There is a different feeling to Cassandra's Dream that I couldn't quite identify at first. Something new for Woody Allen. I thought it was the English locale, but this was his third movie there. I finally figured out what it was: the score. I'm pretty sure this was his first film with new music scored for it, and by Philip Glass no less.
"I think it's a very moral play [or film]... about evil, about fate. I do think that the writing is very pessimistic. And all that stuff about life being a tragic experience."
"I think we make our own fate," Ewan McGregor says. "I believe that."
Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell are two sides of the same coin. They're both in need of help. But where Ewan wants to springboard a new career and love life, Colin needs to dig himself out of bad gambling debts. The themes of chance, luck and fate are all tightly interwoven so that the seemingly only window for freedom is the very means of entrapment.
Their uncle is the family benefactor who is always at hand to improve the lives of his family. And now, when they need him more than ever, he needs them as well to get himself out of some very serious trouble. It's a kind of Hitchcockian quid pro quo scenario.
But because Colin is the dark side of the force, his brooding undoes him. He is racked with guilt until he forces a confrontation, pitting the sides of the coin against each other.
This seems a companion piece to Match Point. It is tonally and thematically similar with the lighter, creamier Scoop sandwiched in the middle.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Scoop
Joe Strombel is a journalist who's just gotten the scoop of a lifetime. The only problem is, he's dead.
On the other side of the grave he gets a tip that Peter Lyman, famous and politically-aspiring son of Lord Lyman, may very well be the as-yet-uncaught Tarot card killer.
This movie may be full of improbabilities, but I still like it. I'm not just talking about the beyond the grave stuff. First: why is Scarlett Johansson hanging out with a magician? Second: besides that it's Scarlett Johannsson, it is a little unlikely that Peter would just happen to fall in love with her.
This isn't one of Woody Allen's serious movies, nor does it plumb his personal relationships or neuroses. It's just a good old fashioned murder mystery.
On the other side of the grave he gets a tip that Peter Lyman, famous and politically-aspiring son of Lord Lyman, may very well be the as-yet-uncaught Tarot card killer.
This movie may be full of improbabilities, but I still like it. I'm not just talking about the beyond the grave stuff. First: why is Scarlett Johansson hanging out with a magician? Second: besides that it's Scarlett Johannsson, it is a little unlikely that Peter would just happen to fall in love with her.
This isn't one of Woody Allen's serious movies, nor does it plumb his personal relationships or neuroses. It's just a good old fashioned murder mystery.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Match Point
Woody Allen returns to the theme of Crimes and Misdemeanors: a man kills his mistress because he can't leave a wife he doesn't love. "Despair is the path of least resistance."
Every flaw I saw in Crimes and Misdemeanors was tightened for Match Point. It was more subtle if maybe a little too drawn out.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers never made it successfully as a tennis pro because, as one of his opponents pointed out, the ball fell too often on his side of the net. Luck, Jonathan would call it, or the lack of it. But it is this very failure of his that makes the difference in the end. What is unlucky in one situation might be lucky in another. Coming right after Melinda and Melinda, Match Point seems a much better contemplation on how one moment could be considered either tragic or, if not comic, at least lucky.
This is Woody's first serious movie in thirteen years and I think he really made the most of it.
Every flaw I saw in Crimes and Misdemeanors was tightened for Match Point. It was more subtle if maybe a little too drawn out.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers never made it successfully as a tennis pro because, as one of his opponents pointed out, the ball fell too often on his side of the net. Luck, Jonathan would call it, or the lack of it. But it is this very failure of his that makes the difference in the end. What is unlucky in one situation might be lucky in another. Coming right after Melinda and Melinda, Match Point seems a much better contemplation on how one moment could be considered either tragic or, if not comic, at least lucky.
This is Woody's first serious movie in thirteen years and I think he really made the most of it.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Melinda and Melinda
The first thing someone (me) might notice about Melinda and Melinda is the person of color on the DVD cover. It brings up a complex issue of race and Woody Allen's vision of New York (and the world). I don't particularly feel up to the task of pursuing it, but I did find this dialogue between two random and anonymous strangers that I will let stand in place of any comment I might make. I do think the issue is an interesting one, and my contribution to the conversation, if I were technologically savvy, would be to embed a clip from Everyone Says I Love You right here: [x]. Obviously, I am not technologically savvy, so I will have to describe the scene. First of all, Everyone Says I Love You is full of diverse ethnicities. But my favorite example is from the very end where the narrator says she has recently been seeing a rapper and there's a shot of him with actual rapping which is so unconventional for a Woody Allen movie.
Now that that's over with, we can look at the actual movie which has nothing to do with race. The premise is that the same story can be told as a tragedy or a comedy, depending on your outlook. The ramification being that it is a microcosm of life. But first of all, it isn't the same story, and secondly, I didn't find the tragedy to be tragic nor the comedy funny.
I don't know if this movie would have been better if it had obeyed its own premise more precisely. It would have become redundant with slight differentiations enhancing each element. Or it could have been Rashomon. Because the idea is that you can read the same story as either tragic or comic. Not that you can retell the skeleton of a story two completely different ways with different results. But that was what Melinda and Melinda did.
Tragedy, in the words of Richard Dreyfus from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, is when "the bad end unhappily, the good unluckily." I'm not going to say that the Melinda of the tragic story deserved what she got, but she did drive herself there. I failed to find it compelling or convincing as a tragic story. "I'm one of those heroines too high-strung for existence on this planet," Melinda admits. "Although I brought my worst troubles on myself." And the only thing funny about the comedy part was Will Ferrell who probably would have been even funnier if he hadn't just been doing Woody Allen.
You'd think that this would be the ultimate expression of Woody Allen's oeuvre considering he is always pitting his humor against pathos. There are his funny movies and there are his serious movies. But never before has he so extremely attempted to divest them of each other diametrically. Which is what, unfortunately, keeps it from congealing into a whole.
Now that that's over with, we can look at the actual movie which has nothing to do with race. The premise is that the same story can be told as a tragedy or a comedy, depending on your outlook. The ramification being that it is a microcosm of life. But first of all, it isn't the same story, and secondly, I didn't find the tragedy to be tragic nor the comedy funny.
I don't know if this movie would have been better if it had obeyed its own premise more precisely. It would have become redundant with slight differentiations enhancing each element. Or it could have been Rashomon. Because the idea is that you can read the same story as either tragic or comic. Not that you can retell the skeleton of a story two completely different ways with different results. But that was what Melinda and Melinda did.
Tragedy, in the words of Richard Dreyfus from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, is when "the bad end unhappily, the good unluckily." I'm not going to say that the Melinda of the tragic story deserved what she got, but she did drive herself there. I failed to find it compelling or convincing as a tragic story. "I'm one of those heroines too high-strung for existence on this planet," Melinda admits. "Although I brought my worst troubles on myself." And the only thing funny about the comedy part was Will Ferrell who probably would have been even funnier if he hadn't just been doing Woody Allen.
You'd think that this would be the ultimate expression of Woody Allen's oeuvre considering he is always pitting his humor against pathos. There are his funny movies and there are his serious movies. But never before has he so extremely attempted to divest them of each other diametrically. Which is what, unfortunately, keeps it from congealing into a whole.
Anything Else
Jason Biggs plays a character who is a bear rug in a grizzly bear world. He just lies down and lets everyone walk all over him, and they take every opportunity to do so.
My theory is that Woody Allen has traveled from the future to alter his own history. That was why they were wearing the same outfit when they met. Woody wants to impart some post-9/11 constructive paranoia in himself so that he will get out of New York before the planes hit the fan.
"It's very important you learn to depend only on yourself," Woody says about masturbation. But he intends for Jason to apply it to his life.
There are some pretty funny quips peppered through the beginning of the movie, but they kind of die out at about the same time as my interest. I think when I first saw this movie I thought it was "not bad." And that's about all I can say for it now, unless my theory about time travel is true. I suppose it is as true as anything else.
My theory is that Woody Allen has traveled from the future to alter his own history. That was why they were wearing the same outfit when they met. Woody wants to impart some post-9/11 constructive paranoia in himself so that he will get out of New York before the planes hit the fan.
"It's very important you learn to depend only on yourself," Woody says about masturbation. But he intends for Jason to apply it to his life.
There are some pretty funny quips peppered through the beginning of the movie, but they kind of die out at about the same time as my interest. I think when I first saw this movie I thought it was "not bad." And that's about all I can say for it now, unless my theory about time travel is true. I suppose it is as true as anything else.
Hollywood Ending
It's been ten years since Woody Allen's character has made a good movie. He's derisively referred to as an "auteur genius." But when his ex-wife gives him a chance to make a comeback movie, he's stricken with psychosomatic blindness.
It's interesting to note that ten years is how long Woody has been with Soon-Yi, his step-daughter whom he later married. Also the blindness of the movie was caused by his estranged relationship with his son. Which must mirror Woody's feelings about his own estranged son.
I've often suggested an autobiographical approach to reading Woody Allen's films. And I've been waiting to see how he would depict his relationship with his step-daughter. It's sort of a very delicate issue because on one hand, I know that a lot of people like to dismiss him as a pedophile and refuse to watch his movies on that basis. But I take a more practical view point in which I don't let any error of judgment in his personal life affect my viewing of his movies. Because in the end, I believe that Woody really wants to rewrite his life. To put a kind of Hollywood ending on the messy aspects of life that maybe he regrets. Although I don't really think he regrets being with Soon-Yi. But it is interesting that, given the chance to depict his Hollywood ending, he chooses to return to his ex-wife (whoever that may represent in Woody's actual life).
I don't think my interpretation is far-fetched. "In order to make movies, you have to think about the audience. You have to. Otherwise, you're just making movies for yourself, like artistic masturbation... You're a narcissist," one character says to Woody Allen. To which he replies: "I'm a classic narcissist then." Woody's movies aren't primarily made for us, for me to blog about them. They are made for himself, "to produce a kind of working through-situation so that [he] can get in touch with feelings [he] didn't know [he] had," as he said in Manhattan.
It's interesting to note that ten years is how long Woody has been with Soon-Yi, his step-daughter whom he later married. Also the blindness of the movie was caused by his estranged relationship with his son. Which must mirror Woody's feelings about his own estranged son.
I've often suggested an autobiographical approach to reading Woody Allen's films. And I've been waiting to see how he would depict his relationship with his step-daughter. It's sort of a very delicate issue because on one hand, I know that a lot of people like to dismiss him as a pedophile and refuse to watch his movies on that basis. But I take a more practical view point in which I don't let any error of judgment in his personal life affect my viewing of his movies. Because in the end, I believe that Woody really wants to rewrite his life. To put a kind of Hollywood ending on the messy aspects of life that maybe he regrets. Although I don't really think he regrets being with Soon-Yi. But it is interesting that, given the chance to depict his Hollywood ending, he chooses to return to his ex-wife (whoever that may represent in Woody's actual life).
I don't think my interpretation is far-fetched. "In order to make movies, you have to think about the audience. You have to. Otherwise, you're just making movies for yourself, like artistic masturbation... You're a narcissist," one character says to Woody Allen. To which he replies: "I'm a classic narcissist then." Woody's movies aren't primarily made for us, for me to blog about them. They are made for himself, "to produce a kind of working through-situation so that [he] can get in touch with feelings [he] didn't know [he] had," as he said in Manhattan.
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
Small Time Crooks only gave the promise of a caper which may have whetted Woody's appetite to make a full-fledged noir/comedy.
You get the feeling that he is playing, having fun with the genre. His back-and-forth bantering is not meant to be taken seriously and is hilarious.
The basic premise is that Woody Allen is an insurance investigator who has run afoul of the new efficiency supervisor, Helen Hunt. She wants to streamline and update things and he lives by his his instincts and street code. But when they're both hypnotized, a pandora's box is opened where jewel thievery seems uncannily unsovlable and laten longing is brought to the fore.
I'm not even tempted really to dig around and see if there is anything to assist my thesis about Woody's autobiographical method of film-making. Ok, so I'm a little tempted. But this is such a fun film. It may not be a great film, but it is light hearted and happy ending, and that is enough for me.
You get the feeling that he is playing, having fun with the genre. His back-and-forth bantering is not meant to be taken seriously and is hilarious.
The basic premise is that Woody Allen is an insurance investigator who has run afoul of the new efficiency supervisor, Helen Hunt. She wants to streamline and update things and he lives by his his instincts and street code. But when they're both hypnotized, a pandora's box is opened where jewel thievery seems uncannily unsovlable and laten longing is brought to the fore.
I'm not even tempted really to dig around and see if there is anything to assist my thesis about Woody's autobiographical method of film-making. Ok, so I'm a little tempted. But this is such a fun film. It may not be a great film, but it is light hearted and happy ending, and that is enough for me.
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