Woody's films ranked !

I am indebted to that enterprising movie magazine LITTLE WHITE LIES, as they have ranked all Woody Allen's 46 films, with interesting comments on them, just as his new one CAFE SOCIETY is getting better than usual reviews here (My pal Martin "loved, loved, loved it".). The link is here:   Enjoy!

http://lwlies.com/articles/the-films-of-woody-allen-ranked/

I couldn't top that, Woody (is it really 51 years since he was chasing Romy Schneider in WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT?, our favourite 1965 cult movie .... ) has been variable over the years, with some movies I love (ok, the mainly early funny and mid-period ones) and some I just had no interest in seeing. 

My top 10 Woodys would be:      (but check the link and read all about them all). 

• ANNIE HALL
• MANHATTAN
• INTERIORS
• STARDUST MEMORIES
• HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
• CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS
• MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
• EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU
• ANOTHER WOMAN
• RADIO DAYS
• BROADWAY DANNY ROSE
• THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO
• LOVE AND DEATH

I dashed to BLUE JASMINE which seemed his best in years, it was only after we realised the flaws in the script, but it was marvellously done, especially by Cate Blanchett. His London movie YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER worked for us too. 1972's EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX amused at the time - Woody as the Fool, Gene Wilder and the sheep - but that extended sperm sequence may jar now, with that anti-gay jibe (Are there any gays in the Woody universe, apart from Meryl Streep as the lesbian ex-wife in MANHATTAN?) 
Reviews of some of these at Woody label. Lets hope he, in his 80s,  can keep turning out a movie a year for a while longer yet ...  

A classic year: 1975

IMDB 's Classic Film Board has a thread on the best films of 1975. I submitted my 1975 top twenty - I didn't realise it was such a classic year! and of course in that pre-video, pre-internet world we had to see all those films at the cinema (and London still had plentiful arthouse and revival circuit chains) and read the movie magazines to keep up with them ...  I have written about several of these here, as per labels.

THE PASSENGER - Antonioni 

BARRY LYNDON - Kubrick 

LOVE AND DEATH - Woody Allen 

NASHVILLE - Altman

HISTORY OF ADELE H. - Truffaut 

FOX AND HIS FRIENDS - Fassbinder 

SEVEN BEAUTIES - Wertmuller 

DOG DAY AFTERNOON - Lumet 

THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR - Pollack 

THE STEPFORD WIVES - Forbes 

THE MAGIC FLUTE - Bergman 

INDIA SONG - Duras 

JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUI DE COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES - Akerman 

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW - Sharman 

TOMMY - Russell 

ROYAL FLASH - Lester 

SHAMPOO - Ashby 

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK - Weir 

MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL - Gilliam. 

Dreadful but compulsive (for Lee Remick, Barbra Streisand fans!): HENNESSEY / FUNNY LADY. 

In the IMDB poll on 1975, JAWS topped the list, but THE PASSENGER (PROFESSIONE: REPORTER) made a respectable 7th on the top 20, with BARRY LYNDON in second place, and NASHVILLE third followed by ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, and also respectable placings for ADELE H and SEVEN BEAUTIES. 

A fascinating year in the mid-70s then, CHINATOWN was the year before, and the following year 1976 had TAXI DRIVER, OBSESSION and Visconti's L'INNOCENTE to fascinate us, while 1977 and beyond took us into CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, ANNIE HALL, NEW YORK NEW YORK and the rest ... not a bad decade at all, the 70s are up there with the 50s and 60s - great to have lived through them as cinema changed and developed so much.

1975 was of course also a great year for music - on those vinyl gatefold albums, like this Joni Mitchell favourite: "The Hissing of Summer Lawns".

Other classic years here, as per labels: 1954, 1957, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1970

That 1966 Royal Film Performance ...

Maybe the best line-up ever?  I have posted photos from this event before here, those shots of Julie Christie, Catherine Denueve, Ursula Andress, and then with Leslie Caron and Warren Beatty. I had not realised there was newsreel footage of it, and that it also included Dirk Bogarde, Deborah Kerr, James Fox, Rex Harrison and Rachel Roberts, Christopher Lee, Raquel Welch and more, as well as the stars of the film (BORN FREE) Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers. AND they had a dress rehearsal earlier .... as per below. 

Here are some other shots: Deborah chats to the '60s girls, and Warren noticing Julie being presented to Her Majesty. This apparantly is where they met ... certainly a star-studded evening, the likes of which they don't have now, of course it was 48 years ago! 

 

Deneuve, Lee, Welch, Allen, Andress, Bogarde, Christie, McKenna, Travers

Showpeople - another batch of fab photos

I have loved WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT? since I was 19 in 1965, as per other reports here, but had not seen this group pose before ! 

Rock, Cary, Marlon, Greg Peck - what are they watching? Who is the odd one out? - Peck, no gay or bi- rumours about him!

LET'S MAKE LOVE again, with the Montands and the Millers - see previous post with Frankie Vaughan.

 Audrey and Capucine stepping out with Givenchy in 1972.

Marilyn and Elizabeth Taylor - maybe the only time they ever photographed together or in the same room - at Sinatra's concert at The Sands in 1961. Below, is another shot, with Peter Lawford on stage.

One I had not seen before: Rock and Sophia in the early 60s. He filmed with Gina (twice) and Claudia, but never with Loren ...

Sophia - smoking! -  with Greg in 1962 when she presented him with his Oscar, and in 1993 when he presented her with her second one. 

And once again, that amusing shot of them with Joan Crawford and Maximilian Schell back in 62 .... as per other reports here.

And thst glamorous Royal Film Performance lineup in 1966, with Julie Christie, Leslie Caron, Warren, Catherine Deneuve, Christopher Lee and Ursula Andress .... 

And this FUNNY LADY Royal presentation ... Barbra, Caan, with a re-united James Stewart and Lee Remick ...

Year's end

And we look back at the last of 2013, a year when eras passed: not only Nelson Mandela but Mrs Thatcher, the resignation of Pope Benedict and that interesting new pope Francis .... that titan among TV people David Frost; people dear to us that we grew up watching like Peter O'Toole and Julie Harris; Joan Fontaine, Eleanor Parker and Esther Williams from the Golden Age, among many others.

Certainly a towering year for cinema, we are looking forward to the Award Season as its should be the best for some time, as Blanchett, Dench, Bullock, Thompson, Winslet, Hanks, Redford, Ejiofor,  Cauron, McQueen and others slog it out. Seeing the new Woody Allen on the cinema screen and back on form was good too...

Discoveries of the year for me were finally getting Blu-ray for the reissues of THE SERVANT and BILLY LIAR; seeing THE SERVANT on a movie screen again at that screening I attended back in March when James Fox, Sarah Miles and Wendy Craig were present to talk about it 50 years later - how often does that happen? As I had seen Dirk Bogarde and Joseph Losey in discussion back in 1970, I just had to be at this one too. Then there's the Blu-ray of Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE, we will be discussing that in the new year. We also dug the Blu-ray of Clement's PLEIN SOLEIL, and loved it all over again. 

It was great too to go back to the British cinema of the late '40s and early '50s with titles I had not seen before like THE BLUE LAMP and HUNTED, with early Bogarde making an impression, as per recent reviews, and more Italian cinema of the early 60s with those Bolognini titles like LA NOTTE BRAVA, SENILITA, CORRUPTION, as well as France's LES GODELURAUX, that 1962 Chabrol rarity, and his even rarer 1965 MARIE CHANTAL VERSUS DR KHA with the adorable due of Marie Laforet and Stephane Audran (French label).

1959 was the year that kept on giving with those Russian classics like BALLAD OF A SOLDIER and THE LETTER THAT WAS NOT SENT, it was a year of discovering Russian cinema as we also loved 1957's THE CRANES ARE FLYING. Other new 1959 classics to add to the growing list were Camus's BLACK ORPHEUS and Chabrol's LES COUSINS and A DOUBLE TOUR, plus Brigitte Bardot's zany COME DANCE WITH ME, which must make 1959 my favourite movie year ever (along with 1960, 1962, 1963, 1966 ...).  See 1959 label for more on these. Then there were those Chabrol, Deneuve, Bardot  and Romy Schneider treats (French label) plus finding out about those missing Lee Remick BBC films. Now for 2014 and THE GREAT BEAUTY ...

Blanchett as Blanche ?

The hype over the new Woody Allen BLUE JASMINE has been deafening, with grateful critics sobbing with joy and naming it his best in two decades, no less. One had to rush to one's local mammoth 10-screen complex for a quiet afternoon screening (just 7 of us in the cinema), and yes - I did like it a lot, not so much for Woody (his script has glaring plot holes, if not craters), but for the mesmerising star turn by Cate Blanchett, finally unleashed with a role she can go to town on. 

Cate of course has been memorable from the start (ELIZABETH, VERONICA GUERIN, NOTES ON A SCANDAL) but her elf queen in the LOTR films or that assassin in HANNA or that comic villain in the last INDIANA JONES did not do much for her.  Of course she got the supporting actresss Oscar for her Katharine Hepburn in THE AVIATOR in 2004 (who else could have played her?), and also played a version of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes' I'M NOT THERE (she reunites with him for CAROL, based on an early Patricia Highsmith novel). 

In fact Cate is on a roll now with quite a few upcoming and in pre-and post-production. She is also the face of a new Armani scent, and does marvellous red carpet - like Tilda Swinton or Kate Winslet she always looks terrific. (left). 

I loved Woody's MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and that last London one YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER and the BARCELONA one was interesting too, but, despite my love of all things Italian, I had no interest in his TO ROME WITH LOVE .... or most of his other recent films. JASMINE gets him back to high esteem, and he has already finished another one. Not bad for his late 70s. 

SPOILERS AHEAD, if you have yet to see it:

After suffering a nervous breakdown involving her wealthy husband's (Alec Baldwin) financial downfall and suicide, a woman (Cate Blanchett) attempts to get a fresh start by moving to San Francisco and living with her sister (Sally Hawkins). She is unable to disguise her contempt for her sister's downscale lifestyle and taste for "loser" boyfriends. Woody Allen's latest film is a variant on A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, in fact its almost a re-write (updated to take in the recent finanncial scandals), with a juicy role for Cate Blanchett as a woman slowly unraveling before our eyes.

Jasmine looks a real ‘Potiche’ (Trophy wife) who may have been deluding herself about her husband's financial scams and is now in the midst of a psychological breakdown - as we see her babbling to the woman next to her on the plane to San Francisco, travelling first class of course. Cate starts as can’t-take-your-eyes-off-her amazing and keeps on going. She is simultaneously lovable, loathsome, comic, and tragic, she also comes across as delusional, lying, and maybe going insane - one could almost say not since the heyday of the young Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis has there been such a spellbinding turn …Meryl seems colourless by comparison. Sally Hawkins too is terrific as the sister, she was that marvellous Jane Austen heroine Anne Elliot in the recent PERSUASION that I liked a lot (Costume drama) label.

Shades of Blanche and Stanley ?

The story follows the basic outline of STREETCAR (which oddly Blanchett recently played on stage) but takes some interesting turns, for instance, when she tries to better herself by taking computer classes while working as a receptionist at a dental office. But surely a woman like Jasmine would have to be computer literate, and what dental practice is not computerised these days?  It is of course exquisitely embarrassing and pure Allen when the dentist comes on to and practically assaults her … It seems like New York in San Francisco as the guys her sister hangs out with are pure Brooklyn or New York, and for a supermarket check-out girl Ginger, the sister, has quite a spacious apartment and a limitless supply of vodka ...

Then there is the diplomat and aspiring politician (Peter Sarsgaard) she meets at that party - surely he or his family would want to know exactly who she was and all about her past before they go to get that engagement ring?, as Jasmine passes herself off as an interior designer, doing over his stunning house with that view over the Bay. 

But surely, as I read it, Jasmine brings it all crashing down with her phone call to the FBI when Baldwin wants to get serious with his latest mistress, and discard her, as up to then she had been ignoring his financial scams, which also fleeced her sister and her husband out of their lottery win …so she phones the FBI and next thing Baldwin is being arrested in the street ... and Jasmine is left apparantly without a cent as she flies first class to San Francisco with her Louis Vuitton luggage - didn't she have anything in her own name? (Fraudsters usually place their assets in their wives' names to keep them in the family).  So what happens to Jasmine at the end, as we leave her talking to herself on a bench, having it seems burned her bridges with her sister, now reunited with her "loser" boyfriend? Will she too be "dependent upon the kindness of strangers" as she is also carried off to the looneybin ?  In all, a fascinating, contradictory movie, making lots of points, and nice to see Woody using widescreen for a change. 

The next award season should be fascinating: Cate would seem a shoo-in (and seems to have already started her campaign with several tv and print interviews here), but Judi Dench will also be a certain nomination for her forthcoming PHILOMENA which looks like a topical sob story, then there is Sandra Bullock with GRAVITY, and the new Kate Winslet LABOR DAY ... but it would seem its time for Cate to take home the big one, and she has so much more in the pipeline before the Awards.

Pussycat ! - a summer re-run.

WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT? from 1965, is a key '60s movie for me,which I just found myself defending over at IMDB, where someone considered it one of the worst movies ever made. As I said: I can quite well accept its one of the worst films ever made but thats part of the attraction, if you were 19 in 1965 (as I was) and saw it at the cinema with your friends and we all laughed ourselves silly and liked the cast, it remains a cherished memory, and the height of mid-60s chic. glamour  and zaniness. 

My pals Stan and Michael and I adored it back in the '60s and returned to it several times in that pre-video world. Stan and I used to quote lines from it to each other ("Miss Lefebvre [Capucine's real name...] your face is like the pale autumn moon" "What did you say?" etc; of course Sellers and Cap were also hilarious in the original PINK PANTHER). O'Toole, Sellers and Woody + the delirious quartet of Romy, Capucine, Paula and Ursula AND Fellini's Edra Gale ! (Ursula dropping in by parachute and saying "Whats that thing?" when she sees Edra in the Viking get-up, and as she says to Peter O'Toole "Come back to bed immediately...". Whats not to like ? - even my French favourite chanteuse Francoise Hardy pops up at the end after that madness at the country hotel and they all going off on go-karts! 

Left: lovely shot of Romy & Peter - he certainly worked with them all: the 2 Hepburns, Loren, the PUSSYCAT gals ...

I just can't believe its 47 years ago ... I had the funky Burt Bacharach soundtrack album as well...and I just love the look of it, as helmed by Clive Donner. For me it and MODESTY BLAISE are the mid-60s stylish comic peaks. 

Even now the memory of Woody chasing Romy around, O'Toole and Capucine trapped in the elevator, Cap pretending to be the cleaner when Romy walks in, the language class repeating everything O'Toole and Romy say, Paula's suicide attempts, those fantastic costumes they wear .... and then they all running around the hotel etc.

Back to 1965: "Pussycat pussycat I love you" ...

THE PASSENGER from yesterday was a major trip down memory lane for me, so too is WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT? from 1965, which I just found myself defending over at IMDB, where someone considered it one of the worst movies ever made. As I said: I can quite well accept its one of the worst films ever made but thats part of the attraction, if you were 19 in 1965 (as I was) and saw it at the cinema with your friends and we all laughed ourselves silly and liked the cast, it remains a cherished memory, and the height of mid-60s chic and zaniness. 

My pals and I adored it back in the '60s and returned to it several times. One friend and I used to quote lines from it to each other ("Miss Lefebvre [Capucine's real name...] your face is like the pale autumn moon" "What did you say?" etc; of course Sellers and Cap were also hilarious in the original PINK PANTHER). O'Toole, Sellers and Woody + the delirious quartet of Romy, Capucine, Paula and Ursula AND Fellini's Edra Gale ! (Ursula says "Whats that thing?" when she sees Edra in the Viking get-up, and as she says to Peter O'Toole "Come back to bed immediately...". Whats not to like ? - even my French favourite chanteuse Francoise Hardy pops up at the end after that madness at the country hotel and they all going off on go-karts!

I just can't believe its 47 years ago ... I had the funky Burt Bacharach soundtrack album as well...and I just love the look of it, as helmed by Clive Donner. For me it and MODESTY BLAISE are the mid-60s stylish comic peaks.

Even now the memory of Woody chasing Romy around, O'Toole and Capucine trapped in the elevator, Cap pretending to be the cleaner when Romy walks in, the language class repeating everything O'Toole and Romy say, Paula's suicide attempts .... and then they all running around the hotel etc.

The man with the movie camera goes to Rome

I had never heard of MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA, a 1929 Russian silent movie by Dziga Vertov - but there it was at number 8 in the recent "Sight & Sound" list of the greatest films ever made (the list they do every 10 years, see Magazines label). Then luckily it was screened on television here over the weekend by the enterprising Sky Arts channel.

"Sight & Sound" say: Is Dziga Vertov’s cine-city symphony a film whose time has finally come? Ranked only no. 27 in our last critics’ poll, it now displaces Eisenstein’s erstwhile perennial Battleship Potemkin as the Constructivist Soviet silent of choice. Like Eisenstein’s warhorse, it’s an agit-experiment that sees montage as the means to a revolutionary consciousness; but rather than proceeding through fable and illusion, it’s explicitly engaged both with recording the modern urban everyday (which makes it the top documentary in our poll) and with its representation back to its participant-subjects (thus the top meta-movie.

Phew. It certainly shows how inventive silent cinema was, it is an astounding portrait of a city (it could be any city really, until one sees the picture of Lenin) over the course of a day, the trams, the people at work and at play - was life that different 83 years ago?, not really it seems - the astonishing editing and that pounding score ... which, as per end titles, was composed in 1996 by Michael Nyman! - I thought it perfectly of its period and so Russian. I had never heard of this film before the Sight & Sound poll - so thanks for that. It is absolutely fascinating to watch now - the rapid editing, the mix of music and image, factory production lines, all getting quicker and quicker until the fantastic climax. This is one to return to. It must have been stunning at the time (well, it still is now - viewers would have seen nothing like it, as that editing was so much quicker than usual).

Another man with a movie camera: Woody goes to Rome. We all loved MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, but it looks like a drubbing all round for his next one: TO ROME WITH LOVE - as per most of the reviews. While one has to applaud the director in his late 70s still making a film a year,  but it may be to diminishing results. One reviewer says: "TO ROME WITH LOVE isn't one of Woody Allen's worst films, it is four of them" (it being in 4 segments). It seems here that his vision of the Eternal City is about as authentic as ham and pineapple pizza. I loved his last London one YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER (mainly for the cast: Gemma Jones, Pauline Collins etc) and of course his last foray to Paris (his first being WHATS NEW PUSSYCAT all those years ago..) but I will wait for the dvd on this one. If though he is doing a valentine to Rome why not find a role for some of those Italian greats like Loren or Cardinale? - and why import a Spanish actress (even if she is Penelope Cruz) to play Italian? - and yes Roberto Benigni - one of those comedians in the Jerry Lewis/Danny Kaye mould (ie you either love or hate him). The best thing about the Barcelona film was the music, so presumably we will like the soundtrack here too. 
I keep meaning to re-visit the Woody of MANHATTAN, INTERIORS, STARDUST MEMORIES or those middle-period dramas like ANOTHER WOMAN or SEPTEMBER. BROADWAY DANNY ROSE is in the schedules again next week - that's a start!  

I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour ...

I have had a few very late nights in Paris myself, back in the '80s (when one of my oldest friends was married and living there for a decade), so its nice to go back there with Woody in his latest outing MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and yes, its his best in some long time. As previously posted here, his "Spanish one" VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA seemed a return to form, and of the "London ones" YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER had a great cast and some good comic moments, but MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is just simply perfect, and again a neat 86 minutes ... also, with Woody, no extras on the dvd - presumably he only shoots what he needs for his script so there are no deleted scenes, outtakes, commentaries.


Owen Wilson is Gil, a scriptwriter in Paris with his girlfriend and her family (who are on a business trip) as he slowly realises how little he has in common with them. She is not interested in walking in the rain and much prefers to go shopping, the parents are rightwing reactionaries obsessed about money and the price of things. Then that midnight taxi turns up as Gil gets away for a late night walk ... and suddenly he is back in the 1920s to the Paris of the Jazz Age. We share his bemusement as he encounters the Fitzgeralds (thats Scott and Zelda), Cole Porter at the piano, the young Hemingway, and soon the salon of Gertrude Stein - a no-nonsense Kathy Bates; Adrian Brody is perfect too as Dali, and Gil also encounters surrealists Man Ray and Luis Bunuel (to whom he gives the idea for EXTERMINATING ANGEL!). Then too there is Adriana (Marion Cottilard) the muse to Picasso and other painters ... On his return visits Gertrude Stein agrees to look at his new manuscrpt and he begans to fall for Adriana but she is dissatisfied with the 1920s she is living in, so by another time warp they go back to the 1890s Belle Epoque and encounter who else but Toulouse Lautrec at the Moulin Rouge sketching all those can-can dancers! Meanwhile, back in the present, there is another girl in Paris Gil gets to know, whom we just know will be perfect for him .... good to see Woody back in Paris practically 50 (well 47) years after WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT where he was chasing Romy Schenider and those other girls (above)... and of course the French scenes in EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU.



Woody Allen's latest then is beautifully written and a charming story that belongs in the top ten of his all-time greats - up there with "the early funny ones" and ANNIE HALL, MANHATTAN, INTERIORS, STARLIGHT MEMORIES, HANNAH & HER SISTERS, CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS. From the opening montage of lush picturesque Parisian scenes by day and night and in the rain, the film is a love letter to the city of light. Owen Wilson is for once perfectly cast as the young Woody type, Michael Sheen is ideal too as the ex-lover of Inez, Gil's girlfriend, whom it turns out she is still sleeping with (trust Hemingway to notice that...) and there is the nice scene at the art gallery where Gil puts the pompous pedant in his place; Carla Bruni turns up in the nothing role of the tourist guide, and it all ties up nicely together. The best laugh out loud moment is provided by the detective hired by Inez's father to see where Gil goes at night - boy does he he get into a time warp!