Love and Death

Year 6, Day 60 - 3/1/14 - Movie #1,659

BEFORE: Woody Allen film #8 - both he and Diane Keaton carry over from "Sleeper".  We're heading into Oscar weekend, so I'm right where I want to be - covering the films of a man who's received 19 nominations and 3 awards, and that's for individual achievement, not including the other ones his films received or the countless actors and actresses that have received Oscars or noms for appearing in his films.

 

THE PLOT:  In czarist Russia, a neurotic soldier and his distant cousin formulate a plot to assassinate Napoleon.

AFTER:  Most of these Woody Allen films so far have had that "fish out of water" element to them, and this one follows right in step with that.  But it was hard to take him seriously as a Russian man, raised to hate Jews, imagining himself on a crucifix, when he continued to act like a modern Jewish guy from New York.  I know, I'm not supposed to take him seriously, but there was still something of a disconnect.  It was easier to believe him playing a man who was frozen for 200 years.

Having him join the Russian army seemed like an opportunity to repeat some of the sight gags from "Bananas", only training with Russian rifles and cannons instead of with grenades.  And having him in love with an unobtainable woman played by Diane Keaton hearkens back to "Play It Again, Sam".  So this seemed like an attempt to apply Allen's formulas to an absurdist period piece, and parts of that just didn't work.

I did enjoy the complicated philosophical debates (if love is happiness, and love is suffering, then logically happiness = suffering.  That's surreal.)  And the homage to Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" - all that was missing was a baby carriage bouncing down a staircase.  The whole rest of the film was intended as a send-up of the work of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, which unfortunately was enough to put me to sleep in the middle.

Also starring Harold Gould, Jessica Harper (last seen in "Pennies From Heaven"), Tony Jay, James Tolkan (yes, the mean teacher from "Back to the Future" plays Napoleon!)

RATING: 3 out of 10 bayonets

Sleeper

Year 6, Day 59 - 2/28/14 - Movie #1,658

BEFORE:  Woody Allen takes a stab at sci-fi tonight - this one sort of feels half-familiar, but since I may have watched a scene or two while dubbing it to DVD, I can't be 100% sure.  Better to err on the side of caution and watch it, I can always stop if it feels too familiar and move on to the next film. 

THE PLOT:  A nerdish store owner is revived out of cryostasis into a future world to fight an oppressive government.

AFTER:   Even though it can hardly be considered big-budget sci-fi, I have to regard this as a ground-breaking film, the Rip Van Winkle-like story no doubt inspired "Idiocracy" and "Futurama". 

I feel like I'm coming around to Woody Allen's dry sense of humor.  There were several lines in this film that made me laugh out loud, which was unnecessary since I usually watch films by myself.  But soon I'll be entering Woody's more serious phase, with films like "Interiors" and "September", so I'm going to have to make an adjustment in a few days.

Here Woody plays Miles Monroe, who ran a health-food store in Greenwich Village in 1973, and he's frozen and thawed out in 2173, to find that wheat germ and kale are banned substances, and that fat, hot fudge and tobacco are now considered healthy.  This sort of reversal was funny then, and is still funny now.  Think of how many times the FDA has flip-flopped on eggs - cholesterol is bad, but protein is good, so we should all eat eggs, but not too many.  Jeez, make up your minds!  What can you say about a character who, after realizing he's been asleep for 200 years, does not think "Wow, what wonders will I discover in this future society?" but rather says, "My friends are all dead, and my rent is 2,000 months overdue!"

Miles is first regarded as an expert on the 1970's, and since a lot of information was apparently destroyed in the great war, his assistance is needed in figuring out who Josef Stalin and Charles De Gaulle were - we slowly come to realize that the future U.S. is something of a totalitarian state, which is probably why they need to know more about Stalin.  This is also a chance for Woody to get in a couple digs at Richard Nixon's expense - in fact, one could see this whole future as a reaction to Watergate, as the government is all-powerful, but also completely inept. 

And sex in the future involves getting into a machine called an Orgasmatron, and although we can't see the process, we can assume that somehow that machine causes a sexual response almost instantly, allowing the busy people in the future to get back to their lives sooner.  I can't help but think of the way sex was depicted in "Barbarella", released 5 years earlier, in which two people take pills and touch their fingers together, eliciting a near-instant sexual release.  

This is my last film for February, so any more examination of romance in Woody's films means the topic is going into extra innings... I spent so much time getting to these, there's no way I'm delaying the others until next year.

Also starring Diane Keaton (last seen in "Play it Again, Sam"), John Beck (last seen in "Rollerball"), with cameos from Howard Cosell (last seen in "Bananas"), and the voice of Jackie Mason.

RATING:  5 out of 10 robot butlers

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Afraid to Ask

Year 6, Day 58 - 2/27/14 - Movie #1,657

BEFORE: I'm going back and adding movie-poster pictures to all of my old entries, which makes them look a little nicer.  But there are a LOT of posts, it's going to take some time, I'm only about halfway there.  But it's a chance for me to go back and read some bits I've written before - back in 2011, when I had about 275 films left on the list and I was confident I could get that number under 200 before the end of that year.  Ha!  How naive I was...  I'm stuck at 202 right now, and thanks to TCM's Oscar-themed programming, for every film I'm removing, I'm adding another - but I hope you'll agree that films like "Doctor Zhivago", "Gaslight", and "Grand Hotel" need to be on the list.

But I'm also learning that these Woody Allen films have been on my list longer than any others (with a couple small exceptions), which is good - that means there's been almost a complete turnover in content since I first made the list.  After this and the Hitchcock chain, I will have gotten around to almost all of the original 435 films.  That's a form of progress.

Woody carries over again - that's 6 of his films down, and just 28 to go.

THE PLOT:  Seven segments based on sections of the book by David Reuben.

AFTER: Again tonight we have to think back to a time before the internet - before there were chatrooms or online medical forums, or even internet porn.  I know, if you wanted to see pictures of naked people you had to go to a newsstand and buy a magazine, and if you wanted to see films of naked people, you had to go to a theater in a sketchy part of town.  Sounds barbaric, right?  Might as well be reading stone tablets or heiroglyphics...

This was also a time where some people were more inhibited, the ones who didn't get the memo that the sexual revolution happened, so they weren't in touch with their own bodies, let alone anyone else's.  This led to a lot of questions - why does this feel funny?  Is it wrong that this thing turns me on?  Oh god, am I a pervert?  Hey, what is a pervert anyway?  Do people really...DO that?  Is it habit-forming?

Along came this little yellow book that dared to answer these questions, in honest terms.  Yes, people really do that.  Yes, it's probably habit-forming.  And no, you're not a pervert.  Well, some of you are, but if you're asking the question you probably aren't, and if you're reading the book while touching yourself, you probably are.  Put it down so the next person can discover it and get educated, because you're getting the pages all sticky and that's very inconsiderate.

I was raised by parents who never wanted to have that conversation - you know the one.  (Still waiting, Mom & Dad...)  I think they planted some children's book about how the human body works in my room and hoped I'd figure it out.  Instead I relied on the "Everything You Always Wanted to Know" book, along with Harold Robbins paperbacks (available in any bookstore) and Penthouse magazine (available at any newsstand, even if you were 14 with facial hair).  Do they still have Penthouse Forum?  This was a magazine column where people would write about their experiences, though probably not a word of it was true, and I learned a lot by reading it. 

Woody used some of the questions in the book as a jumping-off point, like "Do aphrodisiacs work?" and "What is sodomy?", but then developed sketches that went off at right angles and never really got around to answering the questions.  Note: taking a sheep to dinner does not constitute sodomy.  These days we are more enlightened, so we know that sodomy is defined as "any sex act the government doesn't approve of."

Most famous is the segment where Allen plays a sperm cell, one of many whose actions are controlled by a group of scientists in the brain, who sit in a control room and activate the various parts of the body while a man is on a hot date.  Roll out the tongue, raise the penis (via a crude crank), and so on.  Send those millions of sperm cells down the tube, maybe one of them will get lucky.  It's sort of cute, but the story's really a non-starter, and ends up going nowhere.

Another segment fails to answer the question "Are transvestites homosexuals?"  Again, the lack of knowledge around this question is just astounding - I think even the author of the original book failed to do any research, because including this question opens the door to blanket statements, and that's a terrible trap to fall into.  The correct answer should be "Some yes, some no."  or better yet, "Why don't you ask some of them?"  Or even better yet, "Why do you feel the need to paint everyone with the same brush?" 

Because even a little bit of research would uncover the fact that people come in all shapes, sizes and gender classifications.  Yes, some men dress like women, and some may do it for the thrill and some for the kink, but others because they look good doing it, and are paid handsomely for it.  On one end of the spectrum you've got RuPaul, and on the other end you've got Eddie Izzard.  One gay, one straight, and both fabulous.  And neither looks like the old and fat guy seen cross-dressing in this film.  Why put on a dress just to look like a fat guy in a dress?

On the other end of things, you've got women who like to dress as men - sorry, excuse me, women who refuse to let society tell them what constitutes beauty.  I was close to one such woman for a while - and it's too bad that in rejecting all things "girlie", like dresses and make-up and heels, such women just end up adopting another set of rules, one that involves Doc Martens and shaved heads and extra piercings.  It's really just another costume when you get down to it, and is letting lesbian culture define your appearance really any better than letting males do so?  Why not strike out on your own and just dress whatever way YOU want, instead of falling for more B.S.?

These days, in addition to internet porn of all types, we've also got channels like TLC, airing shows like "Sex Sent Me to the E.R.", "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant", and the latest, "Strange Sex".  This is a show that's featured a guy who's had sex with his car, balloon fetishes, giantess fantasies, people who dress like babies, and the one I just saw about "Feederism" - this is where a couple gets off by fattening each other up, or perhaps there's one Feeder and one Feedie.  The couple profiled (a 600-lb woman and a somewhat thinner guy) even go out on the town looking to add a third person to their relationship, because the woman's bisexual (of course...).  But the problem is, he likes fat women and she likes skinny ones, so I bet they never end up finding someone who fits the bill.  It's a modern-day Jack Sprat story - how long before they realize that 90% of the women out there are fat compared to him, but skinny when compared to her?

I maintain that it's a wild, crazy beautiful world out there, and anything goes as long as no other people, or animals, or cars, are harmed in the process.  But as we've seen recently, there are parts of the world like Russia that are just finding out about the gays now - they're sort of like where the U.S. was back in the 1960's.  Are gay people taking over, recruiting our children?  Are gay people taking over our country?  Do people really...DO that?  Oh god, am I a pervert?

The Russians are seriously asking the question "Are homosexuals pedophiles?" which makes about as much sense as asking "Are transvestites homosexuals?"  Blanket statements, people, they only get you into trouble.  It's a complex question, since not all gays are pedophiles, but some pedophiles are gay.  But you can't paint everyone with the same brush, and you have to draw a line somewhere.  Again, maybe do a little research and look at some case studies.  Pick up a book or two, or get online. 

Geez, my goal here was to discuss the films of Woody Allen, and not any perversion related to his personal life.  But the defense counsel opened the door, your Honor, so now all the evidence is admissible.  (That's what I learned from 20 years of "Law & Order"...)  Hey, we're all perverts - the people who say they aren't are either lying, or they just haven't found the thing that gets them going yet.  The author of the book this was based on even stole a quote from Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run" - when asked on a talk show "Is sex dirty?", he replied "It is if you're doing it right."

Also starring John Carradine (last seen in "Around the World in 80 Days"), Lynn Redgrave (last seen in "Tom Jones"), Gene Wilder (last seen in "The Frisco Kid"), Louise Lasser (last seen in "Bananas"), Lou Jacobi, with cameos from Tony Randall, Burt Reynolds (last seen in "Semi-Tough"), Regis Philbin (last heard in "Shrek Forever After"), Jack Barry, Geoffrey Holder (last seen in "Live and Let Die")

RATING: 3 out of 10 baseball players

Play It Again, Sam

Year 6, Day 57 - 2/26/14 - Movie #1,656

BEFORE:  After going through his background on IMDB, the inevitable has happened - I'm starting to empathize with Woody Allen.  I realized we both played the clarinet, got into show biz in our teens (he was 15, I was 18 or 19) and both got out of NYU ahead of schedule (I graduated early, but it sounds like he was asked to leave - I should probably investigate that further.).  And we're both fans of classic films, and we've each had our share of woman troubles - but that's where the similarities end.  I'm not Jewish and I wasn't born in Brooklyn, though I lived there for about 15 years.

Perhaps some of this feeling comes from the "everyman" quality of the neurotic loser he tended to play in the 1970's, and the fact that his early films all sort of follow the same formula - put the loser in a comical situation, string a bunch of gags together, relate some self-deprecating anecdotes, and stop before the film goes on too long.  This week's films are all around 90 minutes or less.

Hey, that's kind of what I do here every night - watch a film, write about some personal anecdotes, and quit before I start to ramble.  It's like he and I are lost twins or something...

THE PLOT: A neurotic film critic tries to get over his wife leaving him by dating again, with the help of a married couple and his alter ego, Humphrey Bogart.

AFTER: Woody did not direct this film, it's true - but it still fits right in with his oeuvre.  A man obsessed with movies, particularly "Casablanca", gets dumped and has to get back into the dating scene.  (Unlike most of Woody's characters, this one lives in San Francisco, not New York, but we'll let that slide...)  But this also fits in with some of the romance films I watched earlier this month, because the nebbish starts hanging out with his best friend's wife, while she gives him dating advice.  And the friend is a busy executive, always going on business trips - I think everyone in the audience could see where this was going well before it got there.

The film does make a point of stressing how much "Allan" and his best friend's wife have in common - and that's what people tend to do when they fall in love, they emphasize the things they share, and tend to ignore the things they don't.  Then, after a few years, people focus on and obsess about the things they DON'T have in common, and tend to ignore the things they do.  That's just human nature.

But this all happens to set up this love triangle, and the love triangle exists so that Woody can star in his own version of the famous airport scene from the end of "Casablanca".  He gets advice from an imagined version of Bogart throughout the film (WWBD?) so I guess subconsciously he really wanted to be the guy urging his woman to get on that plane with her husband.  It's one of those rare occasions where it's cooler to NOT get the girl, to be the bigger man.  And you can't get a bigger comedy contrast than comparing Bogie's macho image with Allen's nerdy one. 

I think Woody might have been the original nerd.  He had this "disheveled loser" image long before people really knew what a nerd or a geek was, or had those words to describe them.  Nerd culture has come a long way since 1972, of course, thanks to the Rubik Cube and video-games and superhero movies - so to truly understand these films I have to think back to a time when there was no support system for us.  Of course, then I have to consider what he was like behind the scenes, and wonder how much of this nerdy image was really just the character he was playing.

(ASIDE: This film is also a great reminder of how much of today's technology was not around in the early 1970's.  There were no DVDs or even VCRs back then, so if you wanted to watch a film uncut, you had to go to a revival theater.  I don't think they even had premium cable yet.  Also, no cell phones - the busy executive is always calling his office from landlines to tell them what number he was at, because there was simply no other way to reach him.)

I'm all caught up on the new season of "King of the Nerds", so right now that's at the forefront of my mind as well.  It makes me think someone could make an update of this film, only with a central character who's a Star Wars or Star Trek fan, rather than a Bogart fan.  Just replace Bogie with Yoda or something...

Of course, any true trivia player knows that Bogart never said the exact phrase "Play it again, Sam" in "Casablanca" - the exact line was "You played it for her, you can play it for me. Play it."  It's one of those famous misquoted lines, where some impressionist or critic got the line wrong, and it stuck in the collective hive-mind that way.  Capt. Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty" in the original Star Trek show - it was usually, "Scotty, one to beam up."  And James Cagney never said "You dirty rat!" in any film, and Cary Grant never said, "Judy! Judy!"  Where the heck do these things originate? 

Still, I'm glad that I finally got around to watching "Casablanca" before this one - it did lend those scenes more meaning.

Also starring Diane Keaton (last seen in "Father of the Bride Part II"), Tony Roberts (last seen in "Switch"), Jerry Lacy, Susan Anspach.

RATING:  4 out of 10 Darvon pills

Bananas

Year 6, Day 56 - 2/25/14 - Movie #1,655

BEFORE: Helped out at a screening at a midtown ad agency today, we had lunch brought in from a local BBQ place we've used before, they're famous for their sweet potatoes, which were absolutely delicious.  And what's the secret ingredient?  Bananas!

Hmm, what aspects of Woody Allen's personal life do I feel comfortable talking about?  He was born in 1935 in Brooklyn as Allan Konigsberg, as a boy he enjoyed magic tricks and playing clarinet, and he broke into show biz at age 15 by writing jokes.  Was suspended from NYU, speaks French, and is a vegetarian.  Was married to Louise Lasser, his co-star last night and tonight, but they had already divorced by the time "Bananas" was released.  We'll stop there for now.

THE PLOT:  When a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.

AFTER: Once again Allen plays a bumbling idiot (Fielding Mellish) who sort of fails upward - and again it's tied to romance.  A failed relationship with a leftist woman inspires him to take the trip they had planned, to a small country where he ends up joining a band of revolutionaries.

There were parts of this film that felt very slapsticky - silly music often plays to remind us this is a comedy, and there are numerous sight gags, like Woody pulling a pin from a grenade and then throwing the pin.  That gave this an almost cartoony feel at times.   A famous quote from Woody Allen stated that he only knew of 6 true comic geniuses in film history: Chaplin, Keaton, Groucho & Harpo Marx, Peter Sellers, and W.C. Fields.

More situational humor tonight - by placing an American everyman in charge of a South American country, this is sort of a nod to Abbott & Costello ending up in the French Foreign Legion, or the Marx Brothers running the fictional country of Fredonia.  And this probably inspired later films like that recent one with Sacha Baron Cohen that no channel seems to want to air. "The Dictator"?  Was that the title?

When Fielding returns to the U.S., he's meant to resemble Fidel Castro, but with an incredibly fake beard - and yet nobody notices it or points it out.  This seems like another nod to things like Groucho Marx's greasepaint moustache.  What was up with that, anyway? 

This seemed very similar in structure to "Take the Money and Run", only the documentary format was replaced with spoofs of "Wide World of Sports" that brackets the film - with first a government coup and then a couple's honeymoon being treated like sporting events.  Which are sort of original ideas, but also feel like they were used in place of actual narrative beginning and ending.

Also starring Louise Lasser, Carlos Montalban, with cameos from Howard Cosell, Sylvester Stallone (last seen in "The Expendables"), Conrad Bain, Charlotte Rae.

RATING: 5 out of 10 tuna sandwiches (on whole wheat)

Take the Money and Run

Year 6, Day 55 - 2/24/14 - Movie #1,654

BEFORE: Woody Allen carries over (I'll get tired of saying that at some point...) and we get into his first real comedies.  We are here to discuss the man's work, and if you want to discuss his personal life further, I will cup my hands over my ears and shout, "LA LA LA I'm not listening!"

THE PLOT:  The life and times of Virgil Starkwell, inept bank robber.

AFTER: I think the drawback to Woody's appearance in "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" is that he seemed really suave, something of a ladies man, and this just came off as a little too slick and slightly creepy.  This film represents the return to self-deprecation, I'm assuming he was much more successful after casting himself as a down-trodded nebbish.  We feel for the guy, because he's so inept, and he represents anyone who's ever failed at anything. 

Of course, Woody himself was anything but a failure - he was a successful writer for 1950's television shows, and published several books of short humorous essays, then did stand-up in the early 1960's.  This is where the insecure, intellectual nebbish character he often played developed - perhaps in the previous film we were afforded a rare glimpse behind the curtain. 

What you might expect to develop from writing gags for TV shows is this sort of spoof mentality - think of a very common situation, like a housewife making dinner, or a man interviewing another man on the street, and then find ways to turn that situation on its ear.  In this film the main character is a thief, a bank robber - how do you turn that upside-down?  Instead of making him successful, make him a complete failure.  So any evil associated with theft is softened by his ineptness. 

The character Virgil wins us over with his many failures, which start with his terrible cello playing (I won't ruin the gags) and then being bullied by other kids, leading up to his first terrible attempts at robbing gumball machines.  The whole thing also turns the documentary format on its ear - I'm not sure if this was the first real "mockumentary", but it could be.  Again, take a very serious, simple thing, something people have seen over and over, like a documentary, and turn it upside-down. 

If it's funny enough, the audience won't even question why a documentary crew would be following this big loser around, and always managing to be in the right place at the right time.  And still no one acknowledges that they're being filmed, or acts as if they know they are.  There's a sort of downbeat monotone to the whole narration, another thing which gets subverted time and again as each gag lands.

This is the first time that Allen wrote, directed AND starred in a film - it almost feels like he was looking for a magic formula, and this film was the first time that he felt he was coming close to it.  Reportedly he originally went for an even more downbeat ending, where his character would die in a hail of bullets, but the editor of the film convinced him to lose that idea, and then basically re-structure the whole film to accommodate a slightly more upbeat ending.

This is still February, the month of romance, so I'm glad to see that there is some romance in this film.  Virgil falls in love with a girl while attempting to steal her purse, and they hit it off.  Eventually he has to admit to her that he's a thief and not a cellist - this eventually leads to greater comedy as they argue over what shirt he should wear to a bank robbery.

This is a great improvement over the last two films - I'm expecting bigger and better things from Mr. Allen in the days to come.

Also starring Janet Margolin, Jacquelyn Hyde, Marcel Hillaire, with a cameo from Louise Lasser (Woody's girlfriend at the time, I believe).

RATING: 5 out  of 10 Most Wanted criminals

What's Up, Tiger Lily?

Year 6, Day 54 - 2/23/14 - Movie #1,653

BEFORE:  I was reminded last night of how subjective this film-watching process is - my brother-in-law and his wife came over, and she recently discovered the Beatles.  She's coming to the party late on that one, sure, but I was happy to share some trivia and answer some questions and loan her a couple of books for further reading.  Since she's a big fan of the film "Grease", it seemed like a good time to suggest we watch "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, as Robert Stigwood produced both movies.  I like the film, because I'm down with Beatles covers of all kinds, but I forgot that most people consider it to be one of the worst films ever made, and the rest just consider it a cultural abomination.  Perhaps I should have suggested we watch "Help!" instead, I hope I haven't spoiled Beatles music for her.

As for my own chain, I whittled the Woody Allen films down last year, removing the ones I definitely have seen - "Hannah and Her Sisters" is one of my absolute favorites, followed by "Radio Days", plus I had to watch "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan", plus I've viewed a smattering of others, like "Celebrity", "Small Time Crooks", "Mighty Aphrodite" and "Sweet and Lowdown".  So this be about watching the ones I've missed, even if I'm sort of not sure if I've seen them.  That still leaves me with a total of 33 films to go, essentially his older films (pre-1977) and the newer ones (post 2000). 

I'm thinking the linking's going to be quite easy, because he's appeared in so many of his own films, and even if he didn't, someone like Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow will always be carrying over.  The man himself carries over tonight from "What's New Pussycat". 

THE PLOT:  Woody Allen took the Japanese action film "International Secret Police: Key of Keys" and re-dubbed it, changing the plot to make it revolve around a secret egg salad recipe.

AFTER: Speaking of things being subjective, my wife's been after me for years to watch this, telling me how funny it is, but outside of a couple OK gags, I'm just not seeing it.  Yes, from a filmmaking standpoint it's a fantastic concept - predating anything like Mystery Science Theater, or another favorite of mine, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid".  (I re-watched about half of that film a couple of weeks ago, and man, it's a whole different scene after you've watched some of the films they borrowed footage from...)

I liked the self-referential stuff, like the hair supposedly caught in the camera, but even that went on too long, and I've seen that bit done better in Tex Avery cartoons.

Perhaps this film is best watched in a group setting, or with someone else who's already familiar with it - I just found that most of the gags fell flat.  And it's a little weird that all the Japanese women call to mind Woody's clear Asian obsession, which then calls to mind Soon-Yi, his daughter/wife.  And here I was, trying to avoid mention of his personal life, so I could just focus on his films.  That's now impossible - the door has been opened.

Also starring Tatsuya Mihashi, Akiko Wakabayashi (last seen in "You Only Live Twice"), Mie Hama (ditto) and John Sebastian with The Lovin' Spoonful. 

RATING: 3 out of 10 jars of mayonnaise