Woody Allen

[P_R]

Anything Else

Excellent. A filmmaker after my own heart I say.

It is the same film.

There's nothing out there
You can grow up and you can't avoid situations where you feel like a kid - not knowing what is ahead
How is will you go on with life and make decisions when there is no semblance of certainty
The Analyst who is like God, who never ever answers
Wierd, wierd situations

Pitch perfect movie


Jason Briggs in character and acting is a Woody. So it's like watching a younger and older Woody.


I worry that I am watching his films at a faster rate than he is making them.

[P_R]

Wordiness

Film is a medium fraught with uncertainty and it is perfectly fine to overcommunicate. Just mask it so it doesn't hurt the viewer's ego :P

Jason Briggs has this psychoanalyst in Anything Else.
Hilarious guy. He does nothing. Says nothing. Has no answers. Only restrictions and impositions.

He listens to him long and hard. Does not ever give him an answer. Woody's character says nobody has answers, from time immemorials charlatans have pretended to have an answer, everyone tries to guide each other's lives, when obviously such a thing is absurd and impossible. He says it in so many words. But then that is impossible too. As, based on Woody's advice, Briggs tries to shake out of character with disastrous consequences and Woody himself gets into a situation.

The psychoanalyst deflects real life questions in favour of making sense of dreams. And there too he is always 'what does it suggest to you' mode. He threatens to discontinue analysis if Briggs decides to keep a gun in his apartment (which he says is an 'acting out').

In a moody, do it yourself movie it would probably have been expected of me to think of the psychoanalyst as a stand-in for 'God'. And if I had gotten that it would have elevated the movie. But it is more likely I will be plagued by uncertainty and not dare to make such a reading without some strong encouragement/suggeston etc. And an overdose of that has me sufficiently annoyed to shut shop.

Woody's character speaks derisively of the analyst: 'like he is God or something'. Which is pretty much unsubtly, bluntly telling us what the character was meant to be. That's such a "ah yeah !" moment. Elevates the whole sequence and movie so damn much.
Again I am sure if he had said it in a serious dialock: isn't your psychoanalyst so much like God...etc. I would felt 'ouch'...why did you have to say that.

So I guess explanation cleverly made to look 'in-passing', a reading sold through an 'anti-sell' are the kind of thing that works extremely well.

Briggs: I am going to have to terminate analysis
Analyst: ........
Briggs: What do you think about it?
Analyst: what do you think about it?



This guy is just fantastic.

[Nerd]

Midnight in Paris - Quite possibly the film of the year. Loved the way the entire thing was shown in an unassuming/undramatic manner. Set of interesting scenes put together superbly. I saw a lot of woody in owen. And Paris.. what a beety, first time I wanted to visit a place after having watched it in a movie.

[kid-glove]

hmmm, naan oruthan thaan innum pakkala pola.

Look forward to this, more than his films...

[Sid_316]

Midnight in paris was disappointing No idea why its rated so high.. Allen could do much better.

[groucho070]

Trouble with latter day movies is, we see Woody in this feller and that feller, sometimes even girl. Most outrageous was Celebrity, bleddy Kenneth Branagh was doing a Woody. Just because he's older and can't do young bugger rule, change the character man. Like Eastwood, I prefer watching films with Woody in it, illana, with exception of few cases, rejetted.

[Sid_316]

Trouble with latter day movies is, we see Woody in this feller and that feller, sometimes even girl. Most outrageous was Celebrity, bleddy Kenneth Branagh was doing a Woody. Just because he's older and can't do young bugger rule, change the character man. Like Eastwood, I prefer watching films with Woody in it, illana, with exception of few cases, rejetted.

Louu'd vicky christina barcelona.

[Sid_316]

The problem for me in midnight in paris was i had no idea about the literary periyavas who lived in the past and the fantasy aspect was :meh: . It moved in snail's pace..Very unlike woody ( Atleast that i know)

[wizzy]

^I had similar issues..cheat codes for folks like us

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/hemingway-said-what-a-cultural-cheat-sheet-for-midnight-in-paris/240198/#slide1

[P_R]

MiP is the best movie I have seen this year
I have not seen any other film this year, but even if I did I am reasonably sure MiP would remain at the top of my list.
பிற பின்.