I love her in Deconstructing Harry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOr08Cefpc4

"DONT... answer me, prick!"

this thread title sucks.

This. Can a mod change it? I had no idea what it was even in reference to until I saw something about To Rome With Love elsewhere that reminded me of the title.

Effing psyched about Judy Davis, btw. Her role in Husbands & Wives might be my favorite performance in a Woody Allen movie.

sorry but i will watch anything will penelope cruz in it

I was trying to figure...this is his, what, 43rd? 44th film? Holy crap. I can't believe I've seen almost 40 Woody Allen films. More than that, I can't believe that none of those 40-ish films were outright shit (although there are a handful I have no particular desire to revisit).

title change request submitted.

title change request DENIED

idk about this. i like his more focused movies out of the late period. sweet and lowdown is my favorite!

jesus that was already 13 years ago

i wasnt gonna say

Thread title sucks, iirc "woodman" is a porn thing?

Also why you gotta be mean to Ellen Page?

bill murray used to call him "woodman" on snl

Man that must have brought him to the top of searches in google in the late 1970s

so not seeing this

Effing psyched about Judy Davis, btw. Her role in Husbands & Wives might be my favorite performance in a Woody Allen movie.

I agree and have written so before but this is tempered by the knowledge that in Celebrity he wrote her most embarrassing role to date.

it's been so so so long since i really felt that i made the right call in seeing a woody allen movie :(

i laughed a few times at this trailer, which i definitely couldnt say for midnight in paris. get the fuck outta here with that positive ions shit

http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/images/full/2011/07/13/130005-u-s-director-woody-allen-reacts-during-the-shooting-of-the-movie.jpg

:/

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

enjoyed the trailer for this, i also enjoyed midnight in paris

w/alison pill. love alison pill. a whole bunch of the cast of this are people who i will gravitate towards movies they feature in.

it's funny how greta gerwig kinda rose as a hyperreal actor & is now doing sorta mannered/'removed' non-naturalistic, stillman/allen stuff.

Woody's first onscreen role since Scoop (2006) -- though doesn't the presence of Jesse Eisenberg make him kind of redundant?

Eisenberg is Woody's avatar so he can mack on Gerwig & Page. Allen even said something to the effect of "I'm too old to do the romantic stuff myself, so that's where the young folks come in."

Looks like another threeway.

schlump did u see the Stillman?

not yet, it's out next month, here. i saw some of a trailer i was trying to avoid & caught her in stillman-mode. how about you? i'm imagining i'll be into it, really.

she's also doing this. http://www.vulture.com/2012/04/lola-versus-poster-greta-gerwig-joel-kinnaman.html. looks shitty.

http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/images/full/2011/07/13/130005-u-s-director-woody-allen-reacts-during-the-shooting-of-the-movie.jpg

― buzza, Tuesday, April 3, 2012 11:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

seeing this shortly, but forbidden to discuss "on social media platforms" til next week.

his next one's set in San Francisco! working his way back to Gotham.

this isnt a social media platform!

filled with dread about this tbh

oh, ISN'T it? xp

Sally Hawkins is gonna be in the new one!

Starring Jason Biggs as time traveling Lawrence Ferlinghetti, I assume.

this is gonna be garbage

The social media world is desperately, anxiously awaiting reviews of To Rome With Love and will not be denied.

should have thought to prohibit discussion on antisocial platforms

his next one's set in San Francisco! working his way back to Gotham.

see this sounds sorta promising but i can also imagine it being the backdrop for some awful shouts & murmurs whatever worksy kinda take on bohemianism. this is the one w/louis ck though, so otoh there's that.

filled with dread boredom about this tbh

we should have a competition to see which ilxer can proclaim how over this movie they are already the most vehemently

i thought we already were! i already wasted my most devastating bon mot!

morbs can judge cuz he's seen it

that's never been a requirement for him before

what a world we live in now

Madonna mia! This made me nostalgic for Celebrity.

Celebrity is pretty funny tho

I remember Theron and DiCaprio being funny, that's it.

The waste of acting talent in this one is absolutely staggering. His films have been "over-cast" for years, but you wonder why the hell he hires people who are more up-and-coming than box-office stars (Gerwig, Alison Pill) for plot-mechanism parts.

I sort of assume Woody doesn't really know who most of the people in his movies are these days

^^^

never quite forgave Allen for what he put Judy Davis through in Celebrity.

Also: most Woody fans these days know little about people.

good point

I don't really remember Judy Davis in Celebrity, but her role is p thankless here.

Woody did mention he saw "the Pie movie" before he hired Jason Biggs.

things I remember about celebrity:

DiCaprio
Branagh crashing a car
Lilith's banana blowjob lesson
Movie opens and closes with the same shot of Branagh in a movie theater

celebrity is not funny

i think it might actually be the worst post 80s allen movie, but i haven't seen anything since small time crooks

oh there are definitely worse films

that's always my hope with recent Allen

He's catering so much to the senior-citizen demo I'm expecting a London buddy movie starring Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.

close; The Best Exotic Manchester Hotel iirc

yeah, has anyone under 63 been seen at that one?

There had to a be a few young'uns interested in what Dev Patel's doing these days.

things I remember about celebrity:

Really the only thing I remember about this movie is how much Branagh annoyed me.

Woody is played by Woody, Jesse Eisenberg and Alec Baldwin in this one

(only Woody convinces)

http://www.fandor.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/newsweekwoody.jpg

oh god -- Tanenhaus is usually too smart for this twaddle.

Love how the two sidestories actually seem perfect for Allen as well these days.

he was a genius once upon a time. I dunno what he is now... a dotard?

critical roundup:

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-woody-allen-and-to-rome-with-love/

Woody does get the biggest laugh in the movie, and 3 or 4 chuckles (Judy Davis as Eve Arden/Arlene Francis gets the other two).

since morbz actually sees woody allen movies, i get to be him and note I haven't seen one since Deconstructing Harry. He was more my speed in middle school, what can I say.

biggest laugh he's given me in the last decade is the reveal of his name at the end of the cassandra's dream trailer

I've skipped 7 of his recent films (this century). Deconstructing Harry was the last really good one I've seen.

He's done 7 films this century? Dude is busy! (srs)

more than that; he has always dependably cranked out one a year, and that's no longer a great thing.

well he's old

yes. at his age Buster Keaton and Preston Sturges were dead, and Chaplin made a stinker with Brando and Loren.

man the trailer for this looked awful and i liked midnight in paris. if so, such a waste of a fantastic cast

his last really good film was Match Point and that seems like some bizarre fluke/hiccup in retrospect, an inadvertent bump in an otherwise steady downward trajectory since the turn of the century imho

u guys are really bucking the conventional wisdom on late-period woody allen here

reviews are mostly bad, but so far the only one who seems to hate it more than me is Rex Reed!

ah Match Point, "What's a beautiful American pingpong player doing here" etc.

s1ocki FYI Quentin T*r*ntino thinks Woody has been going thru a golden age here

such a waste of a fantastic cast

Woody's m.o. since the nineties

lol Match Point was awful, Shakes

more extreme close-ups of tennis balls hitting nets to underscore the symbolism plz

He's looking at Penelope Cruz differently at least; here she's a merry Italian whore instead of a suicidal Spanish sexpot.

last woodster i was fully on-board with was sweet&low

i thought this looked better than MiP, keeping the expectations low

more extreme close-ups of tennis balls hitting nets to underscore the symbolism plz

the rat symbolizes obviousness

Good reviews from biggies flooding in! AO Scott, Gleiberman, G Kenny all nuts approve.

The limitations of “To Rome With Love,” as frothy as the milk atop a cappuccino, are finally inseparable from its delights. Some of the scenes feel rushed and haphazardly constructed, and the dialogue frequently sounds overwritten and under-rehearsed. But this may just be to say that we are watching late-period Woody Allen. Complaining would be as superfluous — though also, perhaps, as inevitable — as psychoanalysis.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/movies/woody-allens-latest-to-rome-with-love.html

so if you do a shitty job at something enough times, eventually you get a free pass

ao scott is such a choad

as frothy as the milk atop a cappuccino

Psychoanalysis is superfluous yet inevitable? I don't even know what that means.

he's referring back to the Woody line he opens with: "Don’t psychoanalyze me! Many have tried. All have failed.”

Ahh, should have read the whole thing. Thanks.

what's weird about the WA character is he's a retired opera director, but has plenty of willful-mook qualities a la B'way Danny Rose or the Small Time Crooks guy... he refuses to pronounce 'Michelangelo' correctly, and has no idea what imbecile means in Italian.

lazy

submission to woody's quirks is the price of entertainment

'lazy' is a rather lazy adjective to describe a guy who writes and directs a feature every single year

okay how about sloppy

I don't think I've read so many opinions about seemingly "unfinished" work since whenever I last read a Guided by Voices review.

so if you do a shitty job at something enough times, eventually you get a free pass

― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, June 21, 2012 2:39 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's woody allen's career in a nutshell IMO.

i admit he's made some decent films, but with the exception of a very few really good ones (sleeper, annie hall, broadway danny rose) and a few ones that really ought to be taken and out and shot repeatedly (september, shadows and fog, hollywood ending) there isn't much distance between "that wasn't bad" and "that was bad." i mean, match point wasn't bad, radio days was kind of bad, but both pale in comparison to a lot of other non-masterpieces from any given year.

he seems to have hit a real profound rut after match point, which is probably why the relatively delicate midnight in paris, another of his "that wasn't bad" films, got such rapturous reviews.

Match Point was really bad though

which goes to show that the line b/w "not bad" and "that was really bad" in Allen's filmography is whisker-thin

man can't believe how much hate that gets around here. it's a tidy little (a)morality play!

are morality plays supposed to be tidy? Woody's problem -- exemplified by his work methods -- show how tidiness is a blot.

At this point all i really remember is the terrible performances from the leads (i guess they were going for "noirish") and the embarrassing sex scenes

in the rain! in the field!

Woody's problem -- exemplified by his work methods -- show how tidiness is a blot.

? you prefer his movies where there's no plot and a lot of clumsy explication and character motivations are transparently thin and character details make no sense? dude is overly sloppy these days, not fastidious.

man Shadows and Fog was the worst

His resolutions are as reductive as they ever were

agree that Shadows & Fog is terrrrrrible

radio days was kind of bad

damn you

grudging respect to Karina Longworth for this: http://www.laweekly.com/2012-06-21/film-tv/woody-allen-los-angeles-to-rome-with-love/

man Shadows and Fog was the worst

― that's why Love made the weirdos (brownie)

yeah, i never recovered except for getting sucked in by the soap opera surrounding husbands and wives, which is admittedly a decent enough picture

lol i love shadows and fog

KLEINMAN

KLEINMAN'S HERE

GET OUT AND DIE

radio days is great, u ppl are crazy

it's pointless to hold a director's bad films against his good ones. many of my favourite directors (altman to name just one) oscillated between amazing and terrible, sometimes film to film.

Haters got day-jobs.

http://www.stepstofinancialfreedom.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/showing_up.png

Husbands and Wives is a great film, suckas.

Some directors hit a rut and I root for a comeback, whether it was Altman or even someone like Ridley Scott. But Woody ... I couldn't care less if he ever makes another good movie. And maybe he has! The last one I saw was "Small Time Crooks," and it was so terrible I haven't given another one of his films a shot. This isn't Philip Roth, operating at a late career peak. It's hackwork coasting on personality and talented day players.

Ironically, his prose has been generally strong lately. He's like Steve Martin in that regard. Films suck, writing's funny.

michael rapaport in small time crooks is the best

he, Woody, and Tracey Ullman were all fine in "Small Time Crooks," but Elaine May stole it! If that was his level of "minor" coasting I could accept it.

As for Rome, I am curiously relieved that Joe Morgenstern's pan now scores it lower than mine on M3tacr1tic.

While we're needlessly ranking Woody movies again...

no, nevermind.

Match Point might be the best WA I've seen in the last decade, but it's still pretty bad.

Would be really happy to see other people direct his scripts at this point.

I don't think it works like that. Otherwise it would have happened once.

The scripts are now a bigger problem than the directing.

Alexandre Bustillo would've directed a killer Match Point.

he, Woody, and Tracey Ullman were all fine in "Small Time Crooks," but Elaine May stole it! If that was his level of "minor" coasting I could accept it.

The scripts are now a bigger problem than the directing.

Morbz OTM x2

it's pointless to hold a director's bad films against his good ones. many of my favourite directors (altman to name just one) oscillated between amazing and terrible, sometimes film to film.

― funny-skrillex-bee_132455836669.gif (s1ocki), Thursday, June 21, 2012 11:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well frankly after california split i'm not sure that i admire altman all that much either. i guess my point was just that even the "oscillation" between good and bad isn't really that severe. the vast majority of woody allen's films are really mediocre and it's really just the small differences that would make one "good" and one "bad". there are only a few films of his that i'd be remotely willing to sit through again and i guess those are the ones that most people agree are quasi-classics (like i said, annie hall, broadway danny rose, sleepers...). then there are a few that almost nobody will defend. the rest are just really really really middling, to differing degrees.

The scripts are now a bigger problem than the directing.

― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Friday, June 22, 2012 9:44 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd say i agree. but they used to be coequal problems.

but what's your point exactly? he made some great films, some good films, and some bad films. what are we talking about here really?

WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE, REALLY?

i hate these kind of analogies but... i'd say the vast majority of his films fall somewhere between 3 and 5 on a scale of 10. so the difference between a "good" WA film and a "bad" one is nothing much--with the exception of a small handful of pretty good ones (7–8) and pretty bad ones (1–2).

basically i am saying WHO CARES.

it's pointless to hold a director's bad films against his good ones.

bad fims can diminish the good ones, sometimes. weak qualities that eventually grew insufferable will stick out in hindsight.

the pbs doc on him got me thinking -- growing up with his movies you do feel him to be some kind of institution, but if you think about it that's pretty odd and lucky. his career as a comedian and writer could have turned out very differently.

I thought everything until September was good -- I staggered out of that one in '87, amazed that he'd made a clunker. I never could have imagined there'd be a decade where I'd pass up almost all of his films.

I'm amused by the critics saying it's not certain if Alec Baldwin is seeing his past life in his segment of TRwL, which could be true on paper, but LOL Jesse Eisenberg aging into Baldwin.

Was September the one he filmed twice?

bad fims can diminish the good ones, sometimes. weak qualities that eventually grew insufferable will stick out in hindsight.

― da croupier, Friday, June 22, 2012 5:18 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

arent you a huge depalma stan?

I thought everything until September was good -- I staggered out of that one in '87, amazed that he'd made a clunker. I never could have imagined there'd be a decade where I'd pass up almost all of his films.

I'm amused by the critics saying it's not certain if Alec Baldwin is seeing his past life in his segment of TRwL, which could be true on paper, but LOL Jesse Eisenberg aging into Baldwin.

― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Friday, June 22, 2012 5:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

post-september we've still got hannah and her sisters, husbands & wives, sweet & lowdown... lots of good stuff

The issue seems to be that even Woody Allen doesn't seem to know why he keeps making movies. He's like Dylan: always on tour, some nights OK, some nights terrible, but at his best a far cry from what everyone loves about him. And his voice is shot.

he's been writing shit scripts for years, guys

the weird thing is his non-script writing is still funny

Yeah, noted that. Do not dread his New Yorker appearances.

Downswing started with Mighty Aphrodite.

Hannah was before September btw

his last nyer thing was so fucking bad. the guy pitching a movie. awful.

m'bad

hey, he's 76, ppl could stop giving him work.

I think he'll always find a producer so long as he can come in on budget, pull in popular 'name' actors at cut-rates, and eke out a profit by the time the worldwide distribution and video sales have been tabulated. What kind of budget is he typically given these days?

his dad lived to 100, so if he has good genes, we could see about 20 more woody movies. brace yourselves.

IMDB says that Midnight In Paris was made for $17 mil, which I imagine is about the norm for his last several films. (Box Office Mojo only supplies info for one more--You Will Meet..., which was a $22 mil.)

The thing is, as implied in the (quite good btw) Longworth interview, is that he hasn't had a studio deal since his set-up with Dreamworks. The European films happened because he was approached by European producers, who put up the money, and American distribution deals came later. He goes on to say that he himself is financing the Frisco film at the moment, and will be doing so unless someone steps in.

xpost

although it's not that hard to put financing together when you are guaranteed american and european distribution as he pretty much is.

That is true, but it will be independent money. This should be taken w/a grain of salt, since lines from the Woodman are my source on this, but despite the success of MIP, he probably won't see full studio patronage again. I'm guessing at this, but I think Sony Pictures Classics (who've handled most of his recent films) mainly provide completion and exploitation funds in addition to distribution.

I think Woody should snort a grain of salt tbh

He'd just sneeze in the shaker tho.

Mother Jones reviewer not keen:

http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2012/06/film-review-to-rome-with-love-woody-allen-ellen-page

I could have sworn Woody has been shooting in Europe to circumvent American film unions and their wages? Same with some of his choice of crew? Dunno where I read that.

arent you a huge depalma stan?

yep, and i like plenty of his later work, actively like a lot of his quirks and don't think they're remotely the problem. did you actually have a point or are just kind of flailing to defend the woodster?

i was actually just pondering whether i would prefer depalma had allen's output, even if it potentially meant a dropoff in quality and/or increase of redundancy, familiarity, etc. might be harder to be a snake eyes fan if there were four inferior snake eyes-type films released in a 15 year window, not to mention 5 black dahlias

then again once a year i'd get some steadicam action

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTQVGL0O0AchW1mRBs1oHGrdQoIkzCo_-nuHzAwZL5OxY9K9L12

this actually sounds like the first allen film i can actually imagine wanting to see in forever

Woody's been anti-union his whole career. he was punched out by a teamster early on or something iirc...? Morbz?

i was actually just pondering whether i would prefer depalma had allen's output, even if it potentially meant a dropoff in quality and/or increase of redundancy, familiarity, etc. might be harder to be a snake eyes fan if there were four inferior snake eyes-type films released in a 15 year window, not to mention 5 black dahlias

― da croupier, Saturday, June 23, 2012 9:30 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i kinda like snake eyes too :/

anyway i just feel there should be at least one defender in this all-too-easy conventional-wisdom pile-on

randomly jabs at random comments is a pretty weak defense. besides, dude's a regular oscar nominee, i wouldn't bothering saving that ho from "conventional wisdom".

randomly jabbing, i mean.

how is "aw sweet and lowdown is good" any less cw than "he's sucked for a long time"?

im not sure how to answer that tbh

Woody's been anti-union his whole career. he was punched out by a teamster early on or something

I have no info on this

would like to see that footage.

just saw Woody in the flesh shooting a scene down the street from my house

rad

was he wearing a hat & directing or wearing a shirt & acting?

http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/14/51/07/3314114/5/628x471.jpg

a return to form

he was talking to some PA while they were setting up the shoot - green sweatshirt, Gilligan hat, etc

20th and Lexington

it was weird cuz in a way when I was young I always wanted to live in a neighborhood in a Woody Allen movie and now I guess I do

watched this film again tonight. it is a masterpiece.

just kidding, but parts were fun. i especially liked the pseudo-liberal, super-condescending young lawyer, michaelangelo, who tries to discourage his father's dreams of being an opera singer by insisting that he is "just a simple man."

This was not very good. A few funny lines though.

"don't you see! this situation is fraught with peril!"

Sometimes (such as with lines like that) I wonder if Woody is even trying any more. I think he saved the best lines for himself in this one.

Not good but better than its predecessor.

ouch