OK, I was more than willing to let this Annie Hall business die down – as I said in my parting comments, it was an OK movie but it just didn’t connect with me. But since John Simon has now become the center of commentary here, let me say that I don’t know John Simon from a hole in the ground and have no wish to defend him. My enduring hero among critics will always be Roger Ebert. But Simon was not the only critic who had problems with Annie Hall, and as I noted, I could see their point in terms of how the movie was stitched together with no real initial plan.
Now that this has been revived, let me address this:
Since I disagree with Ebert about Annie Hall being Allen’s best film, I found myself pondering which one I would nominate myself. And it’s hard to come up with a single one, since he’s made so many, and in so many different genres. But I’ll just say that Love and Death (1975) would be among the contenders. Wikipedia has this to say:
Coming between Allen’s Sleeper (1973) and Annie Hall (1977), Love and Death is in many respects an artistic transition between the two. Allen pays tribute to the humor of The Marx Brothers, Bob Hope and Charlie Chaplin throughout the film.
The dialogue and scenarios parody Russian novels, particularly those by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, such as The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Gambler, The Idiot and War and Peace. This includes a dialogue between Boris and his father in which each line alludes to, or is composed entirely of, Dostoyevsky titles.
Allen considers it his funniest movie, and I’m inclined to agree, and it’s rife with philosophical commentary in the guise of humour.
It might be noted that Wikipedia did not search out nor quote any negative critical commentary.
We watch the best picture nominees every year, and this is a good example of a film I had no interest in seeing, but which I unexpectedly enjoyed quite a bit.
What’s Up, Doc? (1972). Another oldie that I had never seen before. What can I say except that this totally wacky screwball comedy is a work of sheer genius. The sustained wackiness has a Monty Python-esque level of crazy and is just as skillfully done. More than laugh-out-loud funny – at times I was at risk of falling off the couch! It won the Writers Guild of America award for “best comedy written directly for the screen” and many other accolades.
Stars Ryan O’Neal, Barbra Streisand, and “introducing” Madeline Kahn, and directed by Peter Bogdanovich. That this was Kahn’s first feature film is a reminder of how old this movie is. Kahn got a well-deserved nomination for “best newcomer – female”. Streisand is terrific as the archetypal “manic pixie dream girl” who wreaks havoc wherever she goes; I had no idea that Streisand was such a skilled comedic actress.
The plot is nominally about four identical plaid suitcases – with contents like top secret documents and a fortune in jewels – that get mixed up, but this is just a MacGuffin for the random hilarity that ensues throughout. Just a pure delight!
As an aside, according to Peter Bogdanovich, one of the characters in the film was loosely based on the film critic John Simon that we were discussing earlier. The character Hugh Simon is an unlikable haughty individual who is always aggressively confrontational. Which may possibly explain why the real-life Simon didn’t like the film.
I rewatched this a couple of weeks ago. One of my favorite films, and it still holds up.
Interesting how only a few years later Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, and Liam Dunn all showed up together again in Young Frankenstein
Edited to add - I just looked him up, and Dunn was younger than I am now when he died. THAT’S Depressing. Although I think I still look younger than him.
It’s rare that one finds a comedy quite so consistently hilarious! The acting is just perfect, Madeline Kahn with the comedic perfection we’ve come to expect, Barbra Streisand’s terrific performance a very pleasant surprise, and Ryan O’Neal with the deadpan delivery of a hopeless naif at the mercy of Streisand’s crazy character. Published sources credit the writing to Buck Henry, David Newman, and Robert Benton, but the original story came from Peter Bogdanovich who was also the director and contributed much of the creative genius.
Trivia: the film’s budget was $4 million, which is a bit over $30 million today, still a relatively modest budget. Bogdanovich said that fully one-quarter of that was the elaborate San Fransciso car chase scene. The film was a great box office success and pulled in many times its cost even in its first theatrical release, and then had several theatrical revivals and of course home media releases.
OTOH, I was really looking forward to this, but I was disappointed. It was much shallower than I expected. Wilson’s (future?) in-laws were complete stereotypes and not believable, but I thought what he did when he was in 1920s Paris was fairly pedestrian. I didn’t hate it. I was just disappointed.
I much preferred Bringing Up Baby.What’s Up Doc? didn’t do it for me.
The Great Escape (1963) For years heard about what a top-notch adventure movie this was, but never saw it. Watching it now, it seems pretty creaky. Bunch of white guys in a Nazi prison camp (a pretty clean and comfortable-looking one at that), plotting a mass breakout. Richard Attenborough is the stuffy Englishman heading the plot, Steve McQueen is the cocky Yank who likes to walk around slapping a baseball into a catcher’s mitt - he should have got shot the first day. Illya Kuryakin comes up with a stupid scheme for disposing of the dirt from the tunnel they’re digging without raising suspicion (look for dirt pouring out of pantlegs). The Nazis are all utterly clueless about what’s going on. Elmer Bernstein’s worst score ever sounds a lot like the Hogan’s Heroes theme - oh wait…
Sorry, for a “classic” it has been outstripped by all the movies it influenced. I couldn’t take it after 45 minutes.
What’s Up, Doc? really is one of my favorite comedies. Terrific cast, dialogue, premise, stunts, etc.
Some favorite lines:
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
“Don’t you know the meaning of propriety?”
“I adore anyone who adores Emerson.”
“Couldn’t I just kill her?”
“I never saw this woman before in my life.”
“What kind of wine are you serving at Table 1?”
“There’s not much to see, really. We’re inside a Chinese dragon.”
“Hugh, you’re a bad loser, you’re a plagiarist and you’re nasty. I don’t like you and I want you to go away.”
“Hello, Daddy.”
Ha ha! Yep. And here’s a random example of the complete wackiness that permeates the whole movie:
Franz the hotel desk clerk, as the wealthy matron approaches in the lobby:
Look! Here she comes now. Did you get the jewels out of the hotel?
House detective:
No, I put it in 1714.
Franz:
1714! What kind of a house detective are you? You cannot commit a simple burglary!
House detective:
I’m ashamed.
Franz:
Never mind. I will return the case to her room while you detain her.
House detective:
How do I do that?
Franz:
Use your charm.
[The house detective, who is a paunchy middle-aged bald guy, goes off muttering to himself mockingly]:
“Charm!” “Use your charm!”
[As the matron glides by in regal dignity, he sticks out his leg and sends her flying headlong, tripping her so deftly that she does a complete somersault before crashing to the floor.]
The Passenger (2023). This is an unusual one. The cast consists of no one I’ve ever heard of, directed by no one I’ve ever heard of, yet the acting is terrific and the realism is palpable. I went into it knowing nothing about it, and that turns out to be the right way to do it because almost any prior knowledge would be a spoiler.
So I’m really limited in what I should say about it except for a few general things. I thought it might be a supernatural horror movie but it’s actually a psychological thriller. It has some explicit gore that some might find disturbing, and the believable realism it creates makes those scenes all the more disturbing. But most of it is an attempt to be cerebral which I think is at least partially successful. It’s been done on a limited budget and limited scope but the performances from these (to me) complete unknowns are remarkable. It’s also technically proficient in terms of cinematography and music.* Probably not for everyone but if you like tense psychological thrillers I’d recommend it.
* Not counting the terrible choice of a rap track for the ending credits.
In case you’re one of the three or four people on this message board I haven’t pestered with this, here’s the first thing Madeline Kahn was in, just before, “What’s Up, Doc?”
Blurb: Dr. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is an academic – content with life and a creature of reason. While in Istanbul attending a conference, she happens to encounter a Djinn (Idris Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. This presents two problems. First, she doubts that he is real and second, because she is a scholar of story and mythology, she knows all the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong. The Djinn pleads his case by telling her fantastical stories of his past. Eventually she is beguiled and makes a wish that surprises them both.
My wife and I enjoyed it. B+ Colorful and strange, it was closest too the The Fall (2006) in that it was essentially a colorful story about stories. I feel a decade from now there will be an entire new genre called Plague Productions or COVID Cinema wherein the film was clearly made with extensive cuts to actors and side personnel because of real world conditions. If that is the case, this film stands proud among them. It is clear to me Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba handled their COVID lockdown with class and poise. Still, had this been made years before or after I think it would have been tighter. Seek this out if your a fan of The Fall’s director Tarsem Singh or generally enjoy the ‘feast for the eyes’ that are Luc Besson’s films. Or if you have a buzz on.
