Last week, the deaths of film directors Michelangelo Antonioni and Igmar Berman were announced. Earlier, we'd tossed around the idea of doing a piece on Robert Altman and that never came to pass. For a number of reasons, last week we decided to do a feature on films directed by Woody Allen.
For us, Allen's career has four phases. Early years, Keaton years, Farrow years, final years. Allen began life writing comic bits and jokes, moved on to writing sketches and then stand up comedy. At that time, it was thought he had reached his heights.
Had he continued dabbling in the films of others, he just might have.
The Early Years . . .
Take The Money and Run (1969).
Jim: This kicks of Woody Allen's film directing career with a comedy caper about Virgil Starkwell, a petty criminal, shot, at times, as a mock-documentary. Janet Margolin has nice bits with dialogue but Allen forgot to write her a character. That's pretty much true of all the characters in the film including then wife Louise Lasser.
Ty: As a bonus, African-Americans appear somewhat in the film due to its prison setting prior to the big breakout. Virgil's parents and others grab throw away bits. Though funny, it doesn't add up to a film and it doesn't work as a mockumentary since too many scenes are set when no cameras would be around. At 86 minutes, it goes by quickly and provides the same number of amusing moments to be found in any standard National Lampoon movie.
Wally: Allen's Virgil is supposed to be sympathetic but he has dark sides to him. The anti-social bits will be integrated better in later characters.
Bananas (1971).
Mike: In this film, Fielding Mellish, played by Allen, is trapped in a job testing products and wishes for more. He's a social loser and ends up traveling to a country named San Marcos where a revolution takes place and Mellish ends up becoming el presidente. Returning to the US as the leader of San Marcos, he's quickly spied on by the FBI and ends up on trial.
Rebecca: Possibly realizing that he has no grasp on female characters at this point, he raids from Louise Lasser's life to provide a character. As with the film prior, there's still the not-young-boy leering attitude as though he's spent far too much time with a stack of Playboys. This is most evident when a topless woman runs around a camp screaming she's bitten by a snake.
Betty: This also contains the strongest character Allen will ever write for or have played by a person of color. That's due to the an onscreen bit where J. Edgar Hoover has to testify against Nebbish at his trial and comes disguised as a Black woman. It's a brief bit and says a great deal about Allen that, all the movies later, this remains the strongest part he's ever created for a person of color.
Rebecca: The Playboy attitude can be seen throughout but especially in the ending where Allen and Lasser's characters make love and it's presented as a sporting event anchored by Howard Cosell. It leaves a lingering after taste that's not good. Other than those moments, the film is very funny. Allen's direction seems more focused and he handles the location bits well.
Wally: There are bits in this film that not only hold up but still have pertinence today. I can watch Take The Money And Run and laugh a few times but this one does succeed on the laugh meter. Lasser's character is less in on the joke and more the joke in most of her scenes. She pulls it off but the refusal to let her take part in the zaniness is probably the film's greatest flaw.
C.I.: Play It Again, Sam (1972) first saw life as a successful play. In the films we've already discussed, Allen was acting stand up bits. In Bananas, Charlotte Rae, among others, was brought in to flesh out underwritten characters. Prior to the play, Allen wrote for himself as if he was the only one on stage. The nature of the play, a love triangle, would require that Allen actually write three distinct characters. His character has a fixation on Humphrey Bogart whose films were enjoying a revival on many campuses during that period. He did not direct the film version of the play and we're not including it here.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972).
Mike: I find this film unwatchable. There are bits, if you force your way through, that might make you laugh. Along with Allen, also appearing are Lasser, Lynn Redgrave, Tony Randall, Burt Reynolds and others.
Rebecca: With Mike being under thirty, it can be said the film doesn't hold up. The reality is that the film didn't hold up in real time. This was a comic look at sexuality if you got your ideas on sexuality from the pages of Playboy. When I first saw this film, my boyfriend at the time, as we left the theater, said, "Well, it might be funny to our parents." That perfectly captures the film. The sexual revolution had already taken place and all Allen had to show for it was that he could address various sexual categories that he wouldn't have been able to in the fifties. The jokes are rarely funny and were stale conventions by the time they appeared on the big screen. Whatever progress the play made for Allen, it's not to be found in the film where women are always the problem and you get the idea they wouldn't exist at all if he could have made an entire film about masturbation.
This is the end of the early years when Woody Allen as a director produced films that might make you laugh in places but that were as rudimentary as anything turned out by Harold Ramis. One of the biggest problems onscreen was the lack of comic foil and a tendency to film standup. Bananas was the breakthrough film of this period and the only one with a visual sense. The others would have worked just as well if performed on radio.
The Diane Keaton Years . . .
Sleeper (1973).
Ava: This is the first time Keaton's directed by Allen. In this film, Allen's character is frozen and brought back to life over 200 years later when the government has become a police state and the revolution needs someone that the state has no biometrics on. Miles goes off on a mission to save the nation by finding out about the Aries Project. He ends up exposed by noted poet Luna, played by Keaton, and while he's captured, she's also target now because of what's he done. Luna escapes and joins the revolution. She will help bring a reprogrammed Miles back to the revolution.
Elaine: In Play It Again Sam, play or movie, Diane Keaton was excepted to be heart warming and while that was a step up on Allen's previous portrayals of women, it wasn't much fun. In this film, Allen finally accepts the need for a partner and Keaton makes the perfect comic foil. Whether impersonating Brando during the reprogramming of Miles or the operation sequence which throws back to the Marx pictures, Keaton proves she's not just a comic foil, she's a strong comedian in her own right.
Cedric: An African-American woman is presumably Luna's friend early in the film. Her scenes mainly consist of stroking the orb that get them high. In one of the worst moments of an otherwise decent film, Allen's character attempts to hump the woman. He slaps the butt of a large White woman but, for some reason, thinks hopping on top of an African-American woman is the height of hilarity. Considering the body of his work and the lack of African-Americans, that bit results in more questions than laughter. That said, it's the most enjoyable Woody Allen film for me of the 70s. Diane Keaton really makes the film.
Rebecca: This is the first time an Allen film has a real look. The shots are better planned, true, but in terms of the wardrobe and the sets, this plays like his first film with a real budget and the first film he's really comfortable as director on.
Love & Death (1975).
Dona: Napoleon is invading Russia in this period film. Allen stars along with Diane Keaton. Allen meeting death as a young boy is an overly copied piece but it still funny in the original. His character is Boris and once Boris goes to war, the film goes limp and takes forever to come back to life.
Jess: This co-incides with the absence of Keaton. In a brief scene, after he's been decorated as a hero, he and Keaton meet up and then part again. Every time she rejoins the film, she gives it a lift. Everytime she's offscreen it's like a Bob Hope film that's trying real hard to be clever but not cutting it.
Rebecca: Diane's not used nearly enough. She's hilarious when announcing her engagement, hilarious before, hilarious throughout. She adds a zip to every scene she's in.
Betty: The whole sequence where the attempted murder of Napoleon takes place would not work at all without her. Allen's age is noticeable in this film, both onscreen and in the character. Little bits of staring at the "ample bosom" of another female character drag those parts down to teen sex comedy. Keaton brings the film to a higher level every time she's on camera. My personal favorite is the sequence where her husband dies.
Ty: The inspiration that was evident on Sleeper grows on this film and, as a director, continues Allen's progress.
Annie Hall (1977)
Mike: This film won Oscars for best picture, best director, best screenplay for Allen and Marshall Brickman and best actress for Diane Keaton.
Rebecca: That was a strong year for Keaton with her dramatic role in Looking For Mr. Goodbar. That was also the first non-Allen film that she was really able to show her chops -- comedy or drama -- in.
Mike: This film has many moments that have been copied in other films as well as sitcoms. Alvy Singer is a stand up comic in love with Annie Hall.
Jim: They can't stay together which actually says more about Alvy than Annie. Alvy's very rigid. This film has an animated sequence that's done well, it also contains hilarious flashbacks to childhood. Carol Kane seems to be playing the Louis Lasser part and Janet Margolin plays one of Alvy's ex-wives, primarily in a scene where Alvy's obsessed with the JFK murder in order to avoid connecting with her.
Wally: Allen works with a large cast and a lot more locations, primarily NYC, than he has before. The film, a classic, will be the downfall of Allen over the next few years. The characters, bit characters, supporting and lead, are his sharpest and surest.
Jess: Allen repeatedly relies in jazz music as the background music throughout nearly all films. In this one, Keaton sings torch songs but somehow is going to become a popular recording artist? That's not a comment on the actress' talent as a singer but that is noting a "In what world?" aspect to the way Woody Allen sees things.
Jim: And it should be noted that Tony Lacy is the hot record producer who's going to make her a recording star. He's played by Paul Simon. Shelly Duvall plays a reporter from Rolling Stone. That's the closest in any of his films throughout the 70s he will get to rock music.
Interiors (1978).
Jim: A dog. Diane Keaton's is filmed badly but does end up with a character. Depressing and morose.
C.I.: Maureen Stapleton hated Allen and never wanted to work with him again. Without the humor, he was floundering. With the big Oscar wins, he was determined to make a big statement and didn't have it in it. This is one of many his nods to Bergman and the female characters are insulting.
Ava: He was applauded for this unwatchable film, his second unwatchable one by our standards, and that was largely due to the fact that he was "serious" and suddenly what had been one of America's most talented comedy directors might be able to pull off drama. Keaton is betrayed by the script and by the camera but she comes off better than anyone else. When Allen does drama, his cribs are not seen as nods or riffs, just as the theft they are.
Manhattan (1979).
C.I.: Where the city of NYC is beautiful, it's the people who are ugly.
Rebecca: That really says it all. His best visual up to that point and possibly to this day, it's filmed in black and white, but the characters are all so disgusting. Keaton's back for the film and she plays Mary who isn't zany, just a harpie. Meryl Streep, who alone looks like someone you'd want to talk to, is the caricature of the lesbian and the fact that Allen's also possibly mocking his own homophobia doesn't make it funny. She plays his character's ex-wife, by the way. All the boredom of Ross fighting with Susan on Friends is here between the ex-spouses. Beautiful to look at the scenery but you don't want to know the people.
Elaine: Along with his ex-wife and Mary being quote "ball busters," Allen, the writer and director, postulates that only an underage girl can grasp the beauties to be found in a well past middle-aged man. Possibly his most autobiographical film.
Jim: He alters tone between comedy and drama throughout. He doesn't pull it off. The comedy is strictly one liners, not a sight gag to be found, and for a film so noted for its visuals, it's very much a talking heads piece.
Stardust Memories (1980)
Jim: Allen no longer has Diane Keaton as a comic foil and is convinced he can do drama. He's wrong. Again, it's wonderfully filmed, it's just not worth watching.
Betty: And we've got three women. We've got Bitch, Mommy and Brain. But the reality the movie can't confront is that Allen's character is casting the women as much as Allen the director is. This is a really ugly film and says a great deal about the artist.
The Diane Keaton years end technically with Manhattan. We argue that Stardust Memories fits in as well even though she's not in it. With Keaton, Allen had an actress with a strong presence, talent and sharp comedic timing. She was like no other actor or actress onscreen and after misusing her in the play and film Play It Again, Sam, Allen seemed to realize what she could do. As a performer, she always holds your eye. But what she brings to his films most of all is connection. He's no longer standing alone spouting off jokes to himself or others. His character actually connects. He's still the outsider -- check out the scenes with Annie's family -- but he's gone beyond standup comic in front of a camera. As is widely known, Diane Hall was Diane Keaton's birth name and her family was the inspiration for Annie Hall's family. (Inspiration, they are not those characters.) Her importance to the films can't be overstressed.
During the Keaton years, he grows as a director and a writer producing three classics: Sleeper, Love & Death and Annie Hall. At the end of the period, he is leaning towards maudlin. Throughout the films of this period, other characters don't like him (or he thinks they don't). By the time he reaches Stardust Memories, he appears eager to punish the audience who seem to represent those "other characters."
The Mia Farrow Years . . .
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)
Jim: Woody Allen returns to comedy and appears determined to make the dumbest film of his career in order to punish the audiences that couldn't get behind his drama.
Ava: This was overly praised and really isn't worth noting. The film has a washed out look. The direction appears non-existent, it could have used stronger editing. Mia Farrow makes her first appearance in a Woody Allen film playing his love interest in a role written for Diane Keaton. Keaton couldn't have made the film watchable. Farrow, being a very strong actress, appears to be giving a Keaton performance. She doesn't embarrass herself and that's probably the best thing anyone can say about this film.
Zelig (1983)
Mike: In this film, Allen returns to funny and makes a masterpiece. You won't stop laughing at this film set in the roaring 20s, the thirties and during WWII. It's a mockumentary and features people such as Susan Sontag commenting on the title character as if he were real.
Ava: Keaton was busy with Reds and Shoot the Moon and couldn't do A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy. This appears to be Allen's attempt to take the air out of Warren Beatty's Reds which also featured real people speaking to the cameras about John Reed and Louise Bryant, who were actual, historical figures. If Keaton's supposed to miss the Allen orbit due to this film, Allen blows it by writing the character Mia Farrow plays as a straight foil.
Ty: She really saves his ass throughout this period because she is such a strong actress. She's believable in a wide variety of roles and really buries into her characters. She has one beautiful moment of comic genius here where Zelig's hypnotized and she's asking him questions. He brings up her pancakes and starts talking about how awful her cooking is. She's got this uncomfortable expression that slowly crawls across her face and she fidgets slightly. It makes the scene and makes you wish he had provided more comic moments in the script.
Jim: Ava's point about the Beatty competition is a good one and seems to have inspired Allen to do what he actually is good at, funny movies. This is a classic and begins a long string of films you should check out if you haven't already and you should watch again even if you're familiar with them.
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
C.I.: In Zelig, the modern day interviews about the mythical characters were in color but otherwise it was all black and white. Broadway Danny Rose is black and white. This is the first film where he treats Mia as a comic foil and not as an actress to say lines. She is amazing. In a padded bra, with a padded butt, a bad wig and her eyes hidden behind these huge sunglasses for all but one scene, she creates an amazing character in Tina who's ex-husband was a juice man for the mob before he was murdered.
Elaine: With Mia Farrow playing a character so strong, Allen's actually is funny in a way he hasn't been since he paired with Keaton. In Zelig, he's a character who really doesn't get the one liners. Here he is a lower end manager who is always doing bits, including when they visit Angelina, Tina's pyschic, and Allen's asking the elderly customers about their pets, their astrological signs, etc. It's Allen doing his nervous bits and for him, especially in later years, to pull that off and not seem like an old grouch, he needs a comic foil. The scene where Tina is alone in her bathroom, without her sunglasses, may be the finest dramatic moment he's ever directed.
Mike: This is one that makes you laugh. He's got sight gags, he's got jokes, he's got one liners and the film's got energy.
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
C.I.: This should have been a disaster. With any other actress in the lead, it probably would have been. Mia's the lead, married to an abusive husband during the depression and losing herself at the movies where she's especially attracted to a screwball comedy. In one of his onset fits, Allen fired Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton was perfect for the role of an adventurer in a screwball comedy of the 30s. Jeff Daniels does the drama very well but in terms of why Mia's
in love with Tom Baxter, Daniel's performance never makes sense. One of the things that does work is Stephanie Farrow, Mia's sister, playing her sister onscreen. The diner scenes are believable. Danny Aiello, playing Mia's husband, isn't bad in the film but that's why you really need someone like Michael Keaton as Tom Baxter to give the film lift. As it is, it's a quiet Charlie Chaplin film that succeeds fully on the back of Mia's amazing talents.
Rebecca: It also has a very strong look. The colors are thick. Daniels is supposed to, by an onscreen line, have a "smoldering quality." Michael Keaton would have taken the film to another level. Instead, it all rests on one person's shoulders and she pulls it off.
Betty: A Black woman plays a tough talking maid and I'm not sure, considering Allen's history, that I can just say she's funny.
C.I.: Annie Joe Edwards.
Betty: Thank you, I only knew her character's name, Deliah. She'll pop up as a tough talking maid later on as well. And I do think, looking at all of his films, you have to wonder what world he lives in that there are no African-Americans?
Elaine: I agree with the Chaplin remark C.I. made earlier. Mia Farrow really is playing that role and it's a real shame an ending couldn't provide her with the kick that Chaplin and the audiences usually got.
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Jim: Up to that date, this was Allen's biggest film at the box office. It starred Mia Farrow, Michael Caine, Carrie Fisher, Maureen O'Sullivan, Barbara Hershey, Allen and others. The drama that creeped in on the previous film is now trying for a blend with comedy.
Rebecca: This is the first time I really noted how Allen would write and direct other males as Allen-substitutes. Too often Michael Caine comes off less like himself and more like Allen. This will become a huge problem in later Allen films.
Ty: Sisters and brothers have been popping up in the Farrow films. In this one, you have a family. They aren't in flashback. It's an extended family. Grandparents and grandchildren. Farrow is married to Caine and used to be married to Allen who plays a comedy writer. She is Hannah and her sisters include Leigh, played by Hershey, who really is amazing and gives a full bodied performance. She's living with an aged crank and begins an affair with Caine.
Cedric: This is set around two Thanksgivings and explores betrayals and shortcomings. There are a lot of flashy bits. Allen works well with Julie Kavner, voice of Marge Simpson, but the anchor for the film is Farrow. Caine and Hershey really are amazing as well. Carrie Fisher steals every scene she's in.
Rebecca: I saw this film at the movies with my mother. The only time she laughed out loud was during the scene where Woody and Mia are walking down the street trying to figure out why they can't have children, this is a flashback scene, and Mia's asking him if he's masturbated excessively and could have harmed himself? She laughed then and at Woody's line about masturbation. He does that sort of line, about masturbation, a lot. But she really hated this film. When we left, she said Woody Allen hates life and is scared of it. She used the third sister as the example.
Jess: Right, the one into punk rock that Allen is just cracking on repeatedly. Though he ends up with her at the end of the film. And you get a punk band playing in one scene which is truly too much for Allen's character and presumably for the director as well.
Radio Days (1987)
Mike: This is a big film set during the days of radio. He provides some comic moments with children and some heart tugging moments. Mia Farrow plays an actress with a high-pitched voice. Allen's not onscreen. Mia Farrow isn't in it enough and it's more of a smile movie than a laugh-fest. Way too much narration. A lot of slow, sweeping camera shots.
Rebecca: Diane Keaton returns to a Woody Allen film and he's got her onstage performing a song and not interacting with any characters. Not a bad film, but a wasted one.
September (1987)
Ava: If the world wanted the Lana Turner story, they'd want it. They wouldn't want a badly written knock-off where a daughter killed her mother's lover and years later everyone explodes.
C.I.: Allen's gotten enough compliments and praise, the box office has gone well during the Farrow years, it's time for him to try drama again and punish the audiences. As well as the actors. Among the people fired from this film were Maureen O'Sullivan (Mia's mother) and Sam Sheppard. A real dog of a film and shot as if the director's mind and body were elsewhere.
Another Woman (1988)
Ava: Another unwatchable film. That's two in a row. This one stars Farrow, Gena Rowlands and Ian Holm. Farrow is a brave trouper but there's no character. It's interesting that even when playing his own bumbling stereotype in comedy, he lets his character have wants and take actions. Mia Farrow, in this film and a few others, is someone who is lost and doesn't seem driven to be anything but lost. It moves slow and you feel cheated as well as insulted. This may be the most sexist film he's ever made.
New York Stories (1989)
Wally: Allen directed and wrote one third of this film, the last third, Oedipus Wrecks, which is a return to funny. He's involved with Mia Farrow and he has a mother. He had one in Bananas and in Love & Death that he interacted with. In the other films, they don't exist or the audience only sees them in flashbacks. In this film short, he and his mother battle. He, Mia, her kids, and his mother go to a magic show and his mother disappears. She ends up floating and hovering as a large, huge head in the sky. He sees a psychic played by Julie Kavner and ends up falling in love with her.
Cedric: This is so good that it's tempting to say, "He should have made it a full blown movie." But the reality is that too much more and it wouldn't work. And too much more time and he'd be laying on the dramatic subplots.
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Cedric: As I was saying. This film has a strong comedy plot involving Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and Alan Alda and Woody the actor is probably stronger here than he's been since Broadway Danny Rose. But you also get another main plot. A man is married and has a mistress, played by Anjelica Huston. It's a really bad blend. If you're hooked on the story of the man killing his mistress, then you want more of that. If you're more interested, as I was, in the story about Alda playing an egomaniac, you're bored and maybe bothered by the other plot.
Alice (1990)
Jim: What is it? Does anyone know? Mia Farrow plays an unhappily married woman. It's got bits of comedy, it's got bits of drama but mainly it's got manufactured angst. Even Farrow giving a strong performance can't save this one the way she does The Purple Rose of Cairo. Stealing from New York Stories, he has a bit of magic, this time a potion, which allows Alice to be invisible and hear what people really think of her. There are funny bits there but the film goes nowhere. Not unwatchable, due to strong performances, including Farrow and Alec Baldwin, but if there was a point to it, it'll probably escape audiences.
Shadows & Fog (1992)
Jim: Woody's first real comedy bomb. At the box office and with audiences. John Cusack and Mia Farrow do fine work. Allen plays a neurotic and is paired with Julie Kavner. Lily Tomlin, Jodie Foster, Kathy Bates, William Macey and others, including Madonna, have roles. You think it will go somewhere erly on as a village turns against Allen. But he's unable to carry through on that as a writer and his directing is a joke. As a writer, his greatest crime may be giving Jodie Foster a line about the "furry thing" between her legs that men want. It's not funny and it's shot in black and white.
Rebecca: The hatred of women is really on show in this film and I would include it in the way women are shot. With Farrow in these films, you may not notice because she survived Diane Arbus, but with the other women in the last few films, you start to pick up on it. The way he shoots Foster, Tomlin and Bates is criminal.
Husbands & Wives (1992)
Ty: And so ends the Mia Farrow period. In this final picture, you can marvel that Mia Farrow still delivers a performance, you can note that Judy Davis gives life to the tiredest of all female characters to ever appear in an Allen picture, you can get giddy over the jump-cuts but don't look too close.
Elaine: If you do, you'll wonder about the psyche of the director. The rough handling of a young woman in a party scene is disgusting. And that it's supposed to play like rough handling when it's really abuse is appalling. That we're somehow supposed to still like the male character is beyond belief. Juliette Lewis gets off many lines in the taxi cab about how Allen's character reduces women.
Rebecca: It's so insulting to women and so insulting to Mia. Judy Davis is memorable but you have to wonder about someone taking this role. Other actresses turned it down because of this role and the other roles for women in this script. Among the ones who turned it down was a very successful actress and Oscar winner. If there is wisdom in age, it doesn't appear to have reached Allen yet.
And that is the end of the Mia Farrow years. Her chief accomplishments were consistently strong performances even in bad material. In terms of the director's world view, Farrow has many children, as the world knows, and her mother and family members were a big part of her life (are a big part, but her mother is now deceased). Allen began utilizing family relationships onscreen in this period. Unlike in Interiors, they actually come off like families in most of the films. In Zelig, Mia's character has a brother and in each film, you're dealing with families (including created families which is a partial theme in Hannah and Her Sisters and a large theme in Broadway Danny Rose). However, mid-way through, an ugly tone starts coming through and you begin to realize that the director is not enlarging his view. By the end of the period he will be constricting it. The classics from this period are: Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cario, Hannah and Her Sisters and his segment in New York Stories. This period will also see the nastiness destroy many films and includes his highest number of unwatchable ones: Shadow & Fog, Another Woman and September join earlier unwatchables such as Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex . . ., Interiors and Stardust Memories.
The Final Years . . .
Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)
Ava: When under pressure, Allen sometimes works his best. This film is the real reunion of Diane Keaton and Woody Allen, not her bit in Radio Days.
Betty: Keaton is wonderful. She's even better with Alan Alda, when they're spying, then she is with Allen. Allen seems tired on camera and falls back on repeating old jokes very often.
Cedric: The storyline is that Allen and Keaton are married, their kid has gone off to college, a next door neighbor dies and Keaton's convinced the husband murdered his wife. I could've done without the ending that sidelines her and seems like Allen trying to have an action movie with a damsel in distress. But this is a funny movie.
Rebecca: And Keaton not only looks good, she adds style to the film. Anjelica Huston is under utilized but very good when she's onscreen. Joy Behar is a bore and should have been eliminated to give more screen time to Huston. On this film, it appears that Allen can go on, despite the scandals.
Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Dona: And then comes this hideous film with a showy performance by one of his ex-lovers and there's no point in showy when you're over the top in every role. The film is tired in every way, including the setting. John Cusack is stuck playing the Allen character and, as with Michael Caine earlier, there's no way for anyone to really play that character except Allen and an actor will get to in a moment. It doesn't work for Cusack. He sounds as if Allen's giving him line readings and it destroys the very natural quality that Cusack possesses.
Betty: And it's a period piece so it's time to bring back the Black maid. This movie's worst fault may be how boring it is. You feel like you've seen it a hundred times before and, thing is, you probably have.
Mighty Aphrodite (1994)
Ty: Mira Sorvino is so good in this film, she won an Oscar for it, that you really want to like it but it's a mess.
Dona: Greek choruses and, except for Sorvino, bad acting throughout. Including Allen who is now elderly onscreen and should probably stop trying to pretend otherwise; however, he will continue pretending. Unwatchable and pretentious.
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
Dona: The biggest joke here may be in the fact that audiences are supposed to believe Julia Roberts would be sexually attracted to Woody Allen. This is a musical and he's trying to do families again but, as with Interiors, you never buy for a moment that it's a family because Allen doesn't write them as such.
Elaine: As a musical, only one sequence works and that's with the only performer who delivers a full blown character, Goldie Hawn. She owns the film. Drew Barrymore, Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Natalie Portman, Alan Alda and others try hard. Only Hawn makes you believe you're watching a real character. One on one with any of the performers, you buy her part of a family but in the clumsily staged dinner table scenes, you feel as though the camera's playing hop-skotch. I'll give Julia Roberts credit for her small role even if I never buy for a moment that she's interested in Allen. Apparently, some momemts are unactable.
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Betty: A Black woman appears again. She's a prostitute. Hookers and maids, that's how Woody Allen sees Black women.
C.I.: Hazelle Goodman.
Betty: Again, thank you. This really is a theme of his work. I wasn't aware NYC was all White so it's surprising that every Black woman is a maid or a hooker. Or in Sleeper, a stranger to be humped. The plot here is that Allen's getting an honorary degree. He takes his son, a hooker and others to the ceremony. Robin Williams, Demi Moore and others appear. No one survives the film. The stunt work with the camera is apparently supposed to cover for the very hollow story. Unwatchable.
Celebrity (1998)
Dona: The idea here seems to have been, "If I remake Stardust Memories with big names, people will get how great that film was." Not going to happen. Not even with Winona Ryder, Leonardo Di Caprio, Melanie Griffith, Charlize Theron and assorted others. This plays like he's trying to be Robert Altman but it shows none of the art Altman possessed for crowd scenes.
Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Dona: Woody Allen's jazz movie. Or someone thinks so. To try to remake Sean Penn into your alter-ego, when you're Woody Allen, may be even worse than what he did to John Cusack. A really bad film despite strong efforts from Penn and Uma Thurman.
C.I.: Also a really old film. He dusted off an old screen play from the 60s and 'jazzed' it up. There's a reason United Artists didn't like this project then. For years, throughout the eighties, producers, various ones, tried to get Diana Ross to play a mute character. She was rightly insulted. Leave it to Allen to plug in that idea.
Small Time Crooks (2000)
Ava: What do you do when even using hot stars like Leo doesn't revive your career? Go back to a caper. In this one, Woody Allen makes a fool of himself in every way -- as director, as writer and as an actor. Not far behind him is Tracy Ullman who seems to be giving a performance solely to kill her career. Elaine May, and only Elaine May, survives this tired nonsense.
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
Jim: Here we disagree with conventional wisdom. This is actually watchable. It's a period piece, a comedy and Helen Hunt interacts with Allen throughout. The story is tired but her delivery gives life to the lines and, for a change, when he hates a woman, you don't feel sorry for her because Hunt's playing a character that can clearly hold her own.
Rebecca: I'd agree with that. I'd written him off and this came along and made me think he might still have a few tricks left. The camera work is better than in anything since Manhattan Murder Mystery. The film has a pace that harkens back to that movie as well. If he were smart, he would have made a real effort to team up with Hunt again. She's a strong actress and different enough from Farrow and Keaton that it could have really led to some serious explorations if he was forced to write a few characters for her.
Hollywood Ending (2002)
Jim: Woody whines about how unfair Hollywood is with recycled jokes, recycled stories and a cast that you feel sorry for. Tea Leoni tries so hard and fails repeatedly. No one can save this garbage. It's one joke turned into a movie, a really bad movie.
Anything Else (2003)
Jim: This is the main reason, we're doing this piece. First of all, we've all seen this film. Second of all, Ty and C.I. have a parody version of this film they do that cracks everyone up. Dona likes the pie humper from American Pie, which is why she saw this movie and I'll toss to her.
Dona: Jason Biggs is the only actor who's played Allen's alter-ego that could actually carry it off. Most of the men look silly or mentally challenged trying to add in his stammer and other tics. Biggs actually carried it off. He was the only good thing about this film.
Ty: This is such a cowardly film. C.I. and I had to watch it one Sunday, after a writing edition, because Dona was in a Biggs mood. We hadn't seen it before. It was a snooze-fest but we ended up talking about where it should have gone. This could have been a strong dark comedy if Allen had any bravery. He doesn't and it's just a bad film.
C.I.: Well, it's a good film. It's several good films. It's Annie Hall a lot, to name one. It's Play Again, Sam, to name another. Christina Ricci and Jason Biggs are supposed to be young adults in modern times. They are a couple and they bond over things like Humphrey Bogart and Billie Holiday. This is like a summer camp production of all of Woody Allen's films. It never makes sense. Ricci is betrayed by the dialogue, and she has way too much in any given scene, throughout. There's a scene where she's sitting and explaining her mother's coming to visit. She's supposed to be talking to Biggs. She's not. She's doing a monologue. That never seems to end and seems so far beyond anything her character would say. It's really hard to watch, or for me to watch, an actor commit to a bad script so fully. Ricci would have been wise to have walked through the part. Biggs gives speeches as well, but as Dona noted, he fits into Woody Allen's world. The biggest surprise may be that there's only one cell phone scene because the film is nothing but monologues. Having people speak on cell phones would have easily allowed these non-stop monologues to be justified. Wouldn't have made them any better, but you could say, "I believe that." You never believe Biggs and Ricci's talk about Bogart or Holiday. You're never as aware of how old Woody Allen is then when he's got actors approximately fifty years younger than he is talking like that. It is really bad. And Ty and I do a parody of it. That's actually a difficult trick because it already plays like a really bad parody when you watch.
Rebecca: Woody Allen is onscreen and that alone qualifies it for a horror film.
Melinda and Melinda (2004)
Jim: This is Jules et Jim if you get rid of the love triangle and just let Woody Allen have an affair with himself. A snooze fest. A writing excercise passed off as a movie.
Match Point (2006)
Ava: When the career has cratered and you have eaten up all the goodwill in the film industry, what do do? Go to England and begin making films with the BBC. To make sure they keep you around for more than one film, offer a little skin. Don't offer a plot -- life is luck -- just tired characters, tired writing and pretend your story about a boy who gets lucky meeting a rich family is in any way commenting on the world around you. This is Allen's Disney film in everything but name.
Mike: The film's so bad, even the tennis playing isn't believable. Sad when your supposed to believe that the main character is a tennis wiz.
Scoop (2006)
Jim: If his previous film had any saving grace, it was that he didn't appear in it. Now he's back.
C.I.: With recycled bits from Annie Hall, the advice before someone goes on stage, and Broadway Danny Rose, asking people what their sign is, etc. The older he gets, the younger the women in his film are. At this rate, he'll be teaming up with Suri Cruise in five years.
Ava: She'll need to get implants, he's breast obsessed these days once again. His next film is also with the BBC and, after the box office, he may need to consider opening talks with the CBC or Australia's ABC.
The Final Years have been a huge disappointment. With no regular female to write for (Scarlett Johannson has been a lead in two films), Allen's mainly spent the last period recycling old ideas and notions. He's also recycled old jokes and scenes. As bad as that frequently is, if the alternative is drama, let's hope he sticks with recycling, it's kinder to the environment. This period is marked with unwatchable films. The only classic is Manhattan Murder Mystery. After that only The Curse of the Jade Scorpian qualifies as good.
Allen's hallmark has always been neurosis and paranoia so it's amazing that, in the current time period, where there is so much to be paranoid about, he's yet to tap into that. However, there's no indication that he has any idea what the current time is. If he took a page from Chaplin's The Great Dictator or the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, he might actually have a way to make one more great film and actually say something about today. More likely, he will continue his I-Hate-Women motif that he sports in his next film where a woman plots to break up two brothers. The hatred of women may be the chief hallmark of his final years.
Elaine: