Woody Allen - Page 6

1986 might be one of the most underrated years for movies. Or it might not. Maybe I’m just nuts, but, a year in which “Top Gun,” “Back to School,” “Ruthless People,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Rad,” and “Sid and Nancy” were

Well, I’m four chapters into this series and I’m ready to cheat. Why? The 1984 Nominees for Best Picture: Places in the Heart A Soldier’s Story A Passage to India The Killing Fields Amadeus At the risk of sounding like

French mystic Eliphas Levi had the most profound, yet, mostly ignored observation about his compatriot Voltaire when he said that Voltaire was a great man but he laughed at every opportunity when he was supposed to learn. Had Voltaire been

Et tu, Karl? Only Miles Monroe, Woody Allen’s character in Sleeper, could have missed the firestorm Karl Rove touched off during his appearance on Fox News’ Hannity show on Tuesday night. But for the benefit of Mr. Monroe and other

When Jack Schaefer’s novel Shane first appeared in France, the translator did a curious thing: he snuck Brandon De Wilde’s famous movie line “Shane! Come back!” into the text. That bit, of course, never appeared in the novel. But the

Between February 27, 2009, and today we learned something. We learned that this administration is bent on subverting republican government. Article IV of the Constitution — and its guarantee of a republican form of government — means nothing to Obama,

Back in the summer of 1951, Jackson, Wyoming was a sleepy town nestled amidst a vast untamed wilderness, and George Stevens was there in the valley shooting a film called Shane. To maintain as much creative control as possible, he

I have a request for Whoopi Goldberg. I wish that she would go back to using her birth name Caryn Johnson, at least the Johnson part. Because of her adopted last name, some people may think she may be Jewish.

In 2008, when Woody Allen last spoke of Barack Obama to a group of Spanish journalists, he declared that it would be a “disgrace” if the then-U.S. Senator failed in his quest to become the 44th President of the United

Why does talent get a pass? And to what extent does the “morality paradox” color our view of great artists? Roman Polanski’s best films, like all great films, are very moral–in particular Chinatown and The Pianist. They deal with socially

Claude Brodesser-Akner has a column in New York Magazine‘s new culture blog (Vulture) recently in which he sounds a warning, in hushed conspiratorial tones, about an effort underway by Hollywood to use Evangelical/Christian organizations to spread the word of their

Film blogger and sometimes Turner Classic Movies’ programmer,The Self-Styled Siren, came up with a terrific idea for a movie list: That which we love in filmdom that puts our cool credentials into question (And yes, I do have Cool Credentials.

Sure, you’ve seen it all before: an inexperienced nebbish who’s never experienced a moment of real danger in his life suddenly finds himself thrust into one life-threatening situation after another after meeting a crazed, adrenaline-junkie cop or spy. The two

Last week, I stirred some folks up with my Top Ten Most Overrated Directors of All Time. To recap, they were: Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, David Lean, Darren Aronofsky, Mike Nichols, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and

Ever since the advent of the modern motion picture industry, critics have praised directors as the key to great film. The auteur theory of cinema is idiotic, since writing is truly the key – no director could make a masterpiece

It always impresses me when an aged actor manages a comeback that is authentic, one based on more than mere nostalgia, one appealing to an entirely new generation of moviegoers. Jackie Gleason spent most of the 1970s appearing in pale

After more than thirty years Oscar winning director Roman Polanski, the infamous child rapist and decades-long fugitive from justice, has been captured. He should be extradited back to California as soon as possible for sentencing. Some of Polanski’s early apologists

Harvey Weinstein Members of the Hollywood community have signed a petition to have Roman Polanski released from jail. When is the Hollywood community also going to demand the release of 58 year old rapist Bruno Vece? On January 31st 2009

While running the risk of turning this group blog into an All-Polanski-All-The-Time love fest, I thought it worth while to point out my favorite part of the petition currently circulating the mess halls of Sunset Boulevard. (I mean beside the

When felons were induced to talk, they were shown first the instruments of their torture. The King is shown the instrument of His… to induce Him NOT to talk. – The Madness of King George And with the full knowledge

The Polanski divide isn’t a left/right issue, it’s a culture issue, and while there are many good and moral people working in the entertainment industry, there’s also a dark underbelly of money, power, sex and fame among the most powerful.

So Roman Polanski is in hot water, again – but this time it`s not at Jack Nicholson`s house. Instead, he`s in a Swiss jail, and Hollywood is desperately trying to come to his rescue. Woody Allen, Debra Winger and Whoopi

Weighed down by a depressing premise made all too apparent by the theatrical trailer and advance publicity which made the film’s title too obviously sarcastic, Jud Apatow’s Funny People opened relatively poorly at the U.S. box office, taking in only

[youtube n3a7ATwS6-A nolink] 1. Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) – The hardest I have ever laughed in my life. There I was in the theater; bent over, my feet off the ground, convulsing and gasping for air. As a stand-alone,

We know – because we’ve been told – that love is many things. Unrequited love, however, is only a few things, mainly painful and baffling. But mostly baffling, because long after the pain ebbs the confusion remains: Why didn’t she

Who says time travel isn’t possible? I spent 92 long minutes in Woody Allen’s cinematic wayback machine yesterday, reliving almost all the 60’s pseudo-psychoanalytic cultural neuroses, nihilism and negative leftist judgmental-stereotypes he popularized then that still have us on the

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

The new film Year One is definitely taking a beating from the critics, especially conservative ones. Two reviews by my colleagues at Big Hollywood exemplify the complaints. Comedienne Victoria Jackson expresses immense disappointment with the film’s high proportion of obscenity

When the end of the world comes, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse won’t greet us; The Real Housewives of New Jersey’ll tear us to shreds. Television long ago brought something to the world that should never have been mixed:

Kids, you might not believe me, but there was once a point when Dave Letterman was considered funny. You know what really destroyed Letterman for me? For years Letterman coasted on the same gag — “Look at how much precious

Before the election, at a comfortable film festival in Spain, filmmaker Woody Allen told journalists abroad that it would be “a disgrace and a humiliation if Barack Obama does not win.” “It would be a very, very terrible thing for

How did they do it? Let’s face it, liberals didn’t take over our schools, the entire American education system by protesting. Sure, they made a lot of noise with their complaining, their picketing, but did that do the trick? Did

On Sunday, the Academy Awards will be handed out at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and there are some clear favorites. Slumdog Millionaire, the feel-good Danny Boyle Mumbai opus made for just $14M, is a heavy favorite to win Best

There was not a great deal of drama surrounding this year’s British Academy of Film & Television Arts Awards, commonly known as the BAFTA Awards. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) is a movie with deep roots in the UK. Director Danny

This is the time of year when the studios send DVDs of their movies to the members of the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild and, in my case, the Writers Guild. It’s not altruism. They’re hoping to garner our

The following is an excerpt from Roger L. Simon’s Blacklisting Myself: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror, which will be published by Encounter Books in late January. Simon is the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Enemies, A