magic in the moonlight sucks, but you liked it.

to rome with love sucks, but you liked it.

bullets over broadway, get ready for it to suck! but i liked it

deconstructing harry, get ready for it to suck! but i liked it

sweet and lowdown, get ready for it to suck! but i liked it

everyone says i love you is a musical. i've never dared. probably sucks hard. couldn't tell you. i just kept away. you tell me after.

wild man blues is a documentary about him so it doesn't count.

You never saw Everyone Says I Love You? It has it's charming moments. A lot of people seem to like it.

Wait. I mean, it sucks! Get ready for the worst thing you've ever seen.

i really hate musicals. i think there are only 2 i've liked: candide (the play) and the buffy musical episode. both were hilarious.

i don't know if i'll go for "charming." hmmm.... i don't wanna get sad watching.

sad !#$%! is sad thinking about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRtuwpjEsZo

Fair enough. But please just watch this four-minute plea for you to enjoy yourself.

If I've seen any Woody Allen movie, I wasn't aware it was one. Otherwise, I haven't seen any.

Ths explains the symbolism and purposes of the film above https://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesan...-occult-elite/

Heat sucked and sucks. and The Departed sucked and sucks. fucking boring fucking shit.

I avoid woody allen films like the plague. fucking boring shit. The jokes do not make me laugh and the "drama" is straight bullshit. I have tried every 5 years or so since I was 17 to get into them, and people give me recommendations,a nd then I watch them and all I can think is "I don't give a fuck about you, New York, or any of your neurosis."

i watched it with my wife and she said "we have to get that" so i guess i will ha ha ha.

i liked the funeral parlor dialogue more than the dance number, but yeah it was funny overall

alvy singer gets told once more to stop worrying about the expanding universe and enjoy life ha ha ha

I agree on Allen. Boring and trite. And very dated after just a few years.

Heat probably sucked. The Departed did not suck. I'm of a mind to say it ruled so we can have a parallel conversation here ( ;) ) but I don't know that I care enough about it to really get into it with you.

It was a solid Scorsese film. It was a "return to form" from the overlong Casino and Gangs of New York. It was nice and compact and gritty and its plot (though unoriginal, as it's based on a Japanese film) made for great, tense entertainment. It was stylish and well-acted (DiCaprio was at his best in that one, I think... and Sheen? Baldwin? Nicholson? Forgetaboutit!). It was everything GoodFellas fans wanted from a Scorsese film in 2005 or whatever.

I actually think it's good in a lot of the same ways that The Dark Knight is good. It's a solid, never-boring crime drama that delivers. Is it the best Scorsese movie? Fuck no. It's probably not even in the top five. But it doesn't "suck." To write it off so brusquely is almost a little offensive. You could at least say why you didn't like it.

I'm not head over heals for Woody myself. I think a lot of his movies are, like, ½ crap. But Annie Hall, Manhatten, Hannah & Her Sisters, and Crimes and Misdemeanors, at the bare minimum, are pop masterpieces. If you can't appreciate them, that sucks.

he feints and... oh, damn!

10/10 classic.
chillin with the Netflix on day off yesterday.



This was maybe 30% like the comic book Planet Hulk, and suffers because of it.
4/10

I have seen all those woody allen films. I have read 3 of his books. I have listened to several hours of his "stand-up" from back in da day. fucking needless. I would have been better served doing nothing and enjoying it. Maybe it is because I am Puerto Rican but I find every single one of his movies to be the problems of well-off white folks, which seem deep but are exceedingly inconsequential compared to the problems of "regular" people.

At least Seinfeld (the show) understood that the four main characters were hateful, horrible, USELESS people, the type that seem to thrive in NYC, a place where caring for one's neighbor is a health hazard, and which helps create people like Donald Trump.

Do you honestly believe that?

so it's salaam bombay or nothing?

i don't disagree it's hard to sympathize with "the rich white" on many occasions but allen didn't grow up rich or white-- jews weren't "white" back then. hence the frequent joke about "wasp women" fetishes (e.g. deconstructing harry, annie hall)

so i see him more at laughing at the problems of rich white people but sure, some of those problems can be universal, and one can empathize even with them.

i mean i read the illiad and it's a bunch of rich white greeks with slaves killing one another-- still makes great literature though and you feel sorry for hector's old dad begging for his son's corpse.

now woody allen isn't homer (or homer simpson) but i've watched a lot of his stuff in latin america to packed houses and great hilarity was enjoyed by all. not radio days though. i don't think anyone got that one. or maybe it was just me and i'm projecting.

as for the problems of the poor, check out the purple rose of cairo-- beautiful movie with a lot of heart. also, mentioned above, sweet and lowdown. also, differently, take the money and run. also in a way that rejects the lives of rich white folk and borrows from latin american literature a bit, alice. also, about not being white (or rich), zelig. also, about not fitting in with the rich, small time crooks. speaking of radio days, i think that was set in a tenement-- but i couldn't get what that movie was about and probably fell asleep so don't quote me on that.

i'm not saying you have to like his work, but the harsher a criticism the more accurate it has to be, right? otherwise it's just yells.

anyway not all new york jews are created equal and seinfeld/larry david make completely different characters and get laughs from very different places.

I watched that last night and absolutely loved it! Definitely the best I've seen from that era and one that stands up against his 'golden era' - although very different (I don't know if I would've even realised it was a Woody Allen film just from watching it.) Sean Penn in pure fantastic-mode!

Did you notice similarities with La Strada?

hurrah

and samantha morton eh

I don't like Woody Allen because I can't identify with his characters.

Now, here's 500 words on the latest superhero movie.

comic book heroes are by definition identifiable. they are drawn with broad strokes, like chaplin or Hemingway. It allows for children of all ages to read them.

and woody allen diehards are insufferable! Like all the fools that actually think Pearl Jam is groundbreaking rock n roll

THE hemingway who wrote about rich white people but in paris, i.e. the new york of the pre-war?

(not all of his books are "the old man & the sea")


i knew things would go to shit once we the ad-hominems began

i tried to laugh it off w/ the wrestling picture, but here we are now

i won't reply to that-- and i hope nobody else does either because then it never ends

with this i'm not saying "you started it" btw.

just saying it's a bad game of ping-pong

Die of AIDS-infected cancer.

oy. guys. wtf. man. no

no no no no no

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

YES! Brilliant!

And to evollove, yes the La Strada influence is definitely there, but it really worked and didn't feel pretentious at all, the way the La Dolce Vita references did in Celebrity. And because an unsympathetic Sean Penn is always gonna be more watchable than an unsympathetic Kenneth Branagh. And yeah, Samantha Morton's Gelsomina was a genuine revelation. But Sean Penn, fuck yeah!

So I finally really like a Woody Allen film from the 90s!

"Wanna go to the dump and shoot some rats?"

I didn't notice the LA STRADA stuff til it was pointed out to me. Then it was obvious.

Public performer gets it on with mute chick. Leaves chick. Regrets it. Does not win her back. Final scene on a beach.

-----

PS- Die of AIDS-infected cancer.

In your butt.

There's a scene quite early on when Sean Penn's treating Samantha Morton like shit and she just shrugs. That's when the penny dropped and I remembered you making the connection. After that you couldn't miss it.

i'd like to stop pretending that something horrible didn't just happen, so while i'd like to take part in the la strada comparison (the abusive beast guitarist actually has talent, unlike zampano) i'm gonna have to abstain for the time being.

fuck fuck fuck

laters

No. It's just been a long time since I last saw it, and I'm willing to accept that it might not hold up.

Well it does still have one of the best hold ups in any film (ya see what I did there?)

But yeah, I suppose Michael Mann for me is a bit like Christopher Nolan for you. Heat is his masterpiece. I really can't fault it. Although a lot depends on whether people can get over Al Pacino in full-on shouty mode, or Val Kilmer's ponytail. But even if they can't, it's still a long way from sucksville. More like a flawed masterpiece.

ok so now that i've had a day to mourn the latest disasters i'll resume my blabbering because what else can i do

--

watched recently:

VIVRE SA VIE - anna karina is fantastic, but fucking godard and his lectures and weird camera moves take away from the greatness... i still love anna karina, but the average of the whole thing did not equal love. i just liked the sum of the parts.

HOT FUZZ - decent action comedy for a sunday matinée or something. the cast of shawn of the dead but on steroids. goofy shit & lots of movie references occur.

SECOND HAND LIONS - ok tearjerker for boys 2 men. maybe could have been better without the fucking music always trying to prod you to feel this or that.

THE SECRET GARDEN - agniezska holland directed, francis coppola produced, and i turned off the old VHS halfway because very little was happening in this children's super-slow sad fairytale.

Yeah, it has its moments but I've always really struggled to get into Godard. He's always felt a little too self-consciously intellectual. Easy to admire but difficult to really love. The only one I think I like (almost) unreservedly is Le Mepris, and even that probably has more to do with BB than JLG.

:confused:

I have soft spot for Godard. My first love affair with film at the ripe age of 17. Pierrot ranks very high with me because I think Belmondo and Karina add some life to his crankyness. I haven't seen Vivre sa vie in many years. I'm going to revisit it soon.

Recent watches

Ride in the Whirlind - finished off the Monte Hellman set. This one really didn't do it for me. I was way into the Shooting but this one seemed like a throwaway.

Cheyenne Autumn - So..... Ford was visually stunning as always in Monument Valley but this one was a drag. It started out incredible but his attempt to rectify the image of Native American's in film totally missed the mark. Top that off with a totally useless interlude with Jimmy Stewart. This could've been Ford's masterpiece but instead it is one of the worst of his I've seen.

i love alphaville. le mépris was great too, indeed. breathless i liked a lot, no complaints there. masculin feminin does well with/because the theory is done well. the first godard i saw was les carabiniers, which was, at the time, hilarious, and i've rewatched it and still like it-- when they show up their postcards ha ha ha ha ha.

and i did like vivre sa vie but i could have liked it more if he didn't do such "clever" things as have us watch nana as she handwrites a letter to her potential madam. or when nana and a dude are talking at a counter and the camera pans or trucks right and left so hard it cuts people off the frame for no reason in particular.

it's cool to break the conventions of film, but some things (to paraphrase whit stillman a bit, who was probably quoting jane austen) become conventions for a reason. i.e. they work. anyway i'm glad he tried these things, someone had to-- but that doesn't mean that they survive the test of time necessarily.

Funny you should mention that as I watched that last week. Really didn't dig it all.

godard = fart hard

I think Godard was vital in challenging convention, but more as an inspiration for future directors than for the success (or otherwise) of his own films. Woody Allen being a perfect example. He may openly quote Bergman and Fellini but stylistically I'd say he's consistently owed more to Godard than to anyone else.

Or director wannabes.

In my early 20s especially, I'd watch a Godard film and think, "Damn. I wanna get a camera and a bunch of people and make something up more or less on the fly. If he can do it, I can do it. What could go wrong?"

Seriously, has anyone else ever felt the urge to make a film after watching one of his?