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From: chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: The Woodman
Message-ID: <3334@sun.uucp>
Date: Fri, 7-Mar-86 14:29:22 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.3334
Posted: Fri Mar  7 14:29:22 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Mar-86 15:13:20 EST
References: <587@dadla.UUCP>
Organization: Third Person, Omniscient
Lines: 38

> Why do Woody Allen's movies -Play It Again, Sam- and -A Midsummers
> Night Sex Comedy- get such zero press. When the critics fawn over
> -Annie Hall- etc. as his best, the two others are almost totally
> ignored. To my mind, they are two of his best, if not THE best. 
> -Hannah And Her Sisters- is surely a wonderful movie, but
> -...Sam- and -...Comedy- are classics.

Well, Woody has a couple of problems -- he refuses to play by the
establishment rules (prefering to play jazz with his group to going to the
Oscars, for instance) and he's not afraid of to poke fun at the insecurity
of the lesser people who like to call themselves critics. I recently
re-viewed the movie 'stardust memories,' where Woody takes critics, fans,
and the literaci to task -- a great Felliniesque sendup of all the things
that makes Hollywood so great. It got panned by all the critics except the 
ones that were secure enough that they didn't worry about getting their
bubbles burst. (great line: "I love your movies -- especially the early
funny ones!").

Now I agree that "Play it Again, Sam" deserves more attention than it gets,
but I think that MSNSX wasn't that great a film -- it wasn't bad, it was
just a little piece of fluff. There are a number of movies I'd rather see
get attention than that: Zelig is a cinematic wonder; Love and Death is 
a beautiful tolstoy pastiche; Sleeper; Interiors. My favorite movie of his
for all time has to be Annie Hall, with the runner up being Broadway Danny
Rose -- another movie that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

The real bitch of the situation is that if Woody Allen were French or
Swedish, the world would go ga-ga over him. Unfortunately, he is making
films better than 90% of the foreign films people go ga-ga over, but being
american they don't take him seriously.

sigh
-- 
:From catacombs of Castle Tarot:        Chuq Von Rospach 
chuq@sun.ARPA				FidoNet: 125/84
{decwrl,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo,ucbvax}!sun!chuq

Somehow, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore...