Woody Allen's Coup de Chance

Niels Schneider and Lou de Laage
in Woody Allen's
Coup de Chance

The main reasons to see Woody Allen's Coup de Chance are the gorgeous shots of Paris and the French countryside in autumn, and, if you are completist like me, to be able to say you've seen all 50 of his films. Otherwise, this latest and perhaps final effort from Allen is another retread of his suspense, trick-ending efforts such as Crimes and Misdemeanors, Scoop, Match Point, You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger, Irrational Man, and Cassandra's Dream, except it lacks the humor of the first two. A woman embarks on an affair with her high school classmate she happens to bump into on the street. Her husband discovers her infidelity and hires underworld goons to "eliminate the problem." Sound familiar? So many of Allen's "suspense" films seem to be about creating plot twists and story problems to solve rather than examining human beings and their foibles. Coup de Chance most closely resembles the Martin Landau plot arc of Crimes and Misdemeanors, which I felt was the weakest part of that film. Allen is fascinated with guilty people operating outside the law and sometimes getting away with it. Perhaps this parallels his subconscious feelings of guilt over the Soon-Yi affair/marriage and his daughter Dylan's accusations of child abuse. Although I don't see the comparisons clearly. Maybe he wants to exact his own form of justice? I saw this at the Quad at 11:30 am on the Monday of the solar eclipse. The film was gorgeous to look at (I didn't look at the eclipse because I had no special glasses), but it felt as empty as Rifkin's Festival, Allen's last film. I didn't care what happened to any of the characters as I did in Radio Days, recently viewed on TCM. There are reports Allen will be filming another movie in Italy this fall. I will probably see it, but not expect anything great.

Book Review: Zero Gravity

Downloaded from my Kindle for $19. Now I have read everything Woody Allen has written. This collection of short pieces is as slight as his previous one, Mere Anarchy. All are amusing and raised a mild smile from me. When Your Hood Ornamant Is Nietzsche was probably my favorite. A self-driving, intelligent car poses philosophical questions of morality as it contemplates if it should run over a pedestrian or save its driver. The final piece, Growing Up in Manhattan is an actual short story, close to a novella, but ultimately unsatisfying. It follows an autobiographical Allen-like hero, as he experiences a Brooklyn childhood, a rocky first marriage, finding work as a TV writer and playwright, and a taking up with a frighteningly self-possessed new love as his first union dissolves. It's well-written and the only piece with a plot and characters beyond cartoons. But there's little or no point to the story, other than a charming portrayal of 1960s NYC. It ends rather abruptly with the hero breaking it off with his new girl. Why is Allen telling this story other than to reminisce about his youth?

Book Review: Mere Anarchy

Downloaded on my Kindle for $15 or so. Having read Getting Even, Side Effects and Without Feathers many years ago, seen all of his movies and most of his plays, I wanted to be a completist and read this more recent collection of short pieces from Woody Allen so I can say I've read and seen everything he's written. A mildly amusing group, relying on obscure vocabulary and cultural touchstones. A lot of the material is dated--musicals no longer have out-of-town try-outs in Philly, Boston or Baltimo' and no one reads the tiny ads in newspapers anymore. But there are funny lampoons of The Maltese Falcon (a million-dollar truffle is substituted for the famous blackbird) and In Cold Blood (instead of getting murdered, victims have their mattress tags removed). 

Book Review: Woody: The Biography

Received as a Christmas present, finally got around to reading it. I think this is the fourth Woody Allen biography I've read (after Marion Meade, Eric Lax and John Baxter). This is definitely the most pro-Woody one so far. Published in 2015, Evanier's book praises Allen at every turn. Evanier makes a point of not following a chronological sequence, he goes back and forwards in Allen's life. The result is somewhat confusing. At one point he devotes an entire chapter to a transcription of an interview with Dick Cavett. Much of the book critically examines Woody's films, books and plays in a detailed, considered manner, but the last few chapters turn into a tabloid expose of the Soon-Yi/Dylan/Mia scandal. Allen's later films are given scant attention.

Evanier's main theme is that Allen bounces back after every setback. The book was written before his biggest challenge when the #MeToo movement gave renewed vigor to the Farrow family's campaign to cancel Allen altogether. Despite Amazon canceling his contract, actors in his recent films denouncing him and contributing their salaries to charity, and his autobiography being nixed, Allen kept going. His book found another publisher and he continues to make films at 87. Reports of his retiring from moviemaking were evidently incorrect. His 50th film--Coup de Chance, entirely in French with a French cast--has found a distributor and will presumably be available in the US. The rest of the world is not rejecting him. I guess we won't get a definitive Allen bio until the subject passes away and the final movie is made.

Niels Schneider and Lou De Laage in
'Coup de Chance' 
Credit: GRAVIER PRODUCTIONS INC./
THIERRY VALLETOUX

Woody Allen's Rifkin's Festival

You know you're in trouble 
when the poster is more
entertaining that the film.

While scanning for movie times for Parallel Mothers (because Penelope Cruz is Oscar-nominated for Best Actress and I want to see all the nominees in the major categories this year), I discovered that Woody Allen's latest (and perhaps last) film, Rifkin's Festival was playing at the Quad Cinema, a tiny fourplex. The film was completed a year ago and shown at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where it happens to be set, but there were doubts it would ever be released in the US because of renewed accusations against Allen by his adopted daughter Dylan that he molested her when she was a child. Rifkin's production and release were also delayed because of the COVID crisis. Allen's previous film, A Rainy Day in New York was dropped by its US distributor when the Farrows began ratcheting up their cries amidst the #MeToo movement. If Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby were becoming pariahs and having their careers cancelled, why not Allen? Rainy Day was released around the world except for the US and was one of the maligned filmmaker's biggest international successes. Friends in Israel saw it and liked it. It finally showed up on streaming services like iTunes last year and it was slightly amusing.

Out of curiosity, more than anything else, I resolved to see Rifkin on a cold, drizzly Super Bowl Sunday with my friend Diane. After all, I have seen every one of Allen's 48 earlier works, so of course I had to include this one. Rainy Day had a few moments of fun and wit, but Rifkin is totally lacking in either. The screenplay is a sad retread of numerous Allen schtick-tropes with only one or two genuine laughs. Mort Rifkin (Wallace Shawn), the latest in a long line of schlubby, late middle-aged Allen stand-ins is a pretentious writer and former cinema studies professor attending the San Sebastian Festival with his gorgeous, younger wife (Gina Gershon), a publicist. She is escorting her client, an even more pretentious and handsome French film director (Louis Garrel). Naturally, the publicist and the director are having an affair and Mort manages to find an even younger and even more ravishing love object, a Spanish doctor (Elena Anaya) treating Mort's hypochondriac symptoms. (Shades of Hannah and Her Sisters). Of the latter Allen films, only Whatever Works contains a protagonist ultimately hooking up with an age-appropriate woman. 

The Films of 1971

There are many books, articles and essays on particular years in film designated as seminal or highly influential. 1939 is seen as the zenith of the Golden Age of the Hollywood Studios. Several volumes have been published on 1967 as the harbinger of the independent film. I just saw a book on Amazon about 1991 as an important year. For me, 1971 was probably the watershed in movie appreciation. Many of the films I either saw that year or that were released then and I saw later, had special significance for me. Some were the work of my favorite directors who were at their peak artistically (Altman, Bogdanovich, Kubrick). Some expressed the transition from childhood into the beginning of maturity. Some deal with frank sexuality. The Oscar ceremony honoring that year's films (held in 1972) were the first Academy Awards I can remember being allowed to stay up and watch until the end. 

Timothy Bottoms and Cloris Leachman in
The Last Picture Show

My most significant 1971 movie was The Last Picture Show. Though Peter Bogdanovich's sensitive study of life in a tiny Texas town lost the Best Picture Oscar to William Friedkin's intense, jagged police procedural The French Connection, it did receive 8 nominations and won for Best Supporting Actor and Actress.  Picture Show was Bogdanovich's big breakthrough and was hailed as the greatest film by a young director since Citizen Kane. I was only 12 at the time of its release and I knew I wanted to see it. Maybe because of the cast which included Cloris Leachman, who I knew and loved for her role on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Maybe because it had received such spectacular reviews and I wanted to see a grown-up film. But the movie was rated R and an adult had to accompany me. (They don't still have those ratings, do they?) My dad agreed to take me and though there were some explicit nude and sex scenes, I understood the gist of the film and appreciated its themes of desolation and loneliness. We saw it at the Gateway Cinema near King of Prussia, PA and I can recall the manager asking my father if he knew the nature of the film and that it was for mature audiences. My dad said he understood and that it was okay for me to see it. So I am grateful to him for indulging me and deeming me mature.

Woody Allen's Apropos of Nothing

Woody Allen is one of my favorite filmmakers. I have seen almost all of his films from Take the Money and Run to Wonder Wheel (even the abysmal Amazon mini-series Crisis in Six Scenes). (I'm only missing the second half of Hollywood Ending on DVD which I will get to eventually and I'm pretty sure I've seen What's New Pussycat and What's Up Tiger Lily, but I have to double check if I only viewed bits and pieces or the whole running time of both films.) Friends in Israel have seen A Rainy Day in New York and liked it.

I've also read his collections of New Yorker pieces--Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects--and seen most of his plays on and Off-Broadway. (I was too young to see Don't Drink the Water and Play It Again, Sam, I missed the Floating Light Bulb, but I've read them. Everything else including his one-acts paired with short works by Elaine May, Ethan Coen and David Mamet I've seen.) So I was excited to read this memoir, particularly to get Allen's version of the whole Soon-Yi/Mia Farrow/Ronan/Dylan molestation accusation mess that's been going on for 30 years.

A.O. Scott and 'Morning Joe' Crew Are Nuts

Cate Blanchett in 'Blue Jasmine'

New York Times film critic A.O. Scott made Oscar predictions on Morning Joe today and it was so weird. The crew--Joe, Mika and my dreamboat Thomas Roberts--asked Scott who he thought should win and will win. First it all started out OK. Scott's assessment of the Best Picture race was reasonable, though I don't agree--he picked 12 Years a Slave for should and Gravity for will. I can see that, though I think Gravity will be honored with all the tech awards, but Slave will take the top prize. So far, ok. Then Scott said he thought DiCaprio deserved to win over McConaughey because Leo was so energetic or something while Matthew only lost some weight, played a character with a fatal disease who transforms from a bigot to a nice guy. Never mind that Matt's role in Dallas Buyers Club was more demanding than Leo's (IMHO).

Then when they got to Best Actress it got crazy. Scott actually predicted Amy Adams of American Hustle not only should win over Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine, but that she deserved to. WHAT? Then Joe and Mika started piling on about the Woody Allen scandal and how Hollywood would not want this controversy near "their party." Joe opened his big mouth and made the bizarre claim that Blanchett's character in the movie--a widow whose disgraced husband cheated clients in a Madoff-like scheme--was based on Mia Farrow. Again, WHAT?

Film Awards Season Overview: 'Gravity' vs. '12 Years a Slave'

Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, and Chiwetel Ejiofor in
12 Years a Slave

The film award season has already started and the battle lines are drawn: 12 Years a Slave and Gravity are the main contenders for Best Picture, with Her a possible spoiler. I can't believe Gravity is actually a possibility to take the top Oscar. Special effects, OK. Maybe even Best Director. But the Best Picture Award over the masterful 12 Years? My partner points out that Gravity is an "up" picture (no pun intended) with Sandra Bullock triumphing over adversity in the end (just like Tom Hanks in Capt. Phillips and Robert Redford in All Is Lost). Yes, Chiwetel Ejiofor does escape from his bondage at the end of 12 Years, but the film is so dark and uncompromising in its depiction of a national disgrace many would rather forget, it may be bypassed.