Woody Allen fans unite

[Chinaski]

Any Woody Allen fans here? Personally I think he is one of the greats. If not the greatest. Would love to here which your favorite Allen movies are. I start with Match Point, Annie Hall and Manhattan. Btw, how many movies has he shot in London?



EDIT: This topic was supposed to be in the directors area.

[orpheum]

i always used to like him.however he went off the boil many years ago.he thinks he is Bergman but he aint.

[batman]

name='Chinaski']



EDIT: This topic was supposed to be in the directors area.

You originally posted it in the General Film Chat section.



IMHO Allen hasn't made a decent film since Manhattan Murder Mystery which was fun. I agree with orpheum that he appears to see himself as some kind of cinematic genius, which he isn't. He is a decent comedy writer and performer and some of his early films are very funny. However, he seems to have forgotten how to be funny over the past twenty five years or so.

[GRAEME]

I used to love him. I still like the early stuff - and Purple Rose of Cairo is a wonderfully sweet film. But I rewatched Annie Hall a little while ago and found his appalling arrogance really annoying! I guess when I was an adolescent I was sitting there thinking "yeah! right on!" - now I just think he needs to get over himself...

[vincenzo]

Annie Hall, Manhattan & Hannah And Her Sisters were his masterpieces for me though I still love his earlier work. Especially Take The Money And Run (one of my all time favourite comedies).



"Abt natural. I've got a gub!"

[batman]

I agree about Purple Rose of Cairo, good film that. I also like Broadway Danny Rose.

[CaptainWaggett]

name='GRAEME']I used to love him. I still like the early stuff - and Purple Rose of Cairo is a wonderfully sweet film. But I rewatched Annie Hall a little while ago and found his appalling arrogance really annoying! I guess when I was an adolescent I was sitting there thinking "yeah! right on!" - now I just think he needs to get over himself...

Most notable in Everyone Says I Love You (which I otherwise liked) in which the audience is meant to be surprised that Julia Roberts isn't interested in him. A lot of his 1990s stuff is good - Bullets over Broadway was great - but he's made some clunkers recently. Match Point was dreadful - the Brits in the cast must have cringed at having talk about Mama and Papa and being 'raised in Belgravia'

[mal]

I love just about everything he made up to and including Deconstructing Harry, after that it gets painful. Scoop is about as depressing as movies get in terms of talent who've lost it. Love and Death is the one that makes me laugh most. Stardust Memories is the most visually stunning.



Mal

[vincenzo]

I'm no fan of Match Point either but Anything Else was simply dire.

[Mr Sloane]

One forgotten film is What's up, Tiger Lily - how he keeps what is basically a one joke idea going for the entire film is a tribute to his writing.



I enjoy the silly 60'and early 70's films andy Zelig,Radio Days,Hannah and her Sisters,Annie Hall,Manhattan ( hated Interiors) and I think was one of few people who rated Crimes and Misdemeanors but as others have said The Purple Rose of Cairo that's my favourite.

[Edward G]

Woody Allen ran out of cinematic gas some time ago but anyone doubting the summit of his talent should watch the still marvellous "Take The Money And Run". It still scores with mad sight gags. The replica gun made from soap and boot polish in his prison cell that bubbles into soap when he escapes into a rainy night, the human chain gang / charm bracelet scene and the Groucho Marx disguises adorned by his embarassed parents as they are interviewed in the mock documentary style of the film. Add a superb jazz score and you have fabulous comedy - the kind of slapstick that I wish he'd done more of.

name='vincenzo']Annie Hall, Manhattan & Hannah And Her Sisters were his masterpieces for me though I still love his earlier work. Especially Take The Money And Run (one of my all time favourite comedies).



"Abt natural. I've got a gub!"

[Chinaski]

name='vincenzo'] Anything Else was simply dire.

Yes!! I forgot about that one. Amazing!



Whatever Works was also great. Larry David and Woody Allen, what a team of New York neurotics!

[vincenzo]

Take The Money And Run is easily my favourite Woody comedy. Even the predictable stuff (the never ending smashing of his glasses, the cello flying out of the window) is priceless and endlessly watchable.



"After 15 minutes I wanted to marry her, and after half an hour I completely gave up the idea of stealing her purse."

[Harbottle]

Another Woody fan, especially his earlier films though I've enjoyed many of his later ones too. I must confess I have not seen any since the rather good Bullets Over Broadway though.

[waldo_lydecker]

Although I've been hugely disappointed by his recent comedies, and couldn't bear the 'English' movies he made, I still think he gets far too hard a ride from critics for not coming up with another Annie Hall or Manhattan, while a whole slew of semi-literate reprises of Porkies pass through under the radar. There's little sense of perspective. Even in his recent movies there are some brilliant comic lines. (Oddly enough, the critics decided to be nice, for once, to the biggest clunker, IMHO, Vicky Cristina Barcelona - a movie in which the characters wandered around speaking like Fodor travel books and the kind of horribly pretentious characters whom Allen would have savaged a couple of decades ago were here treated as heroes!)

[TimR]

He was enormously popular when I was a teenager. There were Woody Allen days at independent theatres with three of his films in a triple-bill. The theatre would sell out. His narcissism and self-pity are difficult to take now. But there are many scenes I enjoy.



I would not sit through an entire Allen film now. I met enough Woody Allen types growing up in NYC and enough of the types that populate his films; watching him on screen is a little too much now. Why should I pay to watch a neurotic wise-guy New Yorker?



One clever scene from Sleeper: Miles Monroe is transported to the future and finds gargantaun chickens and strawberries. "Are there any strange animals that I should know about here? Anything weird and futuristic? Like with the body of a crab and the head of a social worker?"

[Rowdon]

I could go on about Vicky Cristina Barcelona but I've been told that I'm oversensitive because I saw it when living there. That's not the case - it is a startlingly poor film from any angle. His worst since Shadows and Fog.

His three "London" films are packaged here (Spain) as "The London Trilogy"







... and I think it makes an excellent set. I know people who have got into Woody Allen through "Scoop".



I love his earlier films, but obviously you remember the great gags so well that watching them again is almost (almost) unnecessary. Some of his 80s films - Hannah and her Sisters, Broadway Danny Rose - are simply the best films you can see.



And who would have thought that his straight, serious homage to Bergman Interiors would have been so good?



He has made some films which are just not that great as Woody Allen films, but when he's good he's just so far ahead of the competition ...



My personal favourite is probably Reconstructing Harry, which is a late one, but really touches so many of his bases really well.



Even "Anything Else" has good points. Melinda Melinda I didn't like, and Whatever it Takes was a relief after Vicky ... - but then anything would have been.



Every Allen movie is a "must-see" for me.

[Chinaski]

name='Rowdon']

Every Allen movie is a "must-see" for me.

Word!

[will.15]

name='orpheum']i always used to like him.however he went off the boil many years ago.he thinks he is Bergman but he aint.

First time I agree with orpheum.

He needs another writer to collaborate with, like his last really good one, Bullets Over Broadway.

[Simon Bermuda]

My top three would probably be Hannah & Her Sisters, Crimes & Misdemeanors and Husbands & Wives, although even his weakest offerings have their moments, his intelligence always shining through. And for that matter, Bergman's output could be just as variable.



I think I'd also have preferred it if Allen himself had chosen to narrate Vicky Cristina Barcelona.