Crimes and Misdemeanors

Long day - I'm so sleepy! I was really happy to come home and watch a Woody Allen movie. I'm pretty new to his films, and it's been so fun to see his works through this project. I kept meaning to sit down and work my way through his films, but I never got around to it (of course). I've really grown to love him, though, and his great sense of humor and awesome writing ability.

Today I watched Crimes and Misdemeanors, which he directed in 1989. The plot seems much darker than his other films, but it's great. I love really dark comedy, and this one was fantastic. I was worried when the plot started to turn that it would get awkward or unfunny, but it really never did. It was so well-written and was a great blend of drama, dark comedy, and the normal Woody Allen comedy style that I love so much. The acting was great, too, and the whole movie was just really neat to watch.

Annie Hall

Today's movie is Annie Hall, directed by Woody Allen in 1977. I was really looking forward to watching this - I've really enjoyed watching his movies, and since I have seen so few of his movies, I've been really excited to watch them as they come up for my project. Annie Hall was really, really great. The dialogue was really fresh and funny, there are tons of dorky, intellectual references that I was laughing disgustingly at, the acting is great, and the style of the whole movie is so cool! Unfortunately, I didn't see the last 8 minutes of this movie - the DVD that Netflix sent me was actually cracked and bubbling. I'm shocked that it played at all, but it somehow limped along until it gave up right before the end. I read a summary of the end on Wikipedia, but it's pretty frustrating, since that's not anywhere near a good as really watching it.

Manhattan

Embarrassing film confession - I have seen only one Woody Allen movie. I never watched his films, and I don't really have an explanation for why. I guess I always felt that a lot of people I knew had a sense of disapproval about him. Like, when we would walk by his movies in Blockbuster or hear about him, someone would always be like, "Didn't he marry his 16-year-old stepdaughter?" and everyone would nod solemnly to express their distaste. I had some sort of artificial perception that he was just some weird pervert guy who made weird movies that were not good to watch. How stupid, really. In my Chinatown post, I wrote about how I separate Polanski from his work. I do that for all directors. I don't think Woody Allen's movies are bad because he's weird, just like I don't think that Stanley Kubrick is a horrible raging pervert for directing weird movies. I'm not blaming anyone for my strange aversion of this director - it was just something weird I experienced growing up and I sort of never knew better because for a long time I didn't watch movies or TV, really. so I never had a chance to just see these movies for myself.