'Whatever' Doesn't Work: An Email from God to Woody Allen

From: Godgod@heaven.org>

Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 07:03:37 -0700 (PDT)

To: Woodywoody.allen@mischugana.com>

Subject: Your latest verkaktah film.

Dear Woody,

Would it kill you to pick up the phone and call your father once in a while? That’s what happens with kids they get to smart for their own good and think they don’t need me.

And now, you come out with this “Whatever Works” film. What, you think that shemdrick Larry David who plays that louse Yellnikoff can out match me with a formula? Never happen! I created formulas. In one of his rants he tried to pull a fast one on the audience about Job. Yellnikoff whined that all that Job got for his piousness was suffering. So, why suffer? Right? Wrong. I was teaching Job how to be patient! Something you, Yellnikoff, and apparently that David character have never learned.Let me tell you something, Woody, as your father who has tried to give you everything you would need to make a nice life, your attitude hurts me, and I might add your mother, to the quick. What? I don’t have enough aggravation with this pedophile Michael Jackson who now thinks he’s going to moon-walk into heaven, that thief Madoff, Obama’s spending spree, and that little rat with a beard, Ahmenijadh! Now, I need tsuris from you too?

What got into that head of yours? First, you make “Broadway Danny Rose,” with Mia Farrow, whom your mother and I loved. It was a nice little film that did well in the art houses. If I remember correctly, Mia Farrow’s character, Tina Vetali, starts off with a “Whatever Works” attitude but learns through her acquaintance with your character, that schlamazel, Danny Rose, for whom every good and loyal deed is punished, that there is no solace to be had from acting like an animal, from getting what you can when you can no matter who you hurt along the way. Don’t you remember how she came back to celebrate Thanksgiving with you, Herbie Jason and his parrot, Barnie Dunn the stuttering ventriloquist, and that blind xylophonist?

Now, you make this stinker, “Whatever Works.” This, this Yellnikoff character is you. I saw that. Your mother saw that and had to leave the theater before the film ended while it was still dark she was so embarrassed. Everyone in the theater knew the truth.

What? You think you can marry your adopted daughter then absolve yourself by making a movie in which some miserable reprobate tells the audience they’re a bunch of no-good-niks who worry about their vitamins, cholesterol, and their retirement accounts for nothing because life is just a series of mathematical anomalies void of any meaning? That wasn’t what I meant in Ecclesiastics.

Where did you ever learn that happiness is found, by “filching” a little something here or a little something there, no matter what the consequences, no matter who is hurt? You know who filches? Pigeons!

And, let me ask you this; if “filching” has made you so happy then why is it that you felt it necessary to make such a cynical and angry film? Have you forgotten about the three “L’s,” “Love, Loyalty, and Longevity.”

You read Ecclesiastes the wrong way, Woody. Kohelet, the narrator, did not mean that everything we do is futile, vain, void of meaning. He meant that our works, our choices, are a matter for me to judge and that you should fear me and obey my commandments! And for that obedience you will be rewarded with life. In other words, choose life and love. That means turning away from lust and avarice at every opportunity. Look what it got Madoff! Believe me, Kohelet was not saying that you should marry your daughter, adopted or not. I know, I asked him! He was as shocked at the news as we all were.

I know you, you’re probably not reading this any more. But, by some miracle if you are, let me ask you something: Would it hurt you to make your mother and I proud by making a movie about something nice like that gentile Disney or one of the other nice film makers?

Woody, you’re nearly seventy-five. You’re too old for this. Whatever we did wrong was in the past. It’s time to forgive and forget. Walking around with a chip on your shoulder will never ever result in you’re finding happiness, filching or no filching.

Remember son, a man devoid of religion is like a horse without a bridle!



Your loving father,

God