THE Woody Allen Appreciation Thread

I agree with ParanoidAniDroid, we need a thread to salute the talent of the gifted, controversial film artist Woody Allen. He's grown a lot over the years as a filmmaker, starting out overdubbing a Chinese film, renaming it WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY?, directing his own low-budget early comedies, growing as director to "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex", Sleeper and my beloved "Love and Death." Then to the next level with "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" and more recent favorites like "Bullets Over Broadway."

Let's talk about Woody. What's your favorite film by the Woodman?

 

Oh c'mon! No Allen fans? Disgraceful...

First let me start off restating some of the stuff I posted in the Zelig thread because I'll just end up repeating my self anyway if I don't.

Zelig, like many of Allen's 80's films, is a sunken treasure, buried beneath the sands of time. I truly believe that this brand of humour is a stroke of brilliance. I mean, it's just so uncommonly funny!

There's a certian genius to his comedy, an Allen film can make me laugh without compromising any of its cinematic integrity. His films resonate on so many different levels of bliss. He has everything down to a complete science; from simple elemants like the delivery and timing to more incredible feats like his innovation and singularity. To me, he joins the hallowed ranks of other great comediac genius' like Chaplin, Keaton, Groucho Marx, Gene Wilder, and Peter Sellers.

Moving along, I think there is plenty potential for a good discussion thread here. I mean, the guys been at it for quite a while and with at least one film a year, well there's quite a breadth of material to discuss.

I suppose I'll begin by naming my favorite films from each Woody-era.

"The earlier comedies" ( ):

My personal favorite here is "Take the Money and Run." Sure, he went on to make much more challanging films like "Bannanas" and "Sleeper" and the documentary style first exhibited in this movie was later perfected with "Zelig" and "Sweet and Lowdown" but none of those made me laugh quite so hard as I did here.

~PAd

 

I love woody allen's films. I'm slowly building up my dvd collection, i have about 80% of his films on vhs. Just bought Interiors on dvd last week.

My dad exposed me to Allen at an early age, and since about 13 years of age i have been a hardcore fan. Back then i could appreciate the more obvious humor, and i did get some of the intellectual stuff but i just felt like i was in the presence of smart, urbane, creative people. One of the only other directors who leave this impression on me is Whit Stillman, writer director of most recently The Last Days of Disco.

Anyway now that i'm older i can appreciate some of the other themes a little more, questioning fate and god and trying to decide what's the real point to being a creative person anyway?

In a way watching a woody allen movie is similar to star wars: you know you are in a specific universe. I'd like to live in both at the same time!

You may get a kick out of this, live Allen interviews are sort of hard to find. Here's one from Sweet and Lowdown era, woody talks about jazz and all things woody. You'll need real player though.

"the treatment" woody allen interview

 

In a way watching a woody allen movie is similar to star wars: you know you are in a specific universe.

Spot on, Cydonia. This is one of the pleasures of having a body of work being the complete brainchild of a single mind. Film is, of course, a collabrative medium but to have the consistency of single person's realized vision is a truly remarkable thing. (Not to mention ingaging!)

Now to pick a favorite from a later era of Woody films, The late seventies (or the coming of age):

Well, this is pretty predictable but to this day I still love "Annie Hall" the most. That goes for all Woody Allen films, too. It was the first one I ever saw and concequentially opened me up to a great and prolific filmmaker and so I have a soft spot for it.

Though, I think that te close runners up are the absolutely gorgeous "Manhattan" and italian inspired "Stardust Memories." It would be a wonder for me not to love that last one since it was strongly influced by one of my favorite Fellini films of all time, "8 1/2."

~PAd

 

I enjoyed BULLETS OVER BROADWAY. Liked Chazz Palmentieri in it. Also liked the fact Woody wasn't IN the movie.