2023 - COUP DE CHANCE, Woody Allen at 87

This a minor but decent Woody Allen drama from a director who has had his ups and downs in his personal and professional life.  This film will be known as the one that Woody Allen shot in the French language after having his script translated.  Apparently this was the way he was able to get financing for this film.

Coup De Chance does rehash themes from Woody's previous dramatic films, betrayal, lust, retribution, etc.  Allen is an old hand at juggling his stories around to make interesting films even if his themes are the same.  The story is about a love triangle. A woman gets involved with an old school mate while her extremely jealous and as it turns out very dangerous husband becomes aware of what's going on.

 

As with all Woody Allen films, it looks great. Vittorio Storaro no spring chicken himself at age 83 photographed the film.  Storato had been associated with Coppola, Bertolucci and Argento so how could it not look good.  Frankly having Woody Allen's dialog translated into French almost works better for the film.  At times the characters in many of Allen's films could get mighty pretensious with the stuff that comes spewing out of their mouths about art and philosophy.  As usual in one of Allen's films the actors give good performances and this time in French.

At age 87 it's hard to believe Allen has many more films in him but if Coup De Chance is his last film it's not a bad way to end his career.

The was of course written by Woody Allen, the running time is 93 minutes.

1998 - CELEBRITY, interesting Woody Allen film

Woody Allen had a great idea, a film about the prevailing fixation the public has with the celebrity culture.  Unfortunately he didn't really develop the story and screenplay very well.  The film follows a divorced couple who find themselves interacting with the famous and near famous in New York City.  The film is very disjointed with good scenes interlaced with some very indifferent and frankly unfunny moments.  The film also spends a lot of time on the love life of a celebrity profiler played by Kenneth Branagh which frankly is not very interesting.  One critic called Celebrity Woody's version of Fellini's La Dolce Vita.  But this film is a far cry from that one.

Also, chief among the problems  with this film are Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis as the divorced couple.  Branagh probably with Woody Allen's encouragement apes Woody's mannerisms and speech patterns, it's a very strange and frankly kind of an annoying performance.  What I didn't realize until I spent a little time revisiting some past reviews, is that Judy Davis is also mimicking Woody Allen as well.  It's like the viewer is watching a Ying and Yang version of Woody Allen.

 

The film was photographed in black and white by Sven Nykvist, Ingmar Bergman's go to cinematographer.  Nykvist apparently wasn't comfortable working with Woody Allen and this was their final film together. Nykvist was also starting to show the effects of the disease progressive aphasia.

 

The supporting cast that was assembled by Allen certainly contributed to his film, Melanie Griffith, Winona Ryder, Leonard DiCapro (supposedly playing a fictionalized version of Johnny Depp), Charlize Theron and Donald Trump, they all knew a thing or two about constantly being in the spotlight.  It's surprising that Woody Allen didn't appear in Celebrity, he's certainly been a target for the gossip columns with his rather messy personal life.  In spite of it's flaws,  Celebrity is worth a look

Written by Woody Allen, the running time is 113 minutes.

2007 - CASSANDRA'S DREAM, disappointing Woody Allen drama

 Only the cast can keep this very disappointing Woody Allen drama going.  Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor play two brothers anxious to improve their social standing.  To do this they approach their gangster Uncle played by the as always excellent Tom Wilkinson.  Wilkinson will finance their dreams if they will just commit a murder for him. 

 Cassandra's Dream as one critic called it is basically a "morality play," the plot weaves along to it's inevitable and kind of pointless "crime doesn't pay "conclusion.  Woody Allen has already kind of covered this material before in his films Match Point and Crimes and Misdemeanors, and frankly a lot more successfully.

 

The film was shot in England and the character's dialog sounds like something an American would think that blue collar English people would sound like. What was the point of even filming in England ?  For the most part Allen hardly takes advantage of the London settings.  But this is a typical polished Woody Allen production, in this case the production is at the service of his poor script. 

The film was an original screenplay by Woody Allen,  the running time is 108 minutes.

1992 SHADOWS AND FOG - Woody Allen makes a UFA film

Woody Allen's tribute, or spoof or whatever film that attempts to invoke the feeling of a German Expressionist film kind of like something Fritz Lang would have directed for the famous German film studio UFA GmbH, usually called UFA.  

The film has the rich atmosphere of a European 1930's film which Allen further emphasizes by shooting in black and white with lots of movie fog floating around on his sets.  The plot is about the hunt for a serial killer which a mob is on the trail of.  Allen is recruited by the mob and after one thing or another everyone thinks he is the killer.

 The film is full of Woody's usual one liners which kind of makes it a modern counterpoint to what is going on in the 30's setting.  However a lot of the dialog spoken by the actors seems rather stilted and forced.  Allen keeps a very tight grasp on the line readings of cast which comes off as very stagey.  Naturally Woody gets all the best lines after all he wrote it, and he delivers them  in his usual funny way.

 

At this point in his career just about every actor wanted to work with Woody Allen, so we have a string of grade A actors who show up in small bits.  Mia Farrow is also in the film she was still involved with Woody Allen when this film was made.

 

The film courted and achieved a status as one of his worse films.  The critics for the most part hated it and audiences stayed away, another major flop for Woody Allen.

The film has it's moments the production design and cinematography are excellent and nobody can put across a funny line like Woody Allen.

The running time is a brief 85 minutes

2014 - MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT, late period Woody Allen romantic comedy

Another late period Woody Allen film.  Magic In The Moonlight is a romantic comedy, the kind of film Woody Allen had made before and probably a little better.  Still the film does have it's charms for the most part.  

Colin Furth is a magician called to the southern part of France to help expose a clairvoyant played by Emma Stone who has managed to ingratiate herself into a rich American family.  I've seen Furth's character before in other Allen films, the athiestic skeptic who doesn't believe in real magic but succumbs to the charms of Stone's clairvoyant.  The film at times becomes a discussion between rationality and the need to believe in a higher authority, god if you will.

The film eventually turns into a romance between Furth and Stone.  Let's get this out of the way, Furth is too old to be involved with Stone who was probably in her 20's when she filmed this but the two performers are so good you can kind of set the age difference aside, kind of.

 

In fact the film is well cast as is typical for a Woody Allen film.  The film also has nice photography on some pleasant locations and it is a pleasure to look at.  Woody Allen films are always well assembled.  For the most part this is a minor film but not without it's compensations particularly the performers and some of the amusing dialog.

 

Written as usual by Woody Allen, the film runs 98 minutes.

2000 - SMALL TIME CROOKS, minor but enjoyable Woody Allen film

Apparently taking his inspiration from the Italian caper film Big Deal On Madonna Street, Woody Allen wrote and directed this amusing crime comedy about a group of rather minor crooks who plan to rob a bank by tunneling into it from a shop than makes cookies. Naturally things don't go exactly to plan.

 

Allen put together his usual fine cast for this film.  Tracey Ullman plays his wife an ex stripper who finds out she has a real knack for baking gourmet cookies. Elaine May is her rather clueless cookie baking associate.  Hugh Grant is an art dealer who Ullman uses to gain access to the socially elite of New York City.

 

Woody Allen brings his usual film making skills to tell this story.  The film isn't laugh out loud funny but it does have it's moments and Ullman and Allen play off of each other very well.

 

This is the type of material Allen did early in his career before he moved onto what I guess would be  films with more substance.  In some ways it's almost a relief to see Allen do some that is not so pretentious and not shot in black and white.

The running time is 95 minutes. 

1980 - STARDUST MEMORIES, Woody Allen apes Fellini

I saw this when it was first released in the theaters At the time I thought it was some kind of masterpiece.  Now I'm not so sure.  Obviously Fellini's 8 1/2 is the inspiration for this film.  It's photographed in black and white by Gordon Willis who was a master cinematographer.  It borrows the opening of Fellini's picture and the film in general is about a famous comedic film director who doesn't what to make funny films anymore much like the character in Sullivan's Travels.

The character of Sandy Bates the film director is clearly modeled after Woody Allen.  This isn't the nebbish character he played in his films but a guy who knows his way around a film production and how to deal with studio executives.  In addition, Sandy Bates is something of a lady's man who doesn't seem to have any problems getting together with beautiful women,  probably a character closer to the real Woody Allen.

 

Stardust Memories also had the reputation as the film where Woody Allen announced to the world that  he hated his fans, something he has denied.  However watching the film with it's grotesque Fellini like  gargoyle faces it's hard to argue that he certainly doesn't seem to like them very much.

 

For a meticulous filmmaker like Woody Allen who spends most of the film setting up his character's extensional and emotional angst he gets to the end of the film and clearly doesn't know how to resolve it.

Woody Allen is a talented guy but I'm not sure copying other filmmakers is the best way to make films even if it's a "loving homage."

The running time, 85 minutes.

1993 - MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, the return of Diane Keaton

 Manhattan Murder Mystery also known as "Annie Hall and Alvy Singer hit middle age," marks the return of Diane Keaton as Woody's leading lady.  They have not lost of any of their comic timing and they are chiefly the reason to watch this film.

The plot has something to do with Woody and Diane trying to decide if one of their neighbors has murdered his wife or whatever.  Woody Allen and Diane Keaton do have character names but lets face it they are playing Woody Allen and Diane Keaton.

The film has some amusing scenes and as is typical with a Woody Allen film the production looks very polished.

 

Woody Allen wrote the screenplay along with Marshal Brickman his collaborator on Annie Hall.  The film runs 107 minutes.

2016 - CAFE SOCIETY, a very weak Woody Allen film

Woody Allen seems enamored with the Hollywood social life of the 1930's because his screenplay sure names drops a lot of old Hollywood stars which probably means nothing to a modern audience.

This is another one of those Woody Allen movies about star crossed lovers which ultimately ends with one of his typically melancholy endings.  The premise of the film is that Jesse Eisenberg travels to Hollywood, California to work with his uncle played by Steve Carell.  Eisenberg falls in love with Kristen Stewart but doesn't know that Stewart is having an affair with his uncle.  Eisenberg eventually ends up marrying Blake Lively who isn't exactly chopped liver.

All the typical Woody Allen cliches are here.  The black and white credits, the jazz music, the weird way all of his characters talk mouthing his stylized dialog etc.  The conceit in this film is that Kristen Stewart is a woman who is so attractive that she has two men who are head over heels over her.  Really the film needed a young Diane Keaton to carry that one off.

As usual with a Woody Allen film the production is top quality and the cinematography by Vittorio Storato is very good if maybe a little to heavy on the golden California sunshine look.

96 minutes, written by Woody Allen (who else).

1988 - ANOTHER WOMAN, Woody Allen reworks Wild Strawberries badly

Let's go to the dialog:

"I accept your condemnation."

“Maybe you’ve had too much champagne.”
“Maybe this conversation scares you.”

“I laid my head down and closed my eyes, and I guess I dozed off. I don’t know how long I was asleep, but one of the pillows must have slipped off the vent, and I gradually became aware of a voice. A woman’s voice. And it was such an anguished, heart-wrenching sound that I was totally arrested by its sadness.”

Ingmar Woody directs Liv Rowlands and Max Von Hackman

“Something tells me you know everything, and you’re scared.”
 
"I closed the book, and felt this strange mixture of wistfulness and hope, and I wondered if a memory is something you have or something you've lost. For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace."

Finally this little gem, seems to be Woody's own review of his film:

"This is overblown, it's too emotional, it's maudlin. Your dreams may be meaningful to you, but to the objective observer, it's just so embarrassing."

1987 -RADIO DAYS, Woody Allen nostalgia

 Woody Allen reflects on growing up in Queens, New York.  A large part of this trip down memory lane is Allen reflecting on the radio programs he enjoyed as a kid.  

This is a very minor Woody Allen film, sort of funny, episodic and completely forgettable.  Allen seems to be in a very nostalgic mood.  He's loaded the film up with old music from the 1940's.  He's also stuck in some of his favorite actors from his previous films, like Jeff Daniels, Tony Roberts, Dianne Wiest, Julie Kavner and his former leading lady Diane Keaton.  

The film has beautiful photography from Carlo Di Palma who had worked with Antonioni and the art direction and production design are of a very high quality, the film looks like it was actually filmed in the 1940's.  One of the enjoyable things about Woody Allen films is that they look good and are extremely well made. 

 

The problem with Radio Days is that is is a nothing film.  The comedy in the film are vignettes with no real thread holding them together.  The film is nothing more than a time killer which at least has the benefit of being short if not sweet.   

85 minutes.

1966 - WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY? silly Woody Allen movie

Woody Allen and some of his cronies take a Japanese spy film called International Secret Police:  Key of Keys and dub in a new soundtrack with a silly story and a bunch of half clever jokes.  The result is sort of funny and mighty stupid.   

 Akiko Wakabayashi

The producer took the finished film which ran about an hour and stuck in some songs by The Lovin' Spoonful and padded it out with some additional footage.  Allen ended up suing the producer for compromising his artistic vision?  When this dopey film made money,  Allen dropped his lawsuit.

The whole thing hardly seems worth the trouble. 

Probably one of the stranger things about the film is the involvement of the future stars of You Only Live Twice, Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama.  Between the two of them these two actors were chased around by King Kong, Godzilla, Ghidorah and James Bond.

 Mie Hama

What's Up Tiger Lily is about half hilarious with most of the real funny stuff coming in the first half of the film,  after that the picture seems to run out of ideas and just drags itself across the finish line.

80 minutes, written by Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Len Maxwell, Julie Bennett, Frank Buxton, Mickey Rose, Bryna Wilson and Hideo Andô.

2011 - MIDNIGHT IN PARIS - Woody Allen's biggest hit in a long time.

I suppose there must be some satisfaction at Woody Allen's age (75 years) that Midnight in Paris has been his most successful film ever.  Audiences have seemed to embrace this light weight romantic fantasy with nice scenic shots of Paris.

Frankly this Woody Allen film doesn't seem all that different than any of the other later Woody Allen films.  This is the same type of film he has been cranking out for the past 10 years or so.  Midnight in Paris is maybe lacking some of his sourpuss attitude that is usually to be found in his films, and I am guessing that is the reason audiences have responded to this film.

With any Woody Allen film, the actors have to be very good to not sound like Woody Allen.  Owen Wilson was apparently up to the challenge, he takes some of the tired Woody Allen comedy bits and dialog and makes them seem sort of funny.

The women characters in the film get the short end of the deal.  Rachel McAdams, who has been struggling to carry a film as a lead gets the supporting role as Wilson's finance,  a shallow and materialistic woman.  Marion Cotillard is the free spirit who Wilson meets when he travels back in time.  She's pretty much there as a way for Allen to move his slight plot forward. 

Woody Allen on the set.

As usual with any Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris is very well made.

94 minutes.

1969 - TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, Woody Allen's documentary spoof

Woody Allen's crammed about a million jokes into this comedy about a notoriously inept bank robber.

This is what is considered the early Woody Allen film period which was though to be more accessible for a general audience.  In eight years he moved to a more sophisticated visual style with Annie Hall.  However, Take the Money and Run doesn't look that primitive.  Seen on a good DVD the film is pretty polished. 

Allen wrote Take the Money and Run with Mickey Rose a comedy sketch writer who had worked for Sid Caesar, Rodney Dangerfield and Johnny Carson.  Rose was probably responsible for a lot of the goofy sight gags that run throughout the film.

Take the Money and Run is still funny.  Allen had perfected his nebbish character by this time and the film does zip along from one situation to another.  If the film isn't laugh out loud funny all of the time it is pretty amusing.

85 minutes.

2005 - MELINDA AND MELINDA, Woody Allen mixes comedy and tragedy yet again and very obviously

Woody Allen takes on the challenge of telling one story from two different points of view, one a comedy and one a tragedy.

As if anyone doesn't already know, comedy and tragedy are very intertwined in drama.  Apparently Woody Allen has been pondering this deep thought for a while although Shakespeare had kind of beaten him to the punch in The Winter's Tale (1623) and Much Ado About Nothing (1598) by the time Allen filmed Melinda and Melinda (2005).

In the comedy part or is it the tragedy part of the story, Will Farrell gets stuck aping Woody Allen's acting style, lucky fellow.   Steve Carrell has a small part, Chloe Sevigny, Josh Brolin and Wallace Shawn among others show up although I can't remember if they are in the comedy part or the tragedy part.

The actors in this Woody Allen film get to spout lots of pretentious high faulting dialog which is more preposterous than clever or entertaining.  Some of the things they come out of their mouths about art and life are really ridiculous.  It's as if Woody Allen never spent anytime around actual people.  However this a rare Woody Allen film that has some black people in it although they might as well be white people in black face.

Woody Allen directs Randa Mitchell in the comedy part or is it the tragedy part?

The cross cutting between the comedy and tragedy stories is sort of interesting.  As usual this Woody Allen film has his typical good cast, nice photography and yet another underdeveloped script. The soundtrack is Allen's typical now tiresome selection of mainstream jazz music.   

Melinda and Melinda is just not much of a film.

100 minutes.

1994 - BULLETS OVER BROADWAY Woody Allen's comedy about creating art

Woody Allen's film about creating a play with all the compromises and crap that comes up is a very funny film.  Allen mixes 1930's gangsters with pretentious theatrical people for a pretty funny film

Woody Allen was really on the ball with this cast.  Dianne Wiest is the pompous windbag Broadway star who can manipulate the writer of the play with absolutely no problem.  Jennifer Tilly is the girlfriend of the gangster financing the play with a voice like a cockatoo, it's a cliched part but she brings if off.  John Cusack is the actor who gets to be the stand in for Woody in this film as the half assed intellectual who isn’t as deep as he thinks he is.

The film has a lot of other good actors, Jack Warden, Harvey Fierstein, Tracey Ullman and  Jim Broadbent, just to name a few.  Trivia note, the film also has Stacey Nelkin, the actual teenager Woody Allen was involved with (see Manhattan) in the 1970's.

After setting up the comic situations, Bullets Over Broadway runs out of gas towards the middle of the film.  The film runs a little over 90 minutes but it would probably would have played better if it was a little shorter.  However, this is one of his better 1990's films.  

98 minutes, written by Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath.

1999 - SWEET AND LOWDOWN, is about a jazz musician but it's really about Woody Allen vs. Sean Penn

Woody Allen started to disconnect with his audience in the 1990's.  Allen is a funny guy but his humor had always been for a fairly specialized crowd.  As he drifted into drama he seemed to lose touch with the humorous side of his personality.  He can still put together technically funny scenes, but it now seems like he mostly goes through the motions.

Woody Allen's dialog has a certain cadence to it which he expects the actors to perform in a certain way.  This ends up with the actors in his films frequently sounding like Woody Allen, with his halting neurotic vocal delivery.  This was most evident in Celebrity where Kenneth Branagh completely parroted Woody Allen's acting style to a ridiculous degree.

Sean Penn is too strong an actor to play Allen's game and he takes the character of a jazz guitarist who happens to be a real jerk and makes it his own.  Penn does the best job possible with the disappointing dialog and situations in this film and he is the best reason to watch Sweet and Lowdown.

Incredibly, the actor Samantha Morton won an Academy Award for her portrayal of the Chaplin like mute girlfriend who sticks with him through his ups and down.  An "oh come on" acting job.

Sweet and Lowdown is as close as anyone will get to Woody Allen's explanation of his less than sterling personal behavior.  The jazz guitarist Emmet Ray is portrayed throughout the film as a brilliant musician and artist and this seems to be the justification and excuse for his mistreatment of the devoted mute girl and the people he works for.

Sweet and Lowdown never really has much of a story and just completely peters out towards the end. The film does have excellent photography and production design, Woody Allen films always look great.

The film's very unsatisfying conclusion has Emmet Ray recording a series of "brilliant pieces of music" and then vanishing from the public.  Another Woody Allen wish fullfillment? 

The running time is 95 minutes.