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Match Point

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ScarletKnight41 Jan 06 2006 09:24 AM

Since we're talking about comparing Woody Allen to Mel Brooks, and since I'm planning on seeing Match Point this weekend, I thought that I would prepare this poll. Stars Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Bend it Like Beckham) and Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation, Girl with a Pearl Earring) are supposed to be fabulous, and the film is up for four Golden Globe Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Johansson)).

Matt Murdock, Esq. Jan 06 2006 01:34 PM

Here's an updated version of my Woody Allen exegesis: Woody Allen's career... Unlike the career of Mel Brooks, which can be seen as three neatly descending plateaus, Woody Allen's career is much more up-and-down, with occasional bursts of brilliance still shining during any given period. He's had a pretty unusual career by modern Hollywood standards. He's averaged almost 1 film a year for 4 decades, with very little studio involvement or interference. That is pretty remarkable, especially since the end of the Hollywood's "studio system", where directors were under contract, and made movies all the time. Looking at his films by decade (and I’m only include the features he both wrote and directed): [u:1viaubqd]1969-79:[/u:1viaubqd] Take the Money and Run Bananas Everything... Sex Sleeper Love & death Annie Hall Interiors Manhattan His “hilariousâ€

Willets Point Jan 06 2006 02:18 PM

Interesting. I haven't seen a Woody Allen movie since Everyone Says I Love You, which unlike Ralphie I actually enjoyed. If I were to pick my ten favorite WA movies they'd probably be (in chronological order): Bananas Love & Death Annie Hall Zelig Broadway Danny Rose Radio Days Crimes & Misdemeanors Bullets Over Broadway Mighty Aphrodite Everyone Says I Love you

ScarletKnight41 Jan 06 2006 03:02 PM

I agree with Willets about Everyone Says I Love You. Matt and I have discussed this film before, and while I understand his objections I nonetheless enjoy the nontraditional musical. The overall film isn't anything special, but many of the individual numbers are very entertaining.

ScarletKnight41 Jan 06 2006 08:34 PM

D-Dad and I really liked this film, although I don't know that it's really award worthy. But it was an interesting, well-paced story, beautiful to watch and very well acted. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is a former tennis player who has retired from the tour and becomes a tennis pro at a ritzy London club. He ingratiates himself with a very wealthy family - the son enjoys his company, the daughter is enamored of him, and the parents love him to pieces. So all is good and well except for one thing - Jonathan is smitten with the brother's fiancee, played by Scarlett Johansson. I won't give away more than that, but the plot twists and turns over a period of years, and it keeps your interest despite being long for a Woody Allen film (just over two hours, while most of Woody's films run about 90 minutes). By the end it takes on something of a film noir quality. The characters are beautiful, London is beautiful, and the story holds one's attention - I'd recommend it.

Vic Sage Jan 09 2006 09:46 AM

My personal top 10 (in chronological order): Bananas Sleeper Love & death [when they talk about the "early funny ones", these are the 3 they're talking about] Annie Hall [his most critically acclaimed, and most sophisticated of his neurotic romances] Stardust Memories [a personal fave, Woody's "8 1/2" is not for everybody. A Fellini-esque rumination on his filmmaking career is funny, bizarre, a bit whiny, but moving in spots] Broadway Danny Rose [flat out funny, with a touch of pathos] Radio Days [a sad/funny nostalgic rumination on the radio days of his youth] Crimes & Misdemeanors [perhaps the best film of his career] Bullets Over Broadway [funny insight into Woody's own insecurity about being an "artist"] Mighty Aphrodite [another funny one with real weight] While ZELIG is an interesting experiment, I don't see how you can list it above SLEEPER, which may be his funniest movie ever. As for his awful musical, I've got a scathing review of EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU on IMDB somewhere. I'll post the link if i ever find it. But otherwise our top10s are pretty similar. I'd also want to give an honorable mention to PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM. Though he didn't direct it, it is based on his play, and feels very much like a "woody allen" film, and is terrific... Sort of a blend of ANNIE HALL's landmark neurotic romanticism and PURPLE ROSE's magical realism. other honorable mentions: WHATS UP, TIGERLILY? (there are no words...) TAKE THE MONEY & RUN (primitive, sketchy, but funny) ZELIG DECONSTRUCTING HARRY SWEET AND LOWDOWN HOLLYWOOD ENDING (these 4 are flawed but are still interesting)

Willets Point Jan 09 2006 10:08 AM

Sleeper kind of creeped me out, but I was very young when I saw it. I liked the "jazz heaven" part of Stardust Memories but the rest was dull, dull, dull.

sharpie Jan 09 2006 12:57 PM

My 10 chronologically: Sleeper Annie Hall Manhattan Stardust Memories Broadway Danny Rose The Purple Rose of Cairo Hannah and her Sisters Crimes & Misdemeanors Husbands and Wives Bullets Over Broadway Haven't seen: September, Another Woman, Shadows & Fog, Mighty Aphrodite, anything since Curse of the Jade Scorpion.

Vic Sage Jan 10 2006 08:21 AM

i was never a fan of MANHATTAN and HANNAH (the other 2 chapters of the "NYC Trilogy"), though obviously they are 2 of his more acclaimed films. I just find MANHATTAN's pedophilic obsessions too autobiographical for comfort, and HANNAH strikes me as a particularly annoying soap opera. HUSBANDS & WIVES is filled with the most despicable characters in his entire ouevre, and it's even more discomfortingly autobiographical than MANHATTAN. The jumpy hand-held camera work made me want to scream. This one is on my list, along with his musical, of Allen's films that i never ever want to see again.

ScarletKnight41 Jan 10 2006 08:28 AM

I was pregnant when I saw Husbands and Wives. I was sitting there, wondering why I was suddenly suffering from morning sickness, considering that I hadn't had any throughout my pregnancy. Then I realized that it was motion sickness from the camera work. My personal favorites, in no particular order, are - Annie Hall (when I lived in Boston, it was my favorite film to watch about New York) Take the Money and Run (the first film that D-Dad and I ever saw together, and the first mockumentary I can recall seeing) Radio Days (I LOVE the vignettes) Everyone Says I Love You (I know that Vic hates it, but I enjoy the musical numbers) Love and Death (the dialogue is hysterical) I can't say that I really love the other films, but I usually enjoy watching them. Even the bad ones are interesting in places.

Willets Point Jan 10 2006 08:29 AM

Why do you call those three films the NYC trilogy? Pretty much every Woody Allen movie takes place in New York and features the city prominently.

Vic Sage Jan 10 2006 09:03 AM

I refer to is as the "NYC trilogy", because that is how those 3 films have come to be known. While many of his films take place in nyc, few of them are so much ABOUT NYC. The 3 are also consistent in tone, in that they are contemporary romantic comedies rendered with his unique style of neurotic Allen-iation. They are specifically about finding love in this big city, and they are different in tone, form and content from such of his other films which also happen to take place in nyc, like HUSBANDS & WIVES, ALICE, EVERYBODY SAYS... or MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY.

Elster88 Jan 30 2006 02:11 PM

From Roger Ebert's mailbag, regarding Woody Allen: Q. I took a few friends -- none of whom had never seen a Woody Allen film -- to see "Melinda and Melinda." They loved it. They said it was the best movie they had seen in 2005. They wondered why no one was talking about the film. Radha Mitchell was brilliant, they said. Goes to show, if this were the first Woody Allen film to be released, we'd be throwing bouquets at his feet. I think of Allen films as a great jazz piece -- say, "Kind of Blue." All the movies share a melody, but each is its own instrument putting down a harmony. I am hopeful that Americans will learn again to appreciate one of our great artists, Woody Allen. Tim Varner, Toledo, Ohio A. Oddly enough, much the same thing was said at Cannes about Allen's newest film, "Match Point." Had it been signed with another name and entered in the competition, some thought, it might have won. Woody has made so many films over so many years that, as A.O. Scott observed a few months ago in the New York Times, we have come to take him for granted and even resent his productivity. The challenge in marketing "Match Point" will be to tell potential customers: You think you know all about Woody Allen and you think the returns are in, but has he got a surprise for you.

Vic Sage Jan 31 2006 08:31 AM

This movie was a huge disappointment. It's a flat, humorless depiction of loathsome people doing loathsome things and getting away with it. Its turn from UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS soap opera to noir-ish thriller is silly, with a script that enduced inappropriate laughter amongst the audience. It's a "thriller" for about 15 minutes. Good ending, though. Allen's CRIME & MISDEMEANORS covers all the same philosophical ground, but with rye humor and melancholy to leaven the heavy-handed goings on. The Martin Landau subplot from C & M is in fact lifted whole and turned into MATCH POINT, unburdened by C & M's humor, texture or Checkovian elan. All that gets replaced by the mechanics of planning and committing murder, and then covering it up. C & M left that stuff out to focus on the impact of the event on the characters, not plot machinations. I really don't understand the hoopla here, folks. The image of a naked emperor wearing invisible clothes has suddenly popped into my head. Now if i could only turn that emperor into an empress that looks like charlize theron, it would end up being a pretty good day for me.

Edgy DC Jan 31 2006 08:34 AM

It was the frequent self-plagiarization that first made me pull the chain to get off the Woody Allen bus.

Vic Sage Jan 31 2006 12:11 PM

well, thats not a big deal to me. Great artists frequently have a limited number of things to say. They merely learn to say them in different, more interesting ways. If you look at the films of John Ford, f'rinstance, you'll find recurring motifs, actors, characters, themes, images, all over the place. Yet each is a unique statement. Hawks even uses the same basic plot to expess the same basic ideas in RIO BRAVO, EL DORADO and RIO LOBO. It can be quite interesting to see how a director chooses to tackle the same material at different points in his career. But that Allen used the same plot to express the same idea... but he simply did it LESS well the 2nd time... is kind of sad, in the same way that RIO LOBO ended up a sad kind of Hawks film. If Allen wanted to take that plot and that theme and inject it into a noir-ish thriller, then fine. But Allen doesn't have the chops to direct a thriller, and thats the problem.

Edgy DC Jan 31 2006 12:19 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jan 31 2006 12:37 PM

Recurring actors? John Ford had more than recurring actors, he had a stock company, reloading only to replace George O'Brien with John Wayne after O'Brien abondoned him on a binge in the Phillipines. Recurring themes? Great. Big themes need to be developed over time to resonate anything substantial. What would E.M. Forster be without recurring themes? Actual recurring plot lines in writing, and recurring gags (What's wrong with masturbation? I don't insult your hobbies.), not so much.

Vic Sage Jan 31 2006 12:20 PM

i hear ya.

sharpie Jan 31 2006 01:27 PM

Sage has bread on his mind: but with rye humor and melancholy to leaven the heavy-handed goings on.

Edgy DC Jun 06 2006 07:11 PM

It's a flat, humorless depiction of loathsome people doing loathsome things and getting away with it. Its turn from UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS soap opera to noir-ish thriller is silly, with a script that enduced inappropriate laughter amongst the audience. It's a "thriller" for about 15 minutes. Good ending, though. I pulled the plug before the ending. CC Ryder is in there watching the ending now. I had to withdraw and throw up.