While I think it's certainly a mistake to say that Woody Allen is back to form, I think it is safe to say that he's finally stopped sucking. Allen's career is fascinating in that it can readily be reduced to ten-year phases. His first film, What's New Pussycast, came out in 1965 and for about the next ten years, he did light, slapstick type of comedy very much in the vein of the Marx brothers. Granted, these were definitely "smart" comedies but had Allen stopped making films after 1973's Sleeper, he would have been a very small footnote in the history of cinema. With 1975's Love and Death, Allen's comedy becomes a bit more cerebral and in 1977 he finally hit it on the head with Annie Hall. This second-phase -- from about 1975-1985 -- is where Woody Allen becomes Woody Allen. The nebbish personality, the neuroses, the use of Judaism as comic fodder ... these all became signature Woody Allen.
In 1986, Woody Allen puts out what I think is his best film, Hannah and Her Sisters. While still a comedy, there's a certain seriousness and gravitas only hinted at in earlier films like Manhattan. With the exception of 1987's Radio Days, this next phase -- from 1986 to 1995 -- reflects a maturer Allen. I mean this both in the sense that the content gets more serious and the subject matter gets increasingly geriatric. Allen is essentially playing himself and as he ages so do his characters. The films, however, become increasingly less interesting and by 1995, he throws out as one last gasp in the form if Mighty Aphrodite. While not a terrible film, Woody Allen shows himself not only to be weakening in ideas but to be woefully out of touch. For the next ten years, Allen begins his suckfest. The fact this happened to coincide with his pedophile scandal may just be coincidence ... I'm not going to get into that. I'll just say that there are a lot of hours in my life I wish I could get back after having lost them to watching crap like Everybody Says I Love You.
Thankfully, in 2005, Allen got the hell out of New York and began making good films again. First, he came out with Match Point and the followed it up with two more London-based films, Scoop and Cassandra's Dreams. In 2008, Allen went to Spain and created what might be one of his best films in a very long time. Not best films of all time because Vicky Christy Barcelona does not even come close to matching Annie Hall, Manhattan, or Hannah and Her Sisters but it does show a renewed Allen. While his focus on the ultra-waspy lifestyle of the upper east side (transplanted to Spain) still annoys me (really, what is it with Jews raised in New York in the 1950s and their fascination with WASPs?), VCB was filled with some very dynamic performances. Most notably, of course, was Penelope Cruz. I've always contended that she's a brilliant actress when allowed to act in her native Spanish. When acting in English, she's stiff but if you've ever seen Abras Los Ojos or Volver, you know what Ms. Cruz is capable of. If for nothing else, I have to thank Allen for reintroducing Cruz to an American audience. Oh ... and Scarlet Johansen wasn't her normally annoying self.
Ok, everything you may have possibly heard about Viola Davis' performance is absolutely true. She's only in the film for about fifteen minutes but it's one of the most powerful fifteen minutes you're going to run across in any film. The fact most people have never heard of her or recognize her at all is testament to the problems of race and gender that still run throughout Hollywood. Viola Davis has an incredibly long filmography but it's been mostly as bit players (although it appears that Soderbergh uses her regularly). But, just as there are few really good roles in mainstream films for women there are also few good dramatic roles for African Americans. Bring those two together in the form of an African American woman and you're lucky if you get a challenging part in something other than a film adaptation of a Terry MacMillan novel.
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep are as good as you might expect and Amy Adams proves herself surprisingly adequate. I like Amy Adams but I had grave doubts that she could ever play something other than the perky, naive waif. Hmmm, now that I think about it, that's exactly what she was in this movie: the perky, naive nun.
I think the most notable aspect of this film is how well it works despite the fact it's adapted from a play. So often, great plays don't translate well into cinema ... especially when the playwright is involved (although Tennessee Williams' plays seem to work well). For example, as much as I love Glengary/Glenross, you don't ever forget that you're watching a film. There's a certain pacing -- both the action and the dialogue -- that's unique to theater and completely foreign to cinema. The fact Mamet's play works as a film is a testament to how powerful the words themselves are. Doubt, on the other hand, works quite well as a film. I'm curious to see what the original play must have been like as I would assume it's dramatically different
J and I drove out to the Eastside in order to take J's nephew (which, I guess by dint of marriage makes him my nephew as well) out for lunch and a movie. While the basic conceit of Coraline was interesting, I was a bit hesitant about watching the film because I really did not care for Nightmare Before Christmas and I've been finding Tim Burton's one note to be rather tiring (and, yes, I realize he didn't actually direct or write the film but he's still connected to it and sometimes that's just enough).
Nonetheless, it's what Big A. wanted to see and so that's what we saw ... in 3-D of course.
After having been inundated with high-tech CGI, it was really nice to get back to some old-school stop-action animation. I guess it's similar to the whole digital vs. analog debate. While digital might be the more advanced technology, you still can't replicate the warmth of good, old-fashioned analog. Listen to an album on CD and listen to it on vinyl ... there's really no contest. Well, I'm not going so far as to suggest that CGI isn't worthwhile or that it can't have warmth but, up to this point, no amount of CGI can create that sense of realness that stop-action can. Look at an old episode of Wallace and Gromit and then watch Flushed Away.
Getting back to Coraline, the first 90% of the film was fantastic (and the 3-D effect, after a few minutes, began to feel very natural). The problem was that it tried to wrap up the story far too quickly. The film began as a very interesting psychological narrative that looked melded childhood fantasy and nightmare into a single vision but once we hit the third act, Coraline spiraled into a third-rate action film whose denoument did not do justice to the rest of the film.
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