To Absent Friends - Marshall Brickman

Marshall Brickman

1939-2024

Film screenwriter and director Marshall Brickman died a few weeks ago and his passing is worth mentioning.  To me, Brickman is best remembered as the screenwriter who, along with Woody Allen, co-wrote four of Allen's greatest movies: "Sleeper", "Manhattan", "Manhattan Murder Mystery" (a movie that earned an Oscar for Dianne Wiest), and, best of all "Annie Hall", which won four Oscars, Best Picture, Best Actress (Diane Keaton), Best Director (Allen), and Best Screenplay for both Allen and Brickman.

That alone earns Absent Friend recognition for Brickman in my book, but, as you learn when you read news obituaries, there was so much more to the Marshall Brickman.

He got his start in show biz by playing banjo in a folk music group called The Tarriers that made a minor name for themselves during the early 1960's folk music boom.  Brickman came on board the group as a replacement for a band member that as to go on to other things, actor Alan Arkin.  It was when the Tarriers were headlining in small clubs that Brickman met and became friends with an opening act comedian named Woody Allen.  After getting to know one another, Brickman began writing some of Allen's jokes and monologues that became a staple of his stand-up career,  He also helped to write a number TV specials for Allen as he was making his way up the show business ladder.

Some other Marshall Brickman highlights:

• All the while, Brickman continued his banjo playing. When the Tarriers disbanded, he briefly played in a group called The New Journeymen, that featured a couple of singers John and Michelle Phillips in their pre-Mommas and the Poppas days.  
• In 1972, the producers of the film "Deliverance" was looking for a soundtrack and stumbled upon an old banjo album that Brickman and his college roommate Eric Weissberg had recorded years earlier and used it.  The famous Dueling Banjos?  THAT was Marshall Brickman.  Brickman wasn't even aware of it until one day a check for $170,000 arrived in the mail for him from Warner Bros.
• He went on to become the Head Writer for Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.  Remember all this hilarious sketches featuring Carnac the Magnificent, Aunt Blabby, and Art Fern's Tea Time Movie?  That was Marshall Brickman.
• The book for the hit Broadway Musical Jersey Boys?  Yep, that was Marshall Brickman, too.  He did the screenplay for the movie version as well.

Brickman's writing, directing, and producing credits number over fifty in IMDB.  Quite a resume and quite a career.

By chance and right before Brickman's death, Linda and I rewatched "Annie Hall" a few weeks back.  The movie is now 52 years old and it holds up completely and remains a comedy classic. You might want to do the same thing in the days ahead.

RIP Marshall Brickman.

"A Rainy Day in New York"

If you know me, and if you have been a regular reader over the years, you know that I have always been a fan of Woody Allen and his movies.  And if you are even the least bit aware of what has been happening with Allen over the last several years, you also know that any discussions of Woody Allen anymore have become, shall we say, "complicated."  

These complications became very much a part of the release of his most recent film, "A Rainy Day in New York", which was scheduled to be released in 2019, and, to be honest, I don't even know if the movie ever was released theatrically in the United States.  You can read all about those details here.  Regardless of all of that, I finally got around to watching this movie over the weekend via streaming, so the question is, How was it, as a movie?

Answer:  It was good, it was funny, my wife and I both laughed a lot at it.  It was absolutely gorgeous to look at.  It was also familiar.  It was, in short, a "Woody Allen movie."

Timothee Chalamet plays the "Woody Allen Character" in this one, including serving as the voice over narrator at times.  He's a college student at a niche New York liberal arts college.  He's not sure what he wants to do in life, other than playing in high stakes poker games (at which he is quite good) and not following the path that his socialite parents wish for him.  Elle Fanning plays his ditzy girlfriend, who somehow manages to land an interview with a famous movie director for the college newspaper.  The director is in New York City, and Gatsby (Chalamet, yes, his name in the movie is actually "Gatsby") then plans a romantic weekend trip to his favorite city in the world, New York, after Fanning gets her one hour interview with the auteur.

Well, as you can imagine, complications and hijinks ensue.  Fanning gets caught up in an artistic crisis between the director, played by Liev Schreiber and his screenwriter, played by Jude Law, and is romantically lured by a handsome international movie star.     Gatsby, meanwhile, runs into some old friends of his from prep school, the younger sister (Selena Gomez) of an old girl friend, and, much to his dismay, a confrontation with his mother, who springs an amazing surprise upon him.

Oh, and it's raining most of the time. Hence, the title of the movie.

I have to highlight one really funny bit.  Early on, he meets up with his brother and his fiancé at their apartment.  In a private moment, the brother says that he doesn't want to marry this woman he loves, because "he can't stand how she laughs."  With the wedding a mere few weeks away, Gatsby tries to convince him how ridiculous this is, and then he, and we, hear her laugh. Trust me, this is funny.

As it often does in Allen comedies, the situations resolve themselves, and you come away feeling good about it.  Still, like I said, the Woodman has taken us down this path before.  

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

Oh, and getting back to those complications.   We all have to make up our own minds as to how we deal with these Art-versus-the-Artist situations.  As you will see in the article that I linked to this story, Chalamet, Gomez, and Rebecca Hall, who also appeared in the movie, made some decisions about this.   I'll judge no one for whatever decision that they may make in regard to these situations, and I would ask the same from anyone else.

Chalamet, Fanning, and Allen

Two Movies and a Book About Movies

First the book....

Thanks to my movie maven pal Barb Vancheri for recommending and then lending me the book you see to your left. It was published in 2005, but it is not all that dated, and it tells, as its ponderous subtitle indicates, about high times and dirty dealings backstage at the Academy Awards (whew!).

I enjoyed this book a lot because you do get a lot of inside scoop about the people that you see when you go to the movies and watch the Academy Awards show.

One name mentioned throughout the book was that of Harvey Weinstein.  The first significant mention of Weinstein in the book refers to him thusly: "The (Weinstein) brothers, particularly the corpulent, flamboyant Harvey, were known for abusing staffers, bullying filmmakers, throwing tantrums, driving hard bargains, and a host of other sins both common and uncommon in the movie business...."  Other mentions of Harvey throughout the book are usually made with reference to his bullying tactics and borderline shady business dealings in the industry that we generically define as "Hollywood".  Not mentioned in the book were the now very well known sexual proclivities of Weinstein, which have been reported to run the gamut of sexual harassment to full on sexual assault.  I am guessing that Weinstein's sexual appetites were well known at the time this book was written, but for some reason were not mentioned in the book.

Anyway, as I said, lots of fun inside stuff in here.  A few takeaways of mine:

• The egos of the "talent" in the movie business are beyond belief.  How the production people, who probably have some large egos themselves, deal with it is beyond me.
• The Academy Awards show is just that - a show, more specifically, a TV show.  The money that ABC pays for the rights to televise that show finances much of what the Academy does.
• In the eleven Academy Awards shows covered in this book, five different producers ran the show, each vowing to bring a "different" look to the show, to make it snappier, more relevant, and, above all, shorter.  In the end, all the shows ended up looking pretty much the same.  In the fourteen years that have happened since this book was published, the show still looks pretty much the same.
• In the end, what makes the show memorable are the moments that can't be planned or scripted: Jack Palance doing one armed push ups, Michael Moore making an overtly political speech and getting booed off the stage, Denzel Washington and Halle Berry winning Oscars the same night, or, more recently, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway being given the wrong envelope and announcing the wrong Best Picture winner.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Now, the movies....

Woody Allen's 2017 release, "Wonder Wheel", was generally panned by critics.  If it even opened in Pittsburgh at all, it was here and gone in about five minutes, so we finally caught up with it via streaming (I feel so hip when I say that!) last Saturday.

As Allen movies go, it was not that great, but it had some things going for it, mainly Kate Winslet and some photography and lighting that was just gorgeous.  Working against it was Jim Belushi as one of the male leads.  Justin Timberlake and Juno Temple as secondary leads were okay. It was no comedy, and was a bit dark in tone.  Like I say, I don't think it was as bad as some critics said, but you do expect more from Woody Allen.

Kate Winslet

Oh, and for fans of "The Sopranos" also appearing in the cast were Tony Sirico (Paulie Walnuts) and Steven Schirripa (Bobby Bacala).  They played, not surprisingly, a couple of Mafia hoods.

Two and one-half stars.

The second movie is the current "Red Sparrow".

This is a rather convoluted set-in-the-present spy thriller.  It has some rather gruesome scenes involving Russian interrogation techniques that are hard to watch, and at 139 minutes, it is about thirty minutes too long, and I am still not sure which side Jennifer Lawrence ends up being on, so this was no great shakes.  

However, it does star the aforementioned Jennifer Lawrence,

as Dominika, the Russian prima ballerina turned spy, who is trained to use her beauty and powers of seduction to become a "sparrow", a spy who will get all sorts of secrets from those bastard Americans.  All so her mother can continue to receive proper health care from the Russian government (told you it was convoluted).  Anyway, Lawrence is terrific given the part she had to play in this potboiler.  She's a wonderful actress, and she does kinda sorta make it worth seeing the movie.  But that's about it.

And be prepared to turn your head away from the screen during the interrogation scenes (there are at least three of them in the movie).  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Two stars.

This, That, and the Other....

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box.....

• The Grandstander went 3-1 in his NFL Wildcard Playoff predictions last weekend, missing only the Packers win over the Giants.  In truth, none of he games were all that great from a competitive point of view, although I loved the non-competitive nature of the Steelers thrashing of the Dolphins.
• For this coming weekend, I give you this....Patriots over Texans (Joe Starkey suggested today that, somehow, the Pats managed to get another bye week in the Playoffs), Falcons over the Seahawks (the fact that Seattle let a lousy Lions team stay with them into the fourth quarter prevents me from picking them), Packers over the Cowboys (just gotta go with Aaron Rodgers over the rookie Dak Prescott), and Steelers over the Chiefs (not going to back down from my prediction of a Super Bowl win for the Steelers).
• I also missed on the CFP game.  Congrats to Deshaun Watson and all the Clemson players on their victory.  To their sanctimonious coach, Dabo Swinney, well, all I can say is that he is one of the few guys I can think of that would make me want to root for Nick Saban.
• Got a chance to watch this Ron Howard-directed documentary this week:

• If you are a devoted follower and fan of the Beatles, I am not sure that you will learn anything new about the band from this, but it does give you a chance to see the group performing live in their touring years.  As everyone knows, The Beatles stopped making live performances in 1966, so any chance one gets to see them perform like this is a bonus.  There is also some color footage of the group performing at a concert in England in 1963 that is astonishingly good in terms of picture and sound quality, and that is something that I, at least, had never seen before.  I rate this a solid three stars, and will say that any fan of The Beatles should add a copy of this movie to their Beatles Library.
• Those same fans might also want to download or buy this CD which was recently remastered and reissued in conjunction with the Howard movie:

• Last week's issue of Sports Illustrated featured a cover story about Ben Roethlisberger, whom that called the "NFL's most polarizing player".   I wish someone at SI would explain what the point was in publishing that story.  It broke absolutely no new ground.
• That same issue featured and "SI True Crime" sort about former Cowboys running back Joseph Randle.  "True Crime", apparently, is now going to be a monthly feature in SI.
• With both stories, I felt like I was reading the National Enquirer, and not Sports Illustrated.  
• Sports Illustrated also announced that US Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles and Aly Raisman will be featured models in its upcoming swimsuit issue.  Miss Biles and Miss Raisman have made this choice freely, and I presume that they are being paid handsomely for doing so, but I hope that I never hear them complain that they are not being "taken seriously" as competitive athletes, or that they are being "objectified", now that they have chosen to be a part of this issue of the magazine.  I wonder what a true pioneer like Billie Jean King would have to say about this.
• I guess that this is just what print publications have to do in an increasingly digital age.
• Finally, I am enjoying this short series from Amazon that was written and directed by Woody Allen:

• Allen also stars in the show that also includes the great Elaine May as his wife.  I had seen that critics weren't too wild about this series, but I think it has its moments.  I have not finished watching the entire series and will wait until I do to give my final judgment, but, so far, not bad.

"Mary Astor's Purple Diary"

Are you a fan of old movies and movie stars? Do you like reading about scandals involving the stars of Hollywood's "Golden Age"?  If the answer to those questions is "yes', then I highly recommend that you read this fun little book by Edward Sorel.

Most people know Mary Astor for playing Brigid O'Shaughnessy, the femme fatal who went up against Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in1941's "The Maltese Falcon", but like many people, particularly glamorous movie stars, Mary Astor had a life off of the screen, and a "past".  And she kept a diary, which got her into trouble and set off a media feeding frenzy back in 1936 when she got involved in a child custody hearing with her ex-husband.

Mary Astor came from humble, very humble, circumstances, but her striking beauty got her noticed and she began acting when she was teenager in silent movies in the early 1920's.  She also had the misfortune of having two not-so-great parents who managed to bilk her of most of the money she earned, and, as often happens, she also was very unlucky when it came to picking husbands.

This led to Mary seeking "comfort" elsewhere, and led to an affair with George S. Kaufman, one of America's foremost playwrights.  When you think of  masculine good looks and virility, you would not think of Kaufman, but, apparently, in addition to his great wit when it came to writing plays and screenplays, he was also possessed of skills in the boudoir that most men can only dream of, and Miss Astor fell hard for him and took full advantage of said skills. And she kept that diary.  At the time all of this was unfolding , Astor was filming a major motion picture at MGM and the thoughts of how such a scandal would hit the ticket-buying public was scaring the bejeezus out of the studio honchos, who in turn tried to exert their considerable political clout on the judge in the custody trial.

How it all unfolded makes for a great story, and how Sorel, an illustrator by vocation (in fact, his illustrations throughout this book contributes greatly to the enjoyment of it), came to unearth the story and set about writing this book, essentially a Valentine to Miss Astor, makes for a most breezy and entertaining read.

I learned about this book when someone posted on Facebook a New York Times book review that was written by none other than Woody Allen.  Allen's review was most entertaining, and prompted my to read the book itself. 

Here is Allen's review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/books/review/woody-allen-edward-sorel-mary-astors-purple-diary.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=0

And, of course, I cannot leave you without a picture of Mary Astor herself in her most famous role.

Good book worth two-and-one-half stars from The Grandstander.

A Movie Friday

Spent some time watching movies this past Friday.

First up was "Sully", the Tom Hanks starring and Clint Eastwood directed movie about the forced landing of a disabled US Airways passenger airplane in the Hudson River in January 2009.  Hanks, who is always good in anything he does, stars as Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot of the craft.  The events depicted in the movie are recent enough that most people will remember them, and Eastwood does a great job in turning an event that last 208 seconds into a full length movie.

Much of the movie focuses on the NTSB investigation of the event that followed.  Did Sully do the right thing in making the forced water landing? (All 155 people aboard survived, so I'd say, yeah, he did.)  Should he have tried to return to one of two airports available to land?  These are the issues facing the NTSB, who it must be said were doing what they needed to do, but Eastwood makes them the "bad guys" in this one in such a broad fashion that I am surprised he didn't have then wearing black hats during the board hearings.

I give this one three stars, and I am looking forward to discussing this one with my buddy Tim Baker at some point in the future.

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Next up was from 1965, Blake Edwards' "A Shot in the Dark", perhaps the best of Peter Sellers Inspector Clouseau movies.  To be honest, some of the gags in this one go on too long and become almost annoying to watch, but there are enough honest-to-God laughs in this one to make it worth watching.  Watching Sellers trying to return a pool cue to the rack of cues in the billiard room is hilarious.

It also stars the beautiful Elke Sommer, the single most beautiful woman I have ever seen in person (I've told the story before), and she is gorgeous in this one.

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On Friday night I tuned into TCM to watch Woody Allen's 1988 drama, "Another Woman" that starred Gena Rowlands and Mia Farrow.  Rowlands plays a college professor who accidentally overhears another woman, Farrow, while she is visiting a psychiatrist.  Hearing they stranger's story makes Rowlands take another look at her own life, both past and present.  I had never seen this one, but I am always anxious to "discover" an Allen movie.  As I said, this one is no comedy, but rather an adult drama, one that makes you really think.  Maybe it's not for everyone, but I thought it was quite good.

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The final Friday movie, also on TCM, was "I Never Sang For My Father" from 1970 starring Melvyn Douglas and Gene Hackman.

Hackman plays Douglas' adult son who returns home after the death of his mother, and is faced with dealing with an aging father.  Lots of unresolved father-son issues come to light.  Again, not always an easy movie to watch, but excellently done - both Douglas and Hackman received Oscar nominations for this one - and a movie that probably everyone, to one degree or another, can relate.

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Still have one more movie on the DVR that I want to watch soon, another Blake Edwards/Peter Sellers comedy called "The Party" from 1968.  Maybe after the Steelers game tonight.  More on that one later, after I watch it again.

Movie Review - "Cafe Society"

As my friends know, I am big fan of Woody Allen, and I always look forward each summer when a new movie from Woody is released.  Last year's movie, "Irrational Man", was a disappointment, but I am happy to report that both Marilyn and I really enjoyed his new release, "Cafe Society", when we took it in this afternoon.

The movie is a period piece that takes place in the 1930's and stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Blake Lively, and Steve Carrell.  It is a story of a young man from New York, Bobby Dorfman (Eisenberg) who goes to Hollywood to land a job with his Uncle Phil, a high-powered Hollywood agent (Carrell).  While there, the nebbish Bobby meets and falls in love with Vonnie (Stewart), a young woman who just happens to be in love and having an affair with the married Carrell.  After that secret is revealed, Bobby moves back to New York and takes up running the sophisticated night club, the high society cafe of the title, that is owned by his gangster brother.  While back in New York, Bobby meets another young woman named Veronica, played by Blake Lively, falls in love, gets married, and starts a family.  Life is good, but one day, Phil and Vonnie show up in Bobby's New York night club, and complications, as they say, ensue.

It sounds a little confusing, but it isn't really as it plays out before you.  Eisenberg is terrific as the "Woody Allen Character" in this one as he fumbles and stumbles around verbally and physically.  He may well be the best of all of the Woody Surrogates that have populated Allen's recent movies.  Both Stewart and Lively are charming in their roles, and Carrell plays a guy who you would probably want to not like, yet he shows a somewhat touching vulnerability as the blustering Hollywood big shot.

The reviews that I have read for this one have been mixed, with most critics saying that while it may be just okay, its not great because, essentially, Allen is making the same movie that he has made a dozen or so times in the past.  Well, this one does remind me of one of my Allen favorites, "Radio Days", in a number of ways:  the period setting, the Jewish family discussing what life has dealt them as they sit around the dinner table, the travails of the main character's extended family, the fact the Allen himself serves as the voice-over narrator of the film, and the climactic scene that takes place in a night club on New year's Eve.  

So maybe Allen has made the same movie before, but to that I say "So what?" He tells the story with enough of a twist to differentiate it from past movies, and he tells it with humor, good writing and direction, and with terrific actors.  It is also a beautiful movie to look at, especially since Allen has returned to New York City to film much of this one.  It has been awhile since Woody has set a movie in New York, and his love affair with his home town shows up as strong as ever.

The Grandstander (and Mrs. Grandstander) give 3 and 1/2 stars to "Cafe Society".

See it.

A Couple of Movies.....

I hit the Redbox a couple of times this week and caught up on with two flicks that I missed when they were in the theaters last year....

The first was "Trumbo", directed by Jay Roach and staring Bryan Cranston as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.  Trumbo, if you don't know the story, was one of the more prominent Hollywood luminaries who was targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950's and was blacklisted by mainstream Hollywood studios in one of the more shameful periods of American history in the 20th century.  Cranston received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for this movie and he was terrific in it.  Also starring and performing well were Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Michael Stuhlbarg, Elle Fanning, and John Goodman.

The story of Dalton Trumbo (and others victimized by the blacklisting) is one worth seeing and learning about, because, I fear, there is an element about in the country today that would like to bring back those days.  We need to learn from our history. 

Plus, it's a good movie to boot.

Three and a half stars from The Grandstander.

The other movie was "Irrational Man", written and directed by Woody Allen.  Regular readers know that I am a huge fan of Woody Allen, but I can't say that this was one of Woody's best efforts.  Part of this may be traced to the fact that I'm just not a big fan of Joaquin Phoenix, who plays the "Woody-surrogate" role in this one.  The first half of the movie is pretty talk-y and slow moving until it gets to the plot point that is the key to the movie.  At that point it picks up a bit, but I think that it would have been a better movie with someone other than Phoenix.  

The movie takes place on a fictional college campus in a coastal town in Rhode Island, and it is beautiful to look at, as have been many of Allen's recent movies.  Female star Emma Stone is just as cute and charming as can be, and Parker Posey does a great turn as an older amorous pursuer of college professor Phoenix.  So the movie has that going for it, but it suffers in comparison with the Woodman's greater body of work.

Two stars from The Grandstander.

Movie Review - "Magic In The Moonlight"

As it has for the last several years, the late summer brings us the release of the latest movie from Woody Allen.  This year it is "Magic in the Moonlight" starring Colin Firth and Emma Stone and written and directed by Allen.

As has been the case with all of Allen's movies in recent years, the filming does not take place in New York City and instead is filmed in a European location, this time in the south of France.  The movie takes place in 1928, and Firth plays a magician, the very best magician of his time who plays to sophisticated audiences all across Europe.  He is also totally full of himself to the point of obnoxiousness, an agnostic with little or no belief in God, faith, or the idea of an afterlife.  He is called upon by a fellow magician to travel incognito to the south of France to try a debunk a young woman, played by Stone, who is a spiritualist who is claiming to be able to contact the dead husband of a wealthy American woman. Firth accepts the challenge to prove that the woman is a fraud.

I won't give away any key plot points, but you can guess what happens.  The stodgy Firth falls for Stone, who isn't sure whether or not to reciprocate.  Firth is very good in his role, and Stone falls into the long line of Allen female co-stars (Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow, Scarlett Johansson), and she is quite good, although she has a long way to go to achieve the cachet of Keaton or Farrow.  (That could happen, though, as IMDB reports that Stone will also be a part of the movie that Allen will release in 2015.) Perhaps the best character is Firth's Aunt Vanessa, played by Eileen Atkins.

Although there are no big belly laughs in this one, there is still a lot of funny Allen dialog, terrific period costumes and music, and the cinematography of southern France, as well as how Allen uses he sunlight to backdrop several scenes, is almost breathtaking.  And has been the case in many of Allen's films, this one has a rather sweet and positive ending.

Do I think this is one of Allen's better movies? No, probably not, but even a middle-of-the-road picture from the Woodman is better than almost anything else that graces the movie screens, particularly during this summer season.

Movie Review: "Blue Jasmine"

In a movie summer filled with post-apocalyptic tales of planet earth, sieges upon the White House, and comic book super heroes, it has been a pleasure to view in recent days two movies for adults (as opposed the "adult movies", which are completely different things).  Last week it was "Lee Daniels' The Butler", which I noted in the paper this morning led all movies in box office receipts for the second week in a row, and this past weekend was the new Woody Allen movie, "Blue Jasmine".

"Blue Jasmine" revolves around the life of Jasmine, a woman who has recently fallen from the top of the financial and social world because her husband, has been sent to jail for shady financial dealings (think Bernie Madoff).  Stripped of her wealth and social standing, Jasmine moves across the country to San Francisco to live with her sister, Ginger.  Ginger is divorced with two children who lives a day to day, paycheck to paycheck existence, thanks in large part to the shady dealings of Jasmine's husband.  How Jasmine "adapts" to her new life is what the movie is all about.

This is a drama from Woody Allen, not a comedy, although there are some laughs in it.  I predict a surefire Best Actress nomination for Cate Blanchett as Jasmine, and she really is terrific in the role.  Sally Hawkins, who plays Ginger, should also receive consideration for Best Supporting Actress as well. Alec Baldwin plays Jasmine's husband and is quite good.  And remember Andrew Dice Clay, the foul mouthed comedian who had fifteen or twenty minutes of fame in the early nineties?  Well, he is in this movie as well, playing Ginger's ex-husband and is surprisingly - to me, anyway - good in the role.  He is particularly effective in a scene he has with Jasmine towards the end of the movie.  

As is often the case in his more recent movies, Allen does not appear in "Blue Jasmine" nor is there a "Woody Allen character" in this one, but as a screenwriter and a director, the 77 year old Woodman has lost nothing off of his fastball.  I hope that Oscar consideration is given him for this movie, even though everyone knows he will not show up on Awards night.

The Post-Gazette gave this four stars in it's review, and I do not disagree.  Very good movie.

Movie Review: "To Rome With Love"

Marilyn and I wasted no time this weekend taking in the newest movie by Woody Allen, "To Rome With Love".  This one follows Woody's recent trend of filming on location in different European cities (London, Barcelona, and Paris), and, as with those other locations, this movie wants to make you immediately board a plane and visit Rome.  Really, having Woody Allen make a movie in your city has to be the greatest thing that could happen to a Chamber of Commerce.  Rome looks positively beautiful in this movie.


Anyway, this one involves four separate stories taking place concurrently in the Eternal City:

• Woody (actually appearing in one of his movies for the first time in several years) and his wife (Judy Davis, a vet of several Allen movies) traveling to Rome to meet their daughter's fiance and his family.
• An ordinary Italian citizen (Roberto Benigni) suddenly, inexplicably finds that he is a huge celebrity, famous for being famous.
• An older, famous architect (Alec Baldwin) becomes a Greek Chorus of sorts to a young architect (Jesse Eisenberg) who is experiencing some romantic entanglements with his girlfriend and her visiting friend (Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page).
• A young Italian couple in Rome on their honeymoon become separated and become involved with a sexy Italian male movie star and a high priced call girl (Penelope Cruz).  Don't ask how this all comes about.

The four stories are not interrelated, but each tells a separate tale in typical Woody fashion.  Nice to see Allen, now an old man, back on screen playing the "Woody Allen" persona with which fans are familiar.  And we even get a bonus in that area, since Eisenberg also plays the "Woody Allen-part" in this movie.  All the characters are great, but I especially liked the roles played by Allen, Davis, Baldwin, and Cruz, and they are great in them.

In his later years, Allen seems to be taking a more positive tone in the stories he tells, and each of the four stories told here end on an upbeat and positive note.  There a lot of laughs in this one, and we liked it a lot.

One word of warning: about half of this movie is spoken in Italian with English sub-titles, so be prepared for that.

Movie Review: "Midnight in Paris"

We took a spin to The Waterfront today to catch the new Woody Allen flick, "Midnight in Paris."

First off, I have never been in Paris, so I speak with no first hand knowledge, but Paris looks absolutely gorgeous in this movie. The City of Lights now gets the treatment that Allen always gave New York City in his movies, and it makes you want to call your travel agent.

In this movie, Owen Wilson plays the "Woody Allen character" right down the cadence of his speech. He's quite good in the role. Rachel McAdams plays his fiance, and she's not very sympathetic. Also, she's no Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow. Anyway, Wilson plays a hack screenwriter in Paris for a pre-wedding trip with McAdams and her parents. (They also meet up with a couple of old friends, and the guy takes the word "pedantic" to new levels. Very funny, especially Wilson's reactions to him. Think Tony Roberts playing this guy in the old Allen movies. Also, think of the know-it-all film buff standing behind Allen and Keaton in the movie line in "Annie Hall.") Wilson longs for the Paris of the 1920's that was populated with artists and writers, and a magical cab ride one night as the clock strikes midnight takes him to the days of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Stein, Picasso and others.

As with most Allen films, there is an interesting moral to the story, lots of laughs along the way, and a happy ending.

I'll give this on a solid "B" in the grading of The Woodman's movies.