Series: Woody Allen

Early Woody Allen mockumentary short I watched to compare to later mockumentary Zelig. Very jokey and political. A few moments made me laugh — e.g. a congressional inquiry about the Boy Scouts to parody the hunt for Communists, and a garbled monologue about “winning war or winning peace.” Many of the references are too timely to resonate today. I did enjoy the early Diane Keaton sighting, though.

Given the movie’s place in Allen’s filmography — right after Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Stardust Memories — it’s not hard to see why this movie was met with “that’s all?” skepticism. It’s a lightweight, bed-swapping romantic farce set in the early 20th century. But the film’s control of tone and playful storytelling is really charming. The acting is excellent, and the whole experience is brisk and pleasant, with a surprisingly optimistic thematic backbone: the past is past, and we should celebrate the things we have.

Given how self-focused his work is, Allen’s directorial voice works well with meta hijinks. The movies and movies-within-the-movie blend elliptically, rendering romance into a confusing, dreamlike haze. Stardust Memories is not particularly fun, but certainly beautiful, and, in my eyes, truly great.

Filmmaking of an exquisite order, with the huge wart on its ass of idealizing romance between a 42-year-old man and 17-year-old girl without guilt or investigation.

Manhattan is a love letter to NYC featuring 5-star beauty and filmmaking, a great script, a phenomenal soundtrack… and a horrid male gaze that makes it tough to give a rating to.

Masterful filmmaking, filled with hilarious and evocative and creative moments, elliptical time-hop editing, and zingers. Too bad Allen’s persona is so damn neurotic and unlikeable — ruins the fun for me and suppresses the Is It Good? rating by a point.

I don’t know Russian lit, so 25% of the jokes evaded me. It takes awhile to get going, but that second half shows Allen has learned how to make a film. Keaton in particular is at another level.

Wheat.

A bit stuffy and slow to gestate, but intricate, dark, and probing once it gets going. Allen directs drama with assurance and intuitive use of symbolism, but the script isn’t quite there to bring it to the next level.

A movie that unfortunately holds together less and less with each minute of its runtime, Sleeper is still often intriguing and funny as a dystopian slapstick. Its lurch to a love triangle is quite inelegant.

An anthology of sex-themed genre pastiches that intermittently takes its stupidity seriously enough to verge into funny and/or subversive, but more often just drifts into nothingness.

A well-written romcom with a theme and lots of fun details plus good chemistry between Allen and Keaton. Too bad the jokes just aren’t all there and the story isn’t enough of a home run. Still quite good, though.