Second of Two Parts
Top Bananas
Now that he’s “hung up his hat”, let’s examine a “transect” of Woody Allen’s half-century long filmmaking career as it evolved through a dozen of his funniest features. This listing is selected as a cross-section of his best comedies, starting with his “early funny ones” and focusing on Allen’s growth from gag-writer to international auteur. Again, these short-form reviews are intended to let the films speak for themselves. If you’ve seen the film, these may help you recall it. If you haven’t seen any of them, perhaps these reviews will kindle your interest. Here are the Best Woody Allen Pictures in chronologic order:
Take the Money and Run (1969) Bananas (1971) Sleeper (1973) Stardust Memories (1980) Zelig (1983) Broadway Danny Rose (1984) | Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Bullets Over Broadway (1994) Deconstructing Harry (1997) Celebrity (1998) Small Time Crooks (2000) Hollywood Ending (2002) |
Virgil’s embarrassed parents-in-disguise: "Who wears beige to a robbery?"
“I think if he’d been a successful criminal, he would have felt better. You know, he never made the ‘Ten Most Wanted’ list. It’s very unfair voting. It’s who you know.” Incompetent purse-snatcher, grammar-school dropout and stumblebum bank-robber Virgil Starkwell aka “John Q. Public” (Allen) is a “no-good atheist” who’s “always very depressed” and was declared “psychologically unfit for the Navy.”
“He takes to crime at an early age. He’s an immediate failure.” Virgil’s parents – Father William Starkwell (Henry Leff) and Mother “Jonathan Ralph” Starkwell (Ethel Sokolow) – refuse to appear in public to discuss their wayward son without their Groucho disguises. “He’s rotten, he’s a gangster.”
Virgil’s failings were foreshadowed early in life by his choice of instrument for the Spring Street Settlement House marching band: a cello. “A jungle is no place for a cellist.”
“After fifteen minutes I wanted to marry her. After half an hour, I completely gave up on the idea of snatching her purse.” Virgil falls-head-over-spectacles-in-the park for lonely orphan laundress Louise (Janet Margolin). “Either I was in love or I had smallpox.”
“I was also a bat boy for the Yankees.” As his gang grows, their heist plans get so complex that Virgil needs a film director, “Fritz” (Marcel Hillaire, in his best Lang expressionism). “Fritz, this is a bank-robbery, not a movie.”
“Who wears beige to a bank robbery!?!” Directed by Allen, written by Allen and Mickey Rose. Woody’s first film sketch is ridiculous stand-up newsreel mocumentary sight-gag mis-mash of sourdough camera, fumble-button nightgown, chain-gang phone-call, shirt-folding machine, more than one soap “gub” and competing bank-heist crews, bogging down in sophomoric “visual monologue” (Vincent Canby) more fit for stand-up than cinema. “A prison has not been built that can hold me. And I’ll get out of this one if it means spending my entire life here.” (USA)
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Woody in thin disguise as El Presidente of San Marcos
Bananas (1971)
“I’m not suited to this job. Where do I come off testing products? Machines hate me.” Corporate product-tester, “hep-cat” school-dropout and “subversive imposter” Fielding Mellish aka “El Presidente” (Allen) “has a lot of spare time” so he briefly “studied Kierkegaard” and loves Eastern philosophy because it’s “metaphysical and redundant … abortively pedantic,” which he considers a valid pick-up line.
“We fell in love. I fell in love – she just stood there.” Civil-liberties petitioner, philosophy-major and women’s liberation advocate Nancy Mellish (Louise Lasser) has “more bells to ring” but believes “Women’s rights do not automatically mean castration.” Further she knows “something’s missing” in her relationship that’s “not going anywhere” with Fielding. “I may be bombing an office building, but I’ll find out.”
“This is a country of peasants. At least you can read.” San Marcos island dictator Gen. Emilio M. Vargas (Carlos Montalbán) invites Fielding to dinner for international propaganda purposes. “Maybe some poisons in my food, but I am OK. I’ve been poisoned so many times I have developed an immunity” ... although no one is immune to reinforcements from the United Jewish Appeal.
“I like leprosy, I like cholera. I like all the major skin diseases.” A latent rebel of the opposition, fake-bearded pseudo-president Mellish has never spoken publicly before. “Very simple: open with a funny story, and then hit ‘em for money.”
It all comes down to People v. Mellish, a federal trial for fraud and conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government. “I object, Your Honor. This trial is a travesty. It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.” Indeed! And a cockeyed love story of self-cross-examination, gagged attorneys and admissions of guilt: “I’d kill myself if I thought that she would marry me.”
Directed by Allen, written by Allen and Mickey Rose. Woody channels his Inner Fidel Castro in “Duck Soup” meets “Algiers” remix of slapstick revolutionary cinema delusions-of-grandeur in spring-activated telephones, talcum-powder foreplay, Naughty-Marietta torture, The Execucizer, parking crucifixes, New Testament cigarettes, Gitlitz Kosher Delicatessen, arguing surgical parents, and unsung Song of the Rebels: “Rebels are we / born to be free / just like the fish in the sea.” (USA)
* * *
Diane Keaton spreads her wings after orgasmatron session
Sleeper (1973)
“I'm a clarinet player in 1973, I go into the hospital for a lousy operation, I wake up two hundred years later and I'm Flash Gordon!” Ragtime Rascals horn-man and Happy Carrot co-owner Miles Monroe aka Dr. Temkin (Allen) is “a nice person” with “healthy life drives and good goals”.
But complications after a simple peptic-ulcer procedure render him cryogenic victim of unauthorized mind-reprogramming experiment in 2173. “He requested something called wheat germ, organic honey and Tiger’s Milk.” “Oh yes, those were the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.”
“It’s pure Keane; no, it’s greater than Keane. It’s Cugat!” Irrational yet renowned green-faced socialite poet and “beautiful” hostage Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton) is “a nice person” educated in “cosmetic sexual technique and poetry” who likes to bone-up on “performing”. Meanwhile Miles is unsure if he’s ready for the orgasmatron. “Sex is different today. We don’t have any problems. Everybody’s frigid.” Orientation advisor Dr. Nero (Mews Small) helps Miles adjust to his “assimilation into society. A society that will take care of your needs and desires more efficiently than any you might have thought possible.”
“What do you mean destroyed?” “Your brain will be electronically simplified.” “My brain? That’s my second favorite organ!” Directed by Allen, written by Allen and Marshall Brickman. Woody channels his Inner “Blanche DuBois” and Keaton her Inner “Stanley Kowalski” in absurdist “Streetcar” meets “Alphaville” slapstick farce, Woody’s first true “studio picture” – a cartoon feast of nonsense sci-fi backpack helicopter, uncanny Domesticons, hydro-vac suits, wheelchair convulsions, Our Leader’s nose, chattering-teeth, Jane-as-Tarzan, hypodermic knock-out drops, mutating instant pudding, two-hundred-year-old VW bug and The Orb. “I wanna go back to sleep. If I don’t get at least six hundred years, I’m grouchy all day!” (USA)
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Woody’s Eight-And-A-Half is all Greek in “Stardust Memories”
Stardust Memories (1980)
“If I did identify with a Greek mythological figure, it would NOT be Narcissus.” “Who would it be?” “Zeus!” Acclaimed Master-of-Despair and hopeless romantic film director Sandy Bates (Allen) is “a lucky bum” who may not “have a good voice for God” as he’s grown tired of making comedies.“Human suffering doesn’t sell tickets in Kansas City.”
“Sandy, this is an Easter film. We don’t need an atheist!” Surely Sandy needs divine intervention as he runs out of humor when public comes to dissect his career at Hotel Stardust weekend seminar and festival of his old films. “I especially like your early funny ones.”
“Comedy is hostility.” Sandy finds himself at creative crossroads in full-frontal widescreen closeup siege of fanatic fans, sidekick sycophants, associates, mistresses, wives and UFO creatures: “You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes.”
“From THIS he makes a living? I like a comedy with a plot!” Then there is the mess of The Director’s Love Story: his leading lady and anorexic ex-flame Dorrie (Charlotte Rampling) may or may not be“nuts”, but she is “a dark woman with all the problems” who has “gone off Lithium” and is “terrific in bed two days a month, the rest a basket case.”
Married French mistress Isobel (Marie-Christine Barrault) is ready to leave her husband with the kids in tow while married groupie Shelley (Amy Wright) has an offer Sandy can’t refuse: “Empty sex is better than no sex, right?” Festival fan and professional violinist Daisy (Jessica Harper) also catches Sandy’s eye – for philharmonic reasons.
“I’ve seen it all before. They try to document their private suffering and fob it off as art.” Woody channels his Inner Pirandello as “Fellini’s Eight-And-A-Half” meets “Sullivan’s Travels” in studio backstage neo-realistic fantasy of stolen bikes, snacking seagulls, killer pigeons, needy charitable organizations, “Jazz Heaven” and “Stardust” itself. “To you, I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the loyal opposition.” (USA)
* * *
“identity disordered” Woody stands between two Presidents
Zelig (1983)
Quoting Saul Bellow: “He was of course very amusing, but at the same time touched a nerve in people, perhaps in a way which they would prefer not to be touched. It certainly is a very bizarre story.” In the Roaring Twenties, the world asked: “Who was this Leonard Zelig who seemed to create such diverse impressions everywhere?”
“I’m nobody. I’m nothing,” claimed Zelig aka “Leon Zelwin” or “Zelman” or “The Changing Man” (Allen). Considered “the ultimate conformist” or “odd little man who kept to himself”, Leonard showed up everywhere with his “identity disorder” as the-man-who-wasn’t-there: a common clerk, a mob boss, trumpet player, opera singer, NY Yankee, pal of Gene O’Neill, heroic World War II pilot or otherwise blending into background of historic moments. Zelig’s “puzzling condition” had no clear origin – was it glandular, neurological, misaligned spine, Mexican food, or simply some embarrassing psychological problem related to St. Patrick’s Day and an Irish pub?
“Here was a story, it was a natural. You just told the truth and it sold papers. It’d never happened before.” The Press was thrilled as daily headlines dubbed him “The Human Chameleon”, which also became a hot new dance craze. One doctor lamented: “If he’s a lizard ... then we should not spend good hospital money feeding him, but simply catch him some flies.”
Dr. Allen Sindell (John Buckwalter) tried to provide perspective: “We’re just beginning to realize the dimensions of what could be the scientific medical phenomenon of the age ... and possibly of all time.” Controversial psychiatrist Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher (Mia Farrow) studies Zelig much too closely on film in her White-Room-Sessions after she “mistook him for a doctor. He had a very professional demeanor about him.”
On his deathbed, Zelig’s father, Yiddish actor Morris Zelig, tells young Leonard: “Life is a meaningless nightmare of suffering” and his only advice for his son is “Save string.” Allen’s loopy little big-ego under-cranked narrated “newsreel-documentary” has lost luster over the years, but was complex photomontage feat for its time, prior to CGI, with it’s crafty blending historic images with sight gags, and celebrity bogus interviews. “You are a great inspiration to the young of this nation who will one day grow up and be great doctors and great patients.” (USA)
* * *
Broadway Danny’s deli “cream cheese on a bagel with marinara sauce”
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
“I don't wanna badmouth the kid, but he's a horrible, dishonest, immoral louse. And I say that with all due respect.” Old Catskill stand-up and no-talent “personal” theatrical agent Danny Rose aka “Danny White Roses” (Allen) is a “smooth talker” with a stable full of acts including his blind xylophonist, distaff “glasspiel” band, one-armed juggler, balloon-folding duo, one-legged tap-dancer, Herbie Jayson’s birds, Eddie Clark’s roller-skating penguin and stuttering Barney Dunn – the “world’s worst ventriloquist”. None are right for Weinstein’s Majestic Bungalow Colony in the Catskills. “They get a little success, and then they leave you.”
“When I’m out there singing, I can feel the women mentally undressing me. It’s true.” Temperamental egotist and scheming has-been lounge-crooner Lou Canova (Nick Apollo Forte, a novice actor) has a “slight drinking problem” and can’t pay alimony despite a “semi-hit record” called “Agita” fueled by recent nostalgia craze. “Sweetheart I promise you, he’s cheating WITH you. He’s got integrity. He cheats with one person at a time, only. That’s his style.”
“You can’t ride two horses with one behind.” Lou’s volatile Brooklyn bleach-blonde bouffant bambinaand insecure interior decorator Tina Vitale, aka Tina Musante, (fantastic Mia Farrow) dreams of a large mirror and “seems to be a little upset” but knows “Bein’ married’s one thing. But two-timing’s somethin’ else!”
Big-time manager Sid Bacharach (Gerald Schoenfeld, real-life exec of Schubert Theaters) sets his sights on Lou’s Sunday night Uncle Miltie special at Waldorf. “All I know is he’s a big talent and he’s playing joints” like Elegante, China Doll, Queen’s Terrace, Bill Miller’s, The Boulevard, The Stagecoach, The Latin Quarter, The Riviera. “Danny, I don’t pay no birds that don’t work.”
Allen’s vaudevillian homage is exquisitely framed in Carnegie Deli roundtable chats among Borscht-Belt comedians in celebrity cameos: Jackie Gayle, Morty Gunty, Joe Franklin, Will Jordan, Howard Storm, Corbett Monica and Sandy Baron as a perfect “shaggy-dog” narrator. “You do that joke?” “Sure, all the time.” “Maybe that’s where I got it from?”
“You see, that’s the beauty of this business … overnight you can go from a bum to a hero.” Woody’s visually-astute tribute to stand-up lounge acts is delectable Felliniesque menu of Jersey Flatland Superman and Thanksgiving tv dinners with every single white rose awaiting Danny’s sober sauce:“I need two aspirin, some tomato juice, and some Worcestershire sauce, and some goat cheese … and some chicken fat.” “That’s gonna do it?” “That’s the Danny Rose formula.” (USA)
* * *
Screen adventurer Jeff Daniels finds life is no amusement park
Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
“I still can't get over the fact that hours ago I was in an Egyptian tomb. I didn't know any of you wonderful people, and here I am now! I'm on the verge of a madcap Manhattan weekend!”
Hollywood star Gil Shepherd (Jeff Daniels in role originally meant for Michael Keaton) rushes out-on-the-town to find his dashing-yet-long-lost-character Tom Baxter (Daniels also) a “poet, adventurer, explorer of the Chicago Baxters” who’s walked right off the screen and out of their movie, “The Purple Rose of Cairo”. “The real ones want their lives fiction and the fictional ones want their lives real.”
“After two thousand performances of the same monotonous routine, I’m free!” A bored minor character in that RKO Picture, Tom wants to live it up in real life. “I'm sorry. It's written into my character to do it, so I do it.”
“Yes, but you don’t know what it’s like to disappear.” Jersey mill-town movie-fanatic and drab short-order waitress Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is Depression-era sole provider who knows a true heart-throb when she finds one – on screen or off. “I just met a wonderful new man. He's fictional, but you can't have everything.” Cecilia’s abusive unemployed deadbeat husband Monk (Danny Aiello) will have none of his dizzy dame’s Hollywood fantasy.
“I want what happened in the movie last week to happen this week; otherwise, what's life all about anyway?” Wisely excluding himself from cast, Woody channels his Inner Billy Wilder to get his period details right for haunts of the day – particularly The Jewel’s afternoon matinee, deserted amusement park, Broadway Bachelors and Honeymoon in Haiti as “Sherlock Junior” meets “Orphée”. “How fascinating! You make love without fading out?” (USA)
* * *
Dianne Wiest silences toiling playwright John Cusack
Bullets over Broadway (1994)
“Soon this town will belong to you. We’re having dinner Sunday night with Gene O’Neill. He’s heard that your writing is morbid and depressing. He’s dying to meet you!” Toiling Pittsburgh playwright David Shayne (John Cusack) is an idealist who idolizes Strindberg and Chekhov, but understands his heady new work “God of Our Fathers” will open at The Belasco only with backing from mobster Nick Valenti (Joe Viterelli). “Who’s this Hamlet guy … he live around here?”
Unscrupuled “Yiddish pants salesman turned producer” Julian Marx (Jack Warden) “cannot afford another failure” so he tries to appease his playwright and his angel simultaneously. “I know, the monkey glands are working!”
“You want me to play some frumpy housewife who gets dumped for a flapper?” Fading diva Helen Sinclair aka Sylvia Poston (exquisite Dianne Wiest) may be “some vain Broadway legend” who hasn’t “been in a hit in a long time” but she sets her sights far above the footlights: “I’m still a star! I never play frumps or virgins.”
Boss Valenti is only interested in bankrolling Shayne’s play as the first legit vehicle for his no-talent moll, Olive Neal aka lady-shrink Dr. Philips (Jennifer Tilly at her best, being her worst). “She used to wiggle at this joint ... Hoboken. You know, pick up quarters off the table.”
Olive “just needs a break”, although obviously she’s no thespian. “They’re all so stuck up … They expect me to memorize all these lines!” Her role really gets messy when Olive’s killer bodyguard Cheech aka “Frankenstein” and “Big Gorgonzola” (terrific Chazz Palminteri) becomes more than a mere critic of the work: “You don’t write like people talk!”
Porcine British leading man Warner Purcell aka Edgar Poston (Jim Broadbent) caters to Olive’s every whim against his own better judgment. “You’d eat anything that didn’t eat you first, you big fat pot of helium.”
Dog-eared actress Eden Brent aka The Other Woman (Tracey Ullman) possesses “a wonderful vivacity” while unproducible Greenwich Village playwright Sheldon Flander (Rob Reiner) has written twenty plays without one playbill, but still believes “No truly great artist has ever been appreciated in his lifetime.”
“We fall in love with the artist, but not the man.” Directed by Allen, written by Allen and Douglas McGrath. Again wisely excluding himself from cast, Woody lands astute ensemble support in ridiculous sendup of Broadway “a maze beset with brutal pitfalls and mean obstacles”, Mr. Woofles, “ghibberish”, “labyrinthinine” hearts, and “Quasimodo Jones” -- the modern musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. “For me love is very deep. Sex only has to go a few inches.” “Don’t speak. Don’t … No, no, no. Don’t speak.” (USA)
* * *
berserker Judy Davis confronts short-story novelist
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
“… it’s all here. The poor schmuck country doctor. The violinist. Her younger sister in Connecticut cheating with her husband. The picture window for Chrissake! Cruel observations about Marvin with his barbecue and his chef’s hat. And of course, Jane – or as you pathetically disguise her – Janet!” Although his mind “has been playing tricks” on him lately, post-modern romance novelist and short-story tell-all schlimazel Harry Block (Allen) feels “spiritually bankrupt” and realizes “all that I have in life is my imagination.”
Bitter ex-wife Joan (Kirstie Alley) won’t return his calls much less alter visitation schedule with their nine-year-old son Hilly (Eric Lloyd). Bitter ex-wife Jane (Amy Irving) is “cold, selfish woman” who suffered “a premenstrual nuclear meltdown” while jilted mistress/sister-in-law Lucy (brilliantly berserk Judy Davis) goes limp upon learning Harry’s true love is Fay Sexton (Elisabeth Shue) who “loves too easily”.
So what’s Fay to do but marry that Devil, Harry’s old friend Larry (Billy Crystal). While hooker Cookie “The Nanny” Williams (Hazelle Goodman) may have lips that “should be in the Smithsonian”, she’s no push-over in the sack. “I mean most guys don’t like to just jump right into bed without a little talking. They think it’s a little too business-like.”
Meanwhile, aging middle-aged Harry’s fictitious characters – “out-of-focus” actor Mel (Robin Williams), third-string shrink Helen (Demi Moore) and three-timer Ken (Richard Benjamin) – wander off his back-pages to haunt him at odd moments.
“Look, I’m not gonna stand out here and get lectured by my own creation!” Allen’s “Wild Strawberries” meets “Pierrot Le Fou” masterfully jump-cuts through dialogue and action to find meat of Red Apple Restaurant, six kitchen gym lockers, making martinis, Max-the-Ax-Murderer and The Darth Vader Bar Mitzvah Orchestra. “Can’t I be honored, and THEN arrested?” (USA)
* * *
Winona Ryder and Sir Kenneth Branagh hot for character study
Celebrity (1998)
“I feel I should know who all these people are … but I’m so out-of-touch.” Bratty burnt-out novelist and wannabe hobnobbing screenwriter Lee Simon (Sir Kenneth Branagh, channeling his Inner Woody) is really randy divorced Manhattan masher who expects life to cruise in his 1967 Aston Martin. “Wow! Is that you or your new novel?”
“Proximity is thrilling and irresistible.” As a child, bulimic superstar-producer and “great actress” Nicole Oliver (Melanie Griffith) dreamed “about being in a movie with Warren Beatty” but now she really just wants to direct. “My body belongs to my husband. What I do from the neck up is a different story.”
“Now that we’re clearing the air, I won’t get angry.” Lee’s phobic ex-wife Robin Simon (marvelous Judy Davis) is ex-schoolteacher neighbor-in-need who’s “dull in bed” but believes “all I’m good at is Chaucer.” Channel Eight News-at-Noon producer Tony Gardella (Joe Mantegna) begs to differ and offers her gig as high-profile on-location table-hopping tv-talk-show host. “Never confuse priorities.”
Vivacious-insomniac and struggling Tribeca actor/Soho waitress Nola (Winona Ryder) is no “face in the crowd”, although she may be “Stephie” or “Louise” -- depending on which novel Simon is rewriting. “Have you ever heard of Chekhov? I write like him.”
Woody’s sneaky peek into “La Dolce Vita” of “The Most Rich & Famous” is peppered with perky performances: obnoxious belligerent Brandon Darrow (Leonardo DiCaprio), Nina the Hooker (Bebe Neuwirth), plastic surgeon Dr. Lupus (Michael Lerner), pushy TV reporter (Debra Messing) and black-belt supermodel (Charlize Theron) who is “polymorphously perverse ... It’s not a flaw, it’s just a weakness.”
“What I need from you, what I want. I wanna feel the whole … human condition. You know what I’m saying?” “It’s all about image.” Ultimately, Allen’s paparazzo effort fizzles in greenhouse lingerie, bleeding Jesus, The Impossible Dream, all-black “Birth of a Nation”, deep-throat Heimlich bananas, teenage obese acrobats and “a society where every single member is famous ... there are no uncelebrated people.” (USA)
* * *
Elaine May’s Cookie crumbles ex-con dishwasher, aka “The Brain”
Small Time Crooks (2000)
“What would you say if I told you that you were married to a very brilliant man?” “I’d say I’d have to be a bigamist!” Ex-con dishwasher Ray Winkler (Allen) has the sense to know he’s “no genius, believe me.” His friends and wife tend to agree: “The Brain, that’s what the guys used to call me, right?” “But Ray ... That was sarcastic!”
Tunnel-digger and head-of-advertising Denny Doyle (Michael Rappaport) has no use for headlamps and “ain’t so good” at math: “What if we each get a fourth and she gets, like ... a third?” Professional insurance-arsonist and VP of plant safety Benjamin “Benny” Borkowski (Jon Lovitz) is proud of his work: “I burn everything. That’s how I sent two kids through college.” Board Chairman Tommy Walker (Tony Darrow) has his own flare for sales: “What did you sell?” “A rented car.”
“The sheer flawless vulgarity of it all!” Ray’s unflappable exotic-dancing manicurist wife Frances Fox Winkler aka “Frenchy” (magnificent Tracey Ullman) loves “serious music” and is confection-chef supreme who dreams up “chicken-chip” and “tuna-mint” cookies with “spray-on-freshness” on her way to Sunset Farms franchise riches. “They say I have a flare for decorating … This rug lights up?”
“Rembrandt, Picasso, Michelangelo … you know, the boys.” Frenchy’s culture coach, British art/wine connoisseur and ex-stockbroker David Perret (Hugh Grant), knows a big deal when he sees one, although he “might be out of Michelangelos at the moment.” Frenchy’s cousin May Sloane (Elaine May) is “dumb like a horse, or a dog, or something” because she can never keep a secret. “You’re new here, huh?” “Not really, this is my first day.”
“This takes bad taste to new heights.” Woody’s ridiculous “Born Yesterday” meets “Big Deal on Madonna Street” is delight of wacky rags-to-riches retorts of “mom-back”, Pablo’s Theory, Polish car-pool and a purely “visual” harp. “I never saw so much jewelry. You know, it makes me sad, Frenchy, that I don’t have to steal anymore.” (USA)
* * *
“There goes my comeback!” - blind director is “a real artiste”
Hollywood Ending (2002)
“The French! Here I’m a bum, there I’m a genius!” Psychosomatically-blind washed-out film director Val Waxman (Allen) may be “a real artiste” or “a raving, incompetent psychotic” who “never looks anyone in the eye”. Aside from his sudden lack of vision, Val believes he’s also suffered from “an allergy to oxygen”, the Black Plague, hoof-and-mouth-disease, elm blight – not to mention his blatantly rampant hypochondriasis.
“This guy stole my wife!” “He doesn’t hold that against you.” But Val’s second-ex-wife and pant-suited studio-exec Ellie (Téa Leoni) thinks he might have one more Oscar in him for “The City That Never Sleeps,” a “tough, gritty New York big-city movie” with a sixty-million dollar budget. “I can make this script sing. This is New York. It’s nightclubs. It’s the skyline!”
Ellie’s smooth-talking fiancé, Galaxie Studios middle-of-the-road CEO and National-Society-of-Video-Sales Man-of-the-Year Hal Yeager (Treat Williams) “seems distracted” and may be “quick to hire, quick to fire” but Hollywood considers him “a brilliant dream-maker”, although “the best you can say about him is that sometimes he returns phone calls”. Val knows the cost of Hal’s “haircut could feed a family of five.”
“I’m not just your girlfriend, I’m good! I’m a natural … [acting] classes would ruin me!” Val’s giggly wiggly “significant other” Lori Fox (outrageous Debra Messing, channeling her Inner Lucy Ricardo) is “a wind-up doll” who may be “trashy and dumb” but stays lithe and limber as an Off-Off Broadway star. “I would have been so good in that Shakespeare movie!”
“Sir, he’s not there anymore. You’re talking to air.” Chou aka “Ching” (Barney Cheng) is Chinese translator doubling as “secret agent” for blind director on the set. “I’ll practice casual banter.” Val’s always-gregarious agent Al Hack (Mark Rydell) is “really a shark” who’s also in on the sight-gag.
“I would kill for this job, but the people I wanna kill are the people offering me the job.” Esquire magazine writer Andrea Ford (Jodie Markell) is “a huge fan” or “a cheap tabloid gossip-monger” who“can be biting” but still plays her role as Val’s confused confidante. “Cinema is a jealous mistress!”
Woody’s latter day “Stardust Memories” suffers from sudden bipolar scenes, “cuddling time”, “low normal” Manhattan Moods and unfocused “screen geography” searching for solid laughs. “This looks like the work of a blind man.” “Incoherence … that’s exactly what I’m going for.” (USA)
https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/hollywood-ending
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