Woody Allen

  • Woody Allen – Café Society (2016)

    2011-2020ComedyDramaUSAWoody Allen

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    In the 1930s, a young Bronx native moves to Hollywood, where he falls in love with the secretary of his powerful uncle, an agent to the stars. After returning to New York, he is swept up in the vibrant world of high society nightclub life.Read More »

  • Woody Allen – Shadows and Fog (1991)

    Drama1991-2000ComedyUSAWoody Allen

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    Quote:
    As Wolcott Gibbs once said to Shakespeare: Kafka, here’s your hat.

    That’s just one of the deliciously eccentric messages being sent out by Woody Allen in his rich, not easily categorized new black-and-white comedy, “Shadows and Fog.” Among other things, “Shadows and Fog” contemplates life, death, love, literature, movies, American humor in general, the gags of Bob Hope in particular, the music of Kurt Weill and the changing fashions in B.V.D.’s.

    Kleinman (Mr. Allen) is a timid clerk in the kind of unidentified Middle European city once so beloved by Kafka, Kafka’s imitators, the masters of the German Expressionist cinema of the 1920’s and their imitators. It is always night in this closed world of miasmic fog, cobbled alleys and street lamps that shed too little light but cast photogenically deep shadows.Read More »

  • Woody Allen – Irrational Man (2015)

    2011-2020DramaMysteryUSAWoody Allen

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    Quote:
    A new philosophy professor arrives on a small town campus near Newport, Rhode Island. His name, Abe Lucas. His reputation : bad. Abe is said to be a womanizer and an alcoholic. But what people do not know is that he is a disillusioned idealist. Since he has become aware of his inability to change the world, he has indeed been living in a state of deep nihilism and arrogant desperation. In class, he only goes through the motions and outside he drinks too much. But as far as sex is concerned, he is just a shadow of himself now: depression is not synonymous with Viagra! For all that, he can’t help being attracted to one of his students, pretty and bright Jill Pollard. He enters into a relationship with her which remains platonic, even if Jill would not say no to more. The situation remains unchanged for a while until, one day, in a diner, Abe and Jill surprise a conversation that will change the course of their lives dramatically…Read More »

  • Woody Allen – Manhattan (1979)

    USA1971-1980ComedyRomanceWoody Allen

    Quote:
    On the heels of Annie Hall, the Oscar-winning romantic comedy that rocketed Woody Allen to the front ranks of American filmmakers, Manhattan continued Allen’s romantic obsessions in a darker, more pessimistic vein.

    Allen stars as Isaac Davis, a TV writer sick of the pap he is forced to churn out and harboring dreams of being the great American novelist. His love life is in barbed-wire territory: he is tormented by his ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep in one of her first screen roles), a lesbian who has written a tell-all book about their marriage, and he is dating teenager Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), who is disenchanted with his snobbish putdowns and refusal to commit himself.Read More »

  • Woody Allen – Zelig (1983)

    1981-1990ComedyUSAWoody Allen

    Quote:
    Released in 1983, Woody Allen’s mockumentary drama Zelig was in some quarters regarded as a one-joke technical novelty. But in 2011, it looks like a masterpiece: a brilliant, even passionate historical pastiche, a superbly pregnant meditation on American society and individuality, and an eerie fantasy that will live in your dreams. Most unsettling, somehow, for me, is the still image of Allen reconstituted as a speakeasy gangster, the “tough hombre” remembered by an elderly waiter decades after the event.Read More »

  • Woody Allen – Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)

    1991-2000ComedyCrimeUSAWoody Allen

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    There’s a real murder and a real mystery in Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery, but these plot pegs are used mainly to allow Allen to explore modern urban relationships. Allen plays a book editor, married to Diane Keaton (who replaced Mia Farrow, for reasons which were well publicized at the time). Keaton is a free spirit, ever willing to try new experiences, but Allen is a wet blanket. When it becomes apparent that a neighbor has killed his wife, Keaton is eager to investigate the mystery, but Allen thinks her suspicions are nonsensical and doesn’t want to leave his apartment. Undaunted, Keaton finds another “Nick Charles” in the form of family-friend Alan Alda, who, along with his enthusiastic wife (Angelica Huston), joins in the investigation. Slightly jealous, Allen reluctantly agrees to go along on Keaton’s clue-hunting expedition–and it is he who discovers the corpse, who as it turned out was killed after Keaton started poking around the apartment building.
    — Hal Erickson @ allmovie.comRead More »

  • Herbert Ross – Play It Again, Sam (1972)

    1971-1980ComedyDramaHerbert RossUSAWoody Allen

    Quote:
    Herbert Ross directed this adaptation of Woody Allen’s hit Broadway play concerning a shy film critic who has trouble with women. Woody Allen plays Allan Felix, a writer for Film Quarterly consumed by movies, particularly his favorite film of all time, Casablanca. At the start of the film, Allan’s wife Nancy (Susan Anspach) has just left him and is applying for a divorce. Unable to deal with this emotional turmoil, Allan seeks solace in the movies he loves, imagining Humphrey Bogart (Jerry Lacy) has dropped by his apartment to offer Allan advice on dealing with the ladies (“Dames are simple.Read More »

  • Woody Allen – Take the Money and Run (1969)

    USA1961-1970ComedyCrimeWoody Allen

    Quote:
    Woody Allen’s 1969 crime comedy is a mockumentary telling the story of Virgil Starkwell, possibly the world’s worst criminal.

    Narrated by Jackson Beck, we find Virgil started out life with petty crime, and never really became successful after that. He meets a pretty girl, Janet Margolin, and falls in love, but the call of easy money keeps drawing him into failed schemes to rob banks. As we see his plans go awry time after time, we also hear from psychiatrists and authority figures, all of whom think they know what is really wrong with Virgil. His parents, ashamed of their son, don disguises to hide their identities- Groucho Marx noses and glasses.Read More »

  • Woody Allen – Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

    1981-1990ComedyDramaUSAWoody Allen

    Between two Thanksgivings two years apart, Hannah’s husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.Read More »

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