So which was the last genuinely great Woody Allen film?

he certainly seems to have become a sight more misanthropic, and less caring towards his characters, of late.

i'm going at it half full rather than half empty y see.

I just watched anything else, and found it surprisingly entertaining (though far from genuinely great)

husbands and wives. to answer your original question.

husbands and wives. to answer your original question.
This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title. I haven't seen it for 15 years & am still impressed by it.

some of his latter day silly stuff(Small time Crooks, Curse of The Jade Scorpion) is a blast. On a good day, that can pass for genuinely great. Hollywood Ending is the one that gave me... serious pause.

Sweet and Lowdown is pretty good, I wouldn't call it great though. I remember being quite impressed with Deconstucting Harry as well, but I haven't seen it since it first came out (ten years ago, blimey!).

not to avoid the question, but Manhattan and Broadway Danny Rose are about the only ones I'd care to sit thru at this point. Shadows & Fog is the WORST i've seen, but i haven't seen any since Husbands and Wives

Whit Stillman's gonna be pissed.

sounds promising

I do kinda like that Johannsen is his new "muse", even tho Scoop was a bit thin... as long as he refrains from ever casting himself as the romantic lead (and gets a good cast around her)...

bardem & cruz fit anyone's bill, i think.

http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/onionmagazine_archive_72a.jpg

I liked Deconstructing Harry (coulda done without the B. Crystal factor though) and Sweet & Lowdown quite a bit. Also, Match Point was a well-crafted film. And it looked nice.

hmm i did like '... harry' now i recall.

Woody Allen said on Monday he hoped to create a portrait of the northeastern Spanish city of Barcelona on par with his 1979 masterpiece "Manhattan."

The veteran director said he aimed to picture Barcelona "the same way I presented Manhattan to the world through my eye."

Bleary and jaundiced?

works for me. I hardly got a "friendly" vibe from the city when I was there.

J. Hoberman sez Manhattan is Allen's last fully realized vision, an "improved" fantasy version of NYC in '70s crisis. Some of the contempoary Village Voice debate on it is hilarious.

'annie hall'

j-ho is right, but 'manhattan' is a shitty film.

yer very persuasive

ech, it's kind of self-evident.

Nope.

it's creepy and misogynist and as joan didion says, faux-brow. mind you so is ingmar bergman. 'annie hall' was the last time he had gags. 'manhattan' is me generation crap.

husbands & wives

How is it misogynist when all the characters except Mariel Hemingway are self-absorbed assholes?

(bonus pts for naming the teen-actress Woody fling the MH character is based on)

I'm gonna guess Carrie Fisher

not nearly so famous. hint: Tracy rhymes with Stacey.

(Eric H might have a shot at this)

How is it misogynist when all the characters except Mariel Hemingway are self-absorbed assholes?

(bonus pts for naming the teen-actress Woody fling the MH character is based on)

-- Dr Morbius, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 4:23 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

we're supposed to like these assholes, or at least give in to being an asshole as a basic part of human nature or whatever, as j-ho does, sadly, in his review. a lot of the misogyny derives from the creepiness. i don't know which teenager woody was banging at the time.

give in to being an asshole as a basic part of human nature

YES

if that's how woody feels, then you know, good for him, but where's the guilt?

what are you, his mother?

where's the guilt? The film is laden with it, as usual.

In a way, Manhattan is Allen's personal Purple Rose of Cairo—the movie in which he successfully projects himself into Hollywood make-believe.

I guess that's true, what with Gershwin, Gordon Willis, and Woody's determination to take Heinrich Boll seriously.

I've softened on this film, but I still don't know what the hell J-Ho's talking about. "Allen's visual rhetoric was equal to his writing"? The dialogue just ping-pongs, and thanks to Willis' gorgeous compositions they seem even more static, if not frozen. Woody invents his own kind of sour romanticism here.

I dunno, that MoMA party with "I never had the wrong kind of orgasm" sounds pitch perfect for the chosen demimonde.

that scene's a textbook example of "why am i supposed to find these assholes charming"?! maybe if it was filmed no wave style i'd feel the ambivalence; but woody romanticizes the shit out of it.

Actually, that scene works. Woody's always shown contempt for eggheads ("There was this devastating Op-Ed in the Times about [the Nazi Rally]. Just devastating").

Woody's always shown contempt for eggheads

maybe the real ambivalence is that he also feels inferior to them and needs to suck up to them. is marshall mcluhan not an egghead!?

That's certainly part of it, but I don't like autobiographical interpretations.

woody might feel outclassed intellectually but i don't think that example has anything to do with it.

i'm not sure any of his films are great, but manhattan comes closest. husbands and wives is probably the last pretty good one.

The UES heard from.

real ambivalence is that he also feels inferior to them and needs to suck up to them

Yes! Groucho "I wd never belong to a club that wd have someone like me" etc.

Stacey Nelkin? who the hell is that?

without looking, a star of Halloween III.

She also had a fling with my best friend (who often hates Woody) in high school, so I like to mock him for preparing the way for Woody's schwanz.

OK, in the last scene of Manhattan does Tracy say "Everyone gets corrupted" or "NOT everyone gets corrupted"? I've heard it the first way (and did last night) but others differ. (and don't cite the error-riddled imdB.)

I don't think it's a GREAT Allen film, in large part cuz the Michael Murphy character is onscreen too much for such a bore (and he patented that role in the '70s).

It's "Not everyone gets corrupted."

I just wrote something about Manhattan that stole some of the lines I used here.

jeez, did you know that not only did Gordon Willis never win the cinematography Oscar, he was only ever nominated for Zelig and Godfather III????

I prefer "Everyone gets corrupted."

toss a coin

I've always thought it was the affirmative "Everybody gets corrupted"

well Shakey, what would Freud say about us hearing it that way?

that our fathers didn't love us, probably

I'm pretty sure it's the affirmative. It doesn't make as much sense the other way... it would sound too much like a promise to him, when what she's really trying to say is that he blew it. Which he kind of understands with that little smile at the end. "Well... I deserve that. Whaddya gonna do?"

I was thrilled to see this on TCM this weekend. It's one of my favorites. And I knew Woody never liked it, but Robern Osbourse informed me that he actually wanted to throw it away. He offered to make the studio another movie free of charge if they'd shitcan this one. Which I think is perfect somehow... only Woody could be that neurotic. It's like he just hit one out of the park, and he's standing on home plate going, "I don't know about this..." What are you doing? Run, run!

Of course, she also keeps saying, "6 months isn't so long."

Well, he also loves Stardust Memories, so...

Allen has said that he wants to shelve every film when it's finished. Which from Celebrity onward might usually have been the right move.

well in context isn't she joking? "corrupted"? the fuck? he's worried she might "change" in six months. weirdly paedy overtones to that.

well, that's it. If it's "Everybody gets corrupted," that's more like "Everybody grows up."

Clearly she's seen as an innocent ideal by him, see Hoberman invoking feminist interp of "sweet Rowena's ass," etc. (JH is weird on Allen shaving Isaac's age; Allen was 42 when the film was shot.)

The Tracy character doesn't strike me as having a big sense of humor, esp at that moment.

sweet Rowena's ass?

fellini, fool.

JH is weird on Allen shaving Isaac's age

"age"

I thought he said in the movie that he was 42? I could have sworn.

oh confused. my post was funnier if isaac was the chick. i'm not saying it was big lol-y or anything.

Oh, I see, he DOES say he's 42 in the movie, but he was 44 IRL. Meh, whatever... maybe he was 42 when he wrote it, and decided that was the age that should stick.

no, the film was released in spring '79, Allen had turned 43 a few months before, Hoberman is delusional.

I think this was the first film where Allen employed his visual trope of people leaving the frame, disappearing out of doorways, etc, with the camera remaining static until they return.

I love the shot where he and Mary are talking to each other in separate rooms, with each of the reverse shots occupied mostly my walls and doorframes.

BY walls etc

Only "everyone gets corrupted" makes sense to me.

I think this was the first film where Allen employed his visual trope of people leaving the frame, disappearing out of doorways, etc, with the camera remaining static until they return.

I love this technique - it always makes me smile whenever he does it nowadays