"if it's good news, it must be someone else's"

Monday, August 3, 2009

942. a movie review - whatever works

ever since take the money and run, i have been a lifelong fan of woody allen, minus a five year break while i tried to justify the soon yi marriage.
i gave up trying.
i couldn't and can't.
but i was able to compartmentalize that from his humor, although his humor has been on hiatus for some time now.

soooo ... i guess i'm not really a lifelong fan in the true sense then.
a lifelong fan of the early years is the best way to put it.

i am a bigger fan of larry david.
often i have quoted both or plain old plagiarized their material.
well, not real often.
anyway, keaton and i just saw woody's latest, whatever works, starring larry david as woody allen's muse.
given the the combo of allen and david (sounds like a west village poodle boutique), it had to be good.
and it was.
old time woody allen was back, filled with the trademark humor that only hypochondria, apocalypse, suicide, doom and yes, old man/young woman marriage can bring to the table.

the only complaint, keaton was annoyed by the staleness of how the dialogue was spoken.
people don't interact like that, she said.
she's right but that has always been the allen style.
it's like a train of one liners just rolling down the track.
clacketty, clacketty, punchline.
i suppose she feels about woody's directing style the same way i feel about sex in the city's—friends just don't naturally speak to each other the way those women two step through their lines.
the difference though is that woody's dialogue is sharp and funny.
i don't know what to make of sex in the city.

the plot is lower manhattan bohemian all the way and essentially aborts every born-again in it's path, and there are a few.
if woody releases this anywhere south of, hmm, let's say atlantic city, new jersey, there are going to be plenty of torched artsy-fartsy movie houses in the name of jesus.
a big part of the fun is the plot twists, so i don't want to say anything more than old, cranky, new york, intellectual nihilist meets and marries young, bubbly, southern, naive, christian blond, and it goes up hill from there.

it is old school woody allen.
and i enjoyed it, finding myself laughing out loud, as did a couple of the other fourteen people in the theater, in anticipation of the upcoming line, something i haven't been able to do at a woody allen film since love and death.

geez, that's like three decades ago.
woody, glad to see you back!

1 comment:

itsmecissy said...

I just don't get the Woody Allen thing. Mr. Itsme is wild for him also, course he was a psych major, then marriage and family counseling ... I like Diane Keaton!!!