Match Point

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Just come back from. Not what I expected but still very good though. SJ was great and from the UK PoV it was great to see a film when I recognised nearly every person in it (MP for Flydale North) and I didn't see one shot of Piccadily Circus. So yeah.

― MitchellStirling (MitchellStirling), Thursday, 5 January 2006 22:11 (twenty years ago)

looks awful

friend's sister says SJ looks like playdoh

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 January 2006 22:12 (twenty years ago)

sorry, friend says she looks like playdoh

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 January 2006 22:13 (twenty years ago)

How hot is Jonathan?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 5 January 2006 22:15 (twenty years ago)

The Voice took a giant crap on it. I am dying of curiosity.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 5 January 2006 22:16 (twenty years ago)

i can't wait! gonna try to catch it over the weekend.

― miss michael learned (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 5 January 2006 22:19 (twenty years ago)

Whoever reviewed it for the Voice crapped on it; Hoberman liked it tho.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 5 January 2006 22:21 (twenty years ago)

i can't wait either

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:04 (twenty years ago)

criminal AND punishing

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:10 (twenty years ago)

seriously, though, (again): really really rubbish

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:10 (twenty years ago)

Worse than Melinda and Melinda????

NO, surely not.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:11 (twenty years ago)

Worse than Celebrity??????

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:11 (twenty years ago)

melinda was straight rubbish

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:12 (twenty years ago)

That's flattering it, my little Scots comrade.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:13 (twenty years ago)

FWIW, I'm still going to see it! :(

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:13 (twenty years ago)

the first tennis ball was kind of cool but the rest of is laughable and slightly annoying pish

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:14 (twenty years ago)

But would you have liked it if it was set in Govan?

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:14 (twenty years ago)

Sometimes I sort of worry that Woody is on a funny mission to make the worst film EVER before he dies!

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:15 (twenty years ago)

Better or worse than Anything Else?

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:16 (twenty years ago)

sometimes it's interesting to see films made by people set in where they're not from but this was an unfunny joke (if it's lucky)

crossposts

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:16 (twenty years ago)

http://static.vip.hr/portal/slikemovies/165_woody-allen1.t.jpg http://www.gosmiley.com/frowning/face4.gif

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:18 (twenty years ago)

I haven't seen his last three or four or more films but cathy has and enjoyed them OK and wanted to see this despite hating JRM and SJ and having no knowledge of it other than them and its title

she started laughing before I did but stopped before the guy in the baseball cap two rows in front

such bad actors w/ much worse lines

crosspost

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:20 (twenty years ago)

I've seen them all except Hollywood Ending (missed the opportunity) and Anything Else (...just...couldn't...)

I wonder if this will be the last.

― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:22 (twenty years ago)

Are there any scenes of Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Jake Gyllenhaal going at it in a pup tent?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:28 (twenty years ago)

this movie was pretty fucking bad

― howell huser (chaki), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:31 (twenty years ago)

aggresively bad

― dan (dan), Thursday, 5 January 2006 23:32 (twenty years ago)

i thought it was good, my bad. first time sj doesn't play a complete mouth-breather.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 6 January 2006 16:37 (twenty years ago)

reviewers seem to either think this is the best film he's made in years or the worst.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 6 January 2006 16:46 (twenty years ago)

this guy has a huge neck:

http://familyscreenscene.allinfoabout.com/graphics/chasing_liberty_goode.JPG

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:15 (twenty years ago)

which is why he was perfectly cast as chloe's sister, she's got a hella-big neck, too.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:37 (twenty years ago)

He looks like a thumb wearing a wig and a t-shirt (and a face).

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:38 (twenty years ago)

errrr....does anyone else see that?

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:39 (twenty years ago)

In my mind's eye I can only see pics of Rhys-Meyers and Jake Gyllenhaal in a pup tent, dammit.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:07 (twenty years ago)

I'm in with hstencil here - I liked it quite a bit, but I'm not sure how well it would stand up to repeat viewing.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 7 January 2006 02:06 (twenty years ago)

adam that's true!

― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Saturday, 7 January 2006 02:07 (twenty years ago)

this was good.

― it gradually dawned on me that my life is so crazy (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 7 January 2006 23:30 (twenty years ago)

off to see it right now!

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Saturday, 7 January 2006 23:34 (twenty years ago)

haha

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 8 January 2006 02:28 (twenty years ago)

Woah.

I...sort of liked it. I was actually surprised that I did! It made me cringe on occasion (the carpets in the Swiss Re building!), but I think it's probably his best film since Sweet & Lowdown (which isn't saying much, I know). Both of the two leads were pretty poor, but it was an interesting film.

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Sunday, 8 January 2006 03:08 (twenty years ago)

i kept thinking of it as "a morality play for atheists."

― miss michel legrand (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 8 January 2006 03:19 (twenty years ago)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/RJG/matchpoint.jpg

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 8 January 2006 03:26 (twenty years ago)

really good subtle moment that says a lot about both the characters through very few words:

chris: "have you tried yoga?"
nola: "no."

obv any yoga chris has done was superficial tennis-player stuff (stretching, psyching himself up for matches), and nola's never sought out any lost in translation-style eastern enlightenment.

― miss michel legrand (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 8 January 2006 03:51 (twenty years ago)

i just hate when stories are so pedestrian and predictable yet so many directors get away with saying shit like "but thats ok cuz its an opera" or whatever.

― howell huser (chaki), Sunday, 8 January 2006 03:56 (twenty years ago)

you mean like "trapped in the closet"?

*runs away*

― miss michel legrand (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 8 January 2006 03:57 (twenty years ago)

i do think that some directors set out to make genre pieces that they KNOW are in some way predictable and pedestrian, but that's the milieu and you wanna create something within those boundaries. i can't say for sure that that's what woody was doing (i haven't read any of his official press on this yet), but he's always been very namedroppy with his cultural references, so...

― miss michel legrand (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 8 January 2006 04:05 (twenty years ago)

I just hate the way he's so obsessed with Ralph Lauren.

I think I agree with jody on this. It was sort of slow, but finally Woody Allen made a film with a tangible moral dilemma in it! After SO long in the desert.

I was delighted to see Paul Kaye as the landlord. A wok!

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Sunday, 8 January 2006 04:11 (twenty years ago)

what redeemed it from just being a "cheating is bad, killing is bad" finger-wagger was its insistence that chance ultimately throws a monkeywrench into everything anyway. shit happens, maybe you're lucky and maybe you're not, and about the best you can hope for is to make decisions that won't keep you from getting to sleep at night.

― miss michel legrand (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 8 January 2006 04:14 (twenty years ago)

i mean, there's no "comeuppance" here. i like that.

― miss michel legrand (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 8 January 2006 04:17 (twenty years ago)

he did that in Crimes & Misdemeanors too, right?

― Zwan (miccio), Sunday, 8 January 2006 04:21 (twenty years ago)

I just hate the way he's so obsessed with Ralph Lauren.

ralph lauren is a big supporter of independent film (and one of his sons exec-produced the squid and the whale); maybe they're friends.

― miss michel legrand (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 8 January 2006 04:27 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 255 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I liked him in julien donkey boy

― adamrl (nordicskilla), Monday, 23 January 2006 20:43 (twenty years ago)

Utter rubbish. Crimes & Misdemeanors was funnier, shorter, and moved its schematic characters across a board with greater aplomb. Scarlet Johansson, however, has never looked yummier, especially in the scene at the pub, in which she confesses her life story.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 29 January 2006 23:53 (twenty years ago)

The scene in which the cop wakes up with The Mystery Solved in the middle of the night caused the entire theater to laugh hysterically. He used to film this shit as parodies and it got laughs then too, so maybe he's on to something.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 29 January 2006 23:59 (twenty years ago)

Right, but when I saw Match Point I did not think "if only this were funnier and shorter". I suppose I should rewatch C&M since all I can barely remember anything about it except that it felt like a generic Woody Allen film.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:22 (twenty years ago)

Allen still inserts thesis statements at obvious points like a 11th grader writing a Chaucer essay.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:28 (twenty years ago)

though i basically hated this movie i would argue an 11th grader's chaucer essay would be considerably more interesting than most movieZ0r these days.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:31 (twenty years ago)

match point is better than C&M because it ditches the completely irrelevant "woody allen plot" that sticks out of that movie like a sore thumb. martin landau was better than JRM (who was good) but i liked SJ's performance more than anjelica huston's.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:37 (twenty years ago)

well, cuz SJ had more screentime! and Allen remembered to write a couple of sympathetic moments. but Angelica Huston was way better at the shrill moments; I still felt sympathy for her.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:42 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

i just saw this. what an awful movie.

― mts (theoreticalgirl), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 04:22 (twenty years ago)

Woody's recent films age well when you start putting them in context. I hated Anything Else when it came out, and didn't really like this much, but after seeing a few bottom of the barrel horror movies or something, even Woody's complete failures start to look good and his kinda-sorta failures might be brilliant.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 05:09 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

I watched Match Point about two weeks ago pretty late at night after coming home from something. I don't know why I did this. I mention it b/c I wonder if it's part of why I can't shake this film from my mind. I mean, at the time I wasn't exactly rivetted by it and I laughed at dialogue that I'm pretty sure wasn't comedic, but I didn't want to stop watching either. And when the "twist" came, my heart started racing even though it felt absurd to be caught up in it. Yet I keep thinking about the film - it seems better in retrospect - and seems to be saying much more (about people, relationships, class, film itself) than an Allen film has said in many years - and I like that. And yet right now I find myself hating the film too. agh, so weird. that's all.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Thursday, 25 May 2006 04:32 (nineteen years ago)

I am still thinking about how bad it was, too.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 25 May 2006 05:18 (nineteen years ago)

It made me appreciate opera for the first time so I'm glad I saw this film. I downloaded the soundtrack immediately after watching the film.

JRM is soooo pretty but such a weak actor.

― Lovelace (Lovelace), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

the dialogue was often awful, most of it involving johnathon rhys meyers. he was also a very weird, and quite bad actor in this. a "poor" boy from ireland?? wtf.

It's curious that Jonathon Rhys Meyers actually did grow up poor in Ireland, and then climbed into upper class English circles, and yet somehow in the film it is totally unconvincing. He is such a painfully bad actor.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:33 (nineteen years ago)

I'm much more upset that Scarlett J is in the next Woody. It's a comedy, so at least she may not have to throw a tantrum or twitchily play with her cigarette.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:41 (nineteen years ago)

why hasn't he cast Topher Grace in any of his films yet, I wonder.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:47 (nineteen years ago)

It's curious that Jonathon Rhys Meyers actually did grow up poor in Ireland, and then climbed into upper class English circles, and yet somehow in the film it is totally unconvincing.

Golly, it's almost as if you expect a poor Irish kid who has climbed up into upper class English circles to behave in a certain way -- to be marked in certain ways -- that an actual poor Irish kid who has climbed up into upper class English circles doesn't behave.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:50 (nineteen years ago)

waaaay better in retrospect, mainly because i can mentally edit out that whole ping pong table scene

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:52 (nineteen years ago)

please explain what possible sense your sentence might make

crosspost

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 25 May 2006 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

Well, here's what it means: I am a gay man who grew up in New York City. When people find this out, they sometimes say things like "you don't really act like a gay man" or "you don't really act [or sound] like someone who grew up in New York City".

So I'd have to act a different way to make them believe I was a gay man from New York City.

This is not a problem with my behavior, though, since after I am a gay man who grew up in New York City and I'm just behaving like myself -- it is hard to get more "valid" than that. I am, by definition, acting like a gay man who grew up in New York City. This is a problem with their expectations.

So when you see a poor Irish guy who climbed his way up through English upper-class society acting like a poor Irish guy who climbed his way up through English upper-class society, to say that you don't believe he is behaving like a poor Irish guy who climbed his way up through English upper-class society says little-to-nothing about his behavior and everything about your expectations.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 25 May 2006 19:42 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, he IS a rubbish actor

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:04 (nineteen years ago)

He might be, but that's not why.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:06 (nineteen years ago)

I kind of meant accent-wise, primarily. You think, surely no-one who actually grew up in Ireland would have this ridiculous almost parody-of-a-toff accent. That is why I expressed disbelief that JRM actually did grow up in Ireland. But the few parts of the film where he says something about "back home in Ireland" his acting is so bad that you can hardly believe him. He seemed like a middle class English person, trying to be a toff, making up a story about being poor and Irish.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

it's almost as if you expect a poor Irish kid ... to behave in a certain way ... that an actual poor Irish kid ... doesn't behave

this was the confusion. I see what you are saying, now, but don't think it is v useful, though, since it almost seems to mean you shouldn't bother thinking about/judging any character whose life experience does not closely match your own

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

There are two different things I'm thinking about this, and I keep conflating them and having to delete what I type, so I am going to try to be careful here:

Cathy: He seemed like a middle class English person, trying to be a toff, making up a story about being poor and Irish.

I mean, I agree -- that's when I thought when the movie revealed him to be a poor Irish kid -- "is he really? he's not acting that way at all". But the movie insisted he was. And so why should I doubt it? I mean, perhaps JRM himself comes off as a middle-class English person. Or perhaps if you're trying to assimilate upper-class features, you get the [easier?] middle-class features down first. Or... there could be any number of possibilities, and you have to assume that not every Irish kid who claws his way up is going to behave the same, or even in a remotely similar way. It's not even as if the character did something completely improbable, such as not knowing how to properly speak English.

The other possibility, of course, is that, in the world of Match Point, that's exactly how these Irish boys who claw their way to upper-class assimilation behave. Since that's how the movie says they behave, and nothing seems to indicate that we should be suspicious of this, then there's not much advantage to disbelieving it.

After all, there isn't supposed to be that sort of correspondance between "the real world" and "a fictional world". Moments of correspondance exist to help us enter and understand the world but fiction is a set of understandings and assumptions and rules that create their own situations and tensions and whatnot -- and those rules might match up to "the real world"'s rules sometimes but they will never match up all the time. And the value of a work of fiction is not in how those rules match up to "the real world", but rather in how work out amongst themselves, within the fiction.

That's the other thing that this discussion is making me think of. But I have probably not explained it adequately. I need to go get some coffee I think.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

Unfortunately, really bad acting and horrible scripts can take you right out of the world of fiction and sit you back in a cinema watching a terrible film, in which the audience is laughing at loud at dialogue that wasn't supposed to be funny.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 25 May 2006 20:35 (nineteen years ago)

"Wasn't supposed to be funny".

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 25 May 2006 21:52 (nineteen years ago)

Like what, the pingpong seduction scene? That was entirely "supposed" to be funny -- awkward and over the top --, I thought.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 25 May 2006 21:52 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

I think this guy nails why MP, in addition to its general mediocrity, sorta nauseated me:

Woody’s terror of death used to be funny. It used to invigorate and provide depth and originality to his comedies. Now, as he edges over the hill of seventy, his fear of death has become all too real to him, and in consequence, to us. Now it hangs around his movies like a millstone around their necks, dragging them down into a swampy mire of the author’s misery and pessimism. Woody is so terrified of death that it is as if he doesn’t dare to laugh at it anymore. The result is, in his attempt to not “be there when it happens,” Woody has all but disappeared from his movies.

... The message of Match Point is that life is shit and everyone is a bastard, that it’s all random chaos so you may as well just commit murder, live an empty shallow life, and enjoy your creature comforts, because you’re going to be just as dead in the end anyway. Apparently, this passes for wisdom among sophisticated folk. Really, it’s just cheap cynicism. And where some people saw the strokes of a master artist, all I saw were shit stains on the wall of Woody’s cave.

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/53/woody.htm

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

I would imagine that part of the reason he has cut back on appearances in his films is that it takes a lot of energy to write, produce, direct and star in a film.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

philosophy of lead character does not = philosophy of the film

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:30 (nineteen years ago)

yeah really. that seems like a weird assumption to make.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:32 (nineteen years ago)

i thought the first part of this movie was stunningly tight for a woody flik, very concise and in-yr-face-expository and i also kept expecting a difft. twist for that portion. also the affair was clearly motivated by a sort of class-hostility that the two climbers shared, and there was that undercurrent of resentment by nola abt. how she didn't *really* know how to climb and got cast aside while jrm could sell himself on what he pretended to be much better. the c+p stuff was classic woody and yeah he oversold the luck thing, but the payoff was great and the whole thing was actually a big comedic set-up that has waaay more in common with love&death than ppl. give credit for. sj lent herself to too many alice-like moments is one problem. another problem was the murder scene itself which was terribly done and felt all unravelly and sloppy when it should have been either precise and well-excecuted or precise in its incompetence -- instead it just dragged and detracted from the momentum. it would have been better had it been more offscreen as a whole.

i also like how sj's character took a while to be revealed for what she was, and liked the ping-pong setup in that regard.

the ending was very well shot and put-together too. but yeah, thematically c+m gave the same feeling with a much bigger jolt.

i worry that when woody casts himself these days he can't help but be all tick and artifice -- there's too much that goes with him now. anything else solved that pretty nicely i thought, & the only reason i see for the hate on it is that ppl. don't appreciate the acting chops of jb and willow.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:40 (nineteen years ago)

omg the acting in anything else was an abomination. In general I like when Woody uses stand-ins (Branagh, Cusack, Penn, Ferrell, etc.) but Biggs was just not up to the task. I'm dyin to see Woody cast Topher Grace in something though...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:50 (nineteen years ago)

Ricci is pretty much across-the-board horrible too, I can't think of any movie improved by her presence.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:51 (nineteen years ago)

(I need to see MP again)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:52 (nineteen years ago)

haha yeah it was cr and not willow! now i remember, she was pretty lame. i think biggs is a great actor tho. biggs should have been cast against mena suvari again -- that would have been awesome. cr hasn't been good since addams family values, really. gothy child actors never really pan out, do they?

biggs' "hey, i'm a dopey nice guy" shtick was perfect tho for grafting allen-isms onto.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 August 2006 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

ricci was great in the addams family but that's about it.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 4 August 2006 21:00 (nineteen years ago)

never saw the Addams Family

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 21:01 (nineteen years ago)

the Opposite of Sex made me want to claw my eyes out

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 4 August 2006 21:01 (nineteen years ago)

Sterling's comments about the how the murder scene would have been better more off-screen are probably OTM.

The person Morbius quotes is entirely wrong about the "message" of the film, but might be right about Woody's mortality.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 5 August 2006 04:09 (nineteen years ago)

i absolutely loved the murder scene. it was horror in a laurel and hardy style. brilliant.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Saturday, 5 August 2006 14:49 (nineteen years ago)

The Opposite of Sex, along with her Wednesday Addams, justifies Ricci's career.

I've heard enough Allen interviews on MP that while he doesn't endorse murder, he pretty much shares the tennis bum's view of the universe's workings. I thought the Bright Lights writer's comment that the last 40 years of physics have come close to invalidating such nihilism was provocative and not something I remember seeing anyone argue before (not in a film essay, anyway).

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 5 August 2006 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

i thought that review morbs posted was pretty dead-on, esp since my first thought when exiting the film was, "that was not nearly woody allen enough for a woody allen movie..."

― tehresa needs more out of this relationship than she's willing to put in (tehres, Saturday, 5 August 2006 15:18 (nineteen years ago)

Unlike the Martin Landau character in C&M, Chris doesn't seem to be relieved to find himself free of conscience, nor is he enjoying his freedom to pursue temporal pleasures without moral constraint. He seems to be profoundly disappointed that there was no underlying moral principle to the universe that required retribution in any form, either by his apprehension and punishment by society, or by self-imposed guilt.

And the facile "ball falls on right side of net; they find the ring" device seems way too unlikely to be random chance. It's probably a weak deus ex machina thing Allen pulled out of his butt but within the movie itself it almost (contradictory, I know) looks like an intentional irony of fate that the cosmos pulls on Chris. It's kind of a strained reading but I thought it was Chris' bad luck to always be lucky, to get what he ostensibly wants without ever having any real wants or desires. Like there was a conscious agent who pulled a fast one by allowing him to get away with the murder, depriving him of the one thing he might have really wanted, concrete knowledge of the existence of that very agent or at least a basis for meaning. Twisty, and probably off the mark, but there it is.

Anyway, lots of comparisons to the Patrick Bateman character in American Psycho, but without the all the hilarity.

― slugbuggy (slugbuggy), Saturday, 5 August 2006 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

THAT is much more like the "message" I got from the film.

That review is completely awful, misreading Woody and physics in order to fit his preconceived notions.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 5 August 2006 19:00 (nineteen years ago)

At my screening the audience cackled when the fucking ball landed on the right side.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 5 August 2006 19:26 (nineteen years ago)

ScarJo = yum yums

― oh, wrinklepaws! (Wrinklepaws), Saturday, 5 August 2006 21:25 (nineteen years ago)

The Opposite of Sex errs in the same way that All About Eve does: it overplays the cruelty of its animating consciousness. Lisa Kudrow was more convincing (and moving).

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 5 August 2006 22:42 (nineteen years ago)

slugbuggy very otm.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 6 August 2006 03:55 (nineteen years ago)

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