And yet we’re supposed to root for this guy. As part of the effort to win Gil our affection, Allen contrasts his politics with those of his fiancée’s father, who’s also visiting Paris. The father supports the Tea Party; Gil disapproves of it. The father criticizes French politicians’ behavior toward the U.S.; Gil stands up for them. Here, as in all of Allen’s movies, the people we’re meant to see as the good guys are reliably on the left. In Annie Hall, Alvy Singer (Allen) describes himself as “a bigot, but for the left.” In Manhattan, Isaac (Allen again) attends an Equal Rights Amendment fundraiser hosted by Bella Abzug. The girl narrator of Everyone Says I Love You says of her rich Upper East Side family that “we’re all liberal Democrats,” and one of the jokes in the movie is that the teenage son’s sudden political turn to the right is the result of a brain tumor.
Yet while Allen likes to think of himself as a standard-issue Manhattan liberal, the sensibility of his films (whether he realizes it or not) is largely conservative. Over and over he makes it clear that he despises pretty much everything that came out of the 1960s, and one after another of his films is an exercise in cultural nostalgia for the pre-Sixties world. His pictures’ musical scores testify to his obsession with the Great American Songbook. (Recall, for example, the sequence in Hannah and Her Sisters in which Dianne Wiest takes him to see a punk rock band that he hates, joking that “after they sing, they’re gonna take hostages” – after which, in order to give her a taste of “something nice,” he takes her to the Carlyle to hear Bobby Short perform Cole Porter.) Just as The Purple Rose of Cairo and Radio Days are love letters to the 1930s and 40s – and both very charming ones, at that – Midnight in Paris is a love letter to the 1920s. The problem, alas, is that this is one billet doux that just doesn’t connect.
Categories: Movies, Pop Culture of the Past
The author’s take on this new film is so grim I actually feel compelled to see for myself. When sex is good it is really good and when sex is bad it is still pretty good. And so goes my view on Woody’s movies. Maybe if he or someone completely new was in it rather than Owen Wilson ?
woody who????
we don’t go to movies anymore. we do not give “holywood” our money…anymore..No we’re not missing out. we have dropped out of the game with these people.
This isn’t a new film. It was out in June.
It was just terrible. There was no real follow through and that’s why some are just hearing about it. I’ll probably never go see a Woodie Allen movie again. He hasn’t been good in a while.
I have cable, so I get free tix on Tues. Somethimes I go, but I assure you, I’m very selective. My list of no-sees is very extensive.
Best movie seen lately: City Island.
Meh. Hasn’t made a good picture since “Bananas.” If you think his pictures’ sensibilities are conservative, how do you account the things that come out of his mouth?
I thought the movie was an exercise in name dropping; all Allen can muster is to mention the great literary and artistic figures in breathless repetition, but he can’t summon dialog to compliment their reputations. The film did not stir me to rush out and reread the literary works of the 1920′s and feel why these names matter in the first place. Allen’s depiction of Hemingway was particularly awful; he turned the writer into a one-dimensional cutout (the old man would do that for himself later in life). And Owen Wilson was terribly miscast–but not as much as his harpy fiancee was overdrawn. Nothing magical about this film at all; it wasn’t a film about ideas, it was a film about lists.
Sitting a couple of tabs down in my browser is Fitzgerald’s “The Crack Up”. Since Allen can’t put an intelligent word in his mouth, I’ll let the old sport speak for himself.
“Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work — the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside — the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don’t show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within — that you don’t feel until it’s too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick — the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but is realized suddenly indeed.”
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/the-crack-up#ixzz1d6zVtKoq
I will grant you that “The Crack-Up” is in a higher league than “Midnight in Paris,” but for me, the latter is a satisfactory potboiler. Woody is more durable than Scott was, but Scott dreamed bigger…a dangerous thing.
“Through some sort of mysterious alchemy, he finds himself transported on a series of nights, at exactly the stroke of twelve, to 1920s Paris, where he consorts with Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Cole Porter, Picasso, Cocteau, and Salvador Dali, among others.”
I would be amazed if most, if not all, young people today even know who any of these people are. I think Allen is showing his age here. It’s one thing to admire a certain period of time in today’s movies. But if you’re going to obsess over it, you’d better be sure your audience is as well educated as you are. If not, they are NOT going to enjoy, let alone appreciate, the film. And if Allen is only going to make movies now for people in his age bracket, it’s going to be a very small audience indeed.
When all is said and done, I didn’t think “Scenes from a Mall” was that bad, either. I rather enjoyed it and some parts were actually funny, something missing in Woody Allen movies these days.
Today’s classrooms may be barren, but did you miss the boomers here? A lot of boomer teachers were taught Hemingway and Fitzgerald and also taught their students, which is not to say that Woody Allen will ever do “Titanic,” or even Clint Eastwood numbers.
I never liked Allen. He elevated neurosis to a high state of mind. If you didn’t have a neurosis – particularly his brand of neurosis – you were a lumpen proletariat numbskull, a right-winger, and probably a Tea Partier (before the Tea Party even existed). He’s exactly the kind of New York City liberal who keeps voting for mayors who insist on transforming Manhattan especially into a pedestrian paradise where you can be knocked to the ground by a bicycle Nazi. Where you can’t smoke, pour salt on your burger and fries, or frown on the GZ mosque without being penalized. You aren’t even allowed to score Bloomberg for having pulled an FDR and got himself a third or perhaps even a perpetual term in office. New Yorkers deserve petit collectivists like Bloomberg and Allen. They keep approving of them, and deserve to get the emaciated city that was once great.
New Yawkers might deserve a once-great emaciated city, but the rest of America deserves that New York City disappear from the face of the earth. Although Hollywood or D.C. could make claims to be the Heart of Leftist Darkness in America, I still see NYC as the source of Leftist influence in the US. Mass media, pop culture, education, high finance — all controlled or dominated from NYC. I’m amazed that the jihadists (like the Soviets before) still think nuking NYC would be a blow to America. Ha! Imagine one other single action that would improve America more. Woody Allen lives in an anti-America, where nobody he knows ever voted for a Republican or Conservative.
C’mon, in the end, any country is safer when half the folks do NOT take their hats off for the National Anthem. When everyone does…beware of your neighbor turning you in.
Also recall Allen saying that Obama should be given “dictatorial powers”.
“It would be good…if (Obama) could be dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly,”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/05/woody-allen-obama.html
At one time Allen was funny, but now he’s an utter fool.
As a writer and director, I think he is very talented…. but as a human being, I think he is intellectually and morally bankrupt.
I also thought the movie was a little silly. But one point was good: that nostalgia for a gauzy decade in the past is laughable, viz, the lady character in the ’20′s segment who was nostalgic for Fin de Siecle…. Kind of a time traveller’s “grass is greener”. Like OWS kids riffing off Woodstock or something. I think this was a good point Allen made….
I invite anyone feeling nostalgic about Allen’s so-called “early, funny films” to watch Take the Money and Run again. You will find yourself shaking your head that you ever found such utter drivel amusing.
Drivel maybe. But the scene where he plays cello in the marching band is comedy gold!
I hated “Hollywood Ending.” It was clear that there was no script and he was letting talentless clods like Tea Leoni improv. None of the cast could handle it, and they wound up having conversations that went in merry-go-round circles.
“Vicki Christina Barcelona” is truly one of the worst films I’ve ever subjected myself to. The writing clunked along pointlessly (the narration was despicable); Penelope Cruz’s acting was cartoonish, and the need to sell me on free, open sexual relationships was desperate and reeked of perverse activism.
“Match Point” was a needless and substandard remake of the utterly brilliant “Crimes & Misdemeanors.”
In his day, the man was a genius. He’s done now – absolutely done.
I can think of one old Allen movie that is a good allegory for his place now: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask. I refer to the segment in which he is a court jester who is not funny.
Thank you – I think you nailed it. I couldn’t understand why “Midnight in Paris” was so unsatisfying – almost annoying.
The appeal and success of “Manhatten” and “Annie Hall” notwithstanding, my favorite Woody Allen movie is “Broadway Danny Rose”. It is apolitical, funny and has interesting characters and an engaging storyline. Above all, however, it exudes a deep humility and humanity. You would like Allen a lot more if you only saw this movie and never had to listen to his political takes.
I will not voluntarily tender hard-earned dollars to see a WA movie. Sparrowhawk – you’re right; if you’re not in line with Allen’s distorted liberal view of the world (which apparently includes pedophilia), you must be a neanderthal, knuckle-dragging caveman. Although I’ve never been much of a WA fan, marrying his step-daughter was enough to permanently seal it for me. It’s too bad the prosecutor didn’t go forward with the child molestation charges against him – he might have gone to prison and we wouldn’t be bothered by him making any more bad movies.
Yeah Woody has been phoning it in for years. And his politics is ridiculous. But he has made some good movies, even some great ones. Annie Hall has held up over the years, Broadway Danny Rose, Radio Days and Bullets over Broadway all remain amusing. Manhattan? Meh. Bordered on pedophilia IMHO. The sleeper of them all? Crimes and Misdemeanors. A substantial and even haunting look at morality with great performances all around by Martin Landau, Jerry Orbach, Sam Waterson, Angelica Huston, Alan Alda. The fact that he went outside his usual stable of actors may have helped alot. The bleakness of Allen’s standard existential questioning is on full display, and some of the imagery is over the top (a rabbi going blind…) but it all gets elevated by the performances.
Oh, I also loved What’s up Tiger Lily?, especially when Woody breaks in to the middle of the action to explain the plot.
Perfect for sophomores and those who love them..
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061177/
I’d be as likely to go see something by Woody Allen as I would the next Michael Moore “masterpiece”. Their political beliefs, their morality, Allen’s sexual indulgences are repulsive. There’s nothing conservative about having sex with your girlfriend’s daughter. That’s pure liberalism.
No one’s mentioning the creep factor of his naked picture-taking of his step-daughter, and then subsequent marrying her? A man who marries a female literally old enough to be his daughter and then who keeps her in subservant silence thereafter has absolutely nothing to say that I would consider to be worth hearing. And I’m not real thrilled about France, either, so since Paris is inescapably French, why on earth would I want to watch such duplicitous bushwah?
Couldn’t agree more.
Never liked anything he did. Pretentious neurotic hack.
Never understood why anyone called him a genius.
This gives me an opportunity to propose my grand unified theory of Woody Allen movies:
A. Movies in which the WA character is a fish out of water, are masterpieces, if only in a minor way.
B. Movies in which the WA character is in his own element, are at best amusing and/or interesting; at worst, cringe-inducing.
Movies of type A include, but are not limited to: Love and Death, Sleeper, Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Zelig, Bullets over Broadway, Manhattan Murder Mystery; and also the less appreciated Shadows and Fog, Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Small Time Crooks.
Movies of type B include Annie Hall, Radio Days, Mighty Aphrodite, and a bunch of movies which I do not care to mention by name.
Having said that: there are movies without a WA character, such as Sweet and Lowdown. And I have to admit: unlike Mr. Bawer, I have missed much more than one or two of WA’s films.
Saw the film and disliked it. I think the lousy Hemingway characterture did me in.
I dunno, the wooden one never appealed to me. I keep getting the impression that he never got laid and was desperately trying and I suspect he still hasn’t succeeded…
From what I’ve read in his various biographies, Woody had very little problem “getting laid,” particularly once his career took off. Don’t confuse the onscreen character (particularly in his earlier uber-nebbishy form) with the man who created it.
I became bored with Allen’s characters when I realized that after 90 minutes or so of obsessive chattering about moral consequences none of them actually ever seemed to suffer any negative consequences for often appalling behavior,
I realized long ago that I am simply not in Woody Allen’s target demographic. All of his characters talk like a roomful of annoying Columbia liberal arts undergraduates who are competing to see who can be the “deepest and most profound.” There’s nothing wrong with that but I got tired of that schtick when I was actually in college. It started out as as sort of background device but it cameto dominate his films. When Woody does a gag of his own the set-up is usually telegraphed from a mile away. I have always hated the fact that, as the writer, he can put the most asinine statements in the mouths of others which he can then hit out of the park. It’s not witty – It’s lazy.
Still – “Crimes and Misdemeanors” is one of my favorite all-time films – A genuine and moving “grown up” film with teriffic acting. Also, when Woody was funny (so long ago) there was NOBODY funnier. (Well except for maybe Mel Brooks.) Where would we be without “Bananas” and “Sleeper?”
“I realized long ago that I am simply not in Woody Allen’s target demographic. All of his characters talk like a roomful of annoying Columbia liberal arts undergraduates who are competing to see who can be the “deepest and most profound.” There’s nothing wrong with that but I got tired of that schtick when I was actually in college.”
Chambers, you nailed it for me. I thought “Sleeper” was pretty funny in highschool. Was “meh” about “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall” in college. Haven’t bothered to watch anything since.
he ain’t much of a baby sitter, either…
If you haven’t read Fitzgerald and Hemingway, you’re not entitled to your opinion of them as bad writers. Read them first before making a judgment based on others’ opinions. 28 Stories and The Sun Also Rises are the best in my opinion.
I prefer Sleeper and Everything you always wanted to know about Sex (but were afraid to ask) of the WA films (not that many) I’ve seen.
After the first remark (when they were having dinner with the mother and father) about the waste of going to Iraq (or whatever it was), we walked out to the box office and asked for our money back. The manager graciously gave us a ticket to use at any other time for any other and indicated that we were not the only ones to do that. She reiterated that it was Woody Allen. I told her, yes, I know but I thought maybe he had grown up. She said to me, “Woody Allen will never grow up.” Oh well, what do I expect from someone who has sex with his own child.
I agree with Anne I no longer go to movies or have any interest in so called American culture. It is a den of iniquity and ugliness. I too in my youth had to go to Europe and Paris etc; been there done that. I even lived in Europe for several years caught by the mystique of our college professors pontificating how everything in Europe was oh so superior, the movies, the food, the culture ad nauseam. Now I live in a rural area on a small former horse farm with my daughter, son in law and grandsons and we try to grow our own food and withdraw from the Americanized world; most of my neighbors are Amish and I admire their ability to go it alone. Besides the America in which I was born no longer exists and Amerian art, people and entertainment gets uglier year after year and the Europe I knew thirty years ago no longer exists it has become a cheap imitation of modern American culture. O tempora O mores
Loved the movie – spot on. The perfect way to cap off my vacation in Maui! Best part of the movie is when Owen tells his father-n-law that teabaggers “..are nothing but a bunch of simple-minded facist morons!” Love it!
Never thought of Woody as being homophobic before, but you could be on to something there.
C’mon Bruce, a great auteur like Woody is obliged to phone it in.
Midnight was the first Woody Allen movie I’ve ever seen (I’m in my late 50s). I thought it was OK, enjoyed the period clothing and the atmosphere of Paris. Ignored the almost obligatory Hollywood political digs. I didn’t catch the Tea Party reference; but, as numerous as the TP is, most of the country would agree with Owen’s remarks.
Virtually all of Woody’s core audience would; it’s nearly as politically monodimensional as MSNBC’s demographics.
I like Woody’s movies; like the author, I’ve seen almost all of them. He remains the only really consistently serious filmmaker in the US,so who else are you going to see? Two other terrific–well, very good–films are Alice and Deconstructing Harry. Who else is going to make movies remotely like them? The only other serious US movies tend to be unremittiingly bleak and rural.
Midnight in Paris struck me as the extended director’s cut of the movie of one WA’s early stand-up routines called The Lost Generation: “Francis Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald came home from their wild New Years Eve party. It was April. Scott had just written Great Expectations, and Gertrude Stein and I read it, and we said it was a good book, but there was no need to have written it, ’cause Charles Dickens had already written it. We laughed over it, and Hemingway punched me in the mouth.” With the addition of Owen Wilson to drag down the IQ of the picture by 20 points or so.