MY MORNING WOODY

This morning I was reading a little piece by James Mottram in The Times Of London

What’s up with Woody Allen?

All about how even at seventy-something years old, the pedophile director won’t stop working (and turning out junk).

There’s a funny quote in there:

When Mike Leigh was asked whether he liked the work of his fellow director Woody Allen, he responded in a way that many of us have been secretly thinking too: “Radio Days would be on my desert island with me, but if you wanted to subject me to excruciating torture, you’d send me there with a copy of Match Point. I wouldn’t survive 24 hours.”

Then the writer mentioned:

Match Point (2005) may have earned Allen his 21st Oscar nomination – for Best Original Screenplay – but this did not hide the fact that his once-great works have given way to a series of below-par films.

And I got to thinking,  “21 oscar nomination? Is that right? Does he mean his films have earned a total of 21 nominations or Woody himself has 21 nominations”.

I knew he won a couple for writing and directing the still brilliant Annie Hall and for writing the also wonderful Hannah And Her Sisters. And I know that they always seem to nominate him even for crap like Deconstructing Harry.

But man, 21 seems like a lot.

So I looked into it (what a way to blow a morning)...

Sure enough, Woody has 21 oscar nominations. 

Wow, looking the list over, he even got a nomination for the Alice screenplay? What didn’t get nominated in 1990 then?

Nomination wise,  all the films he’s directed, have earned a whooping- well you can count em.

Annie Hall (1977)
Best Actress: Diane Keaton WINNER
Best Director: Woody Allen WINNER 1
Best Picture: Charles H. Joffe WINNER 
Best Screenplay : Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman WINNER 2
Best Actor: Woody Allen 3

Interiors (1978)
Best Actress: Geraldine Page
Best Supporting Actress: Maureen Stapleton
Best Art Direction: Mel Bourne, Daniel Robert
Best Director: Woody Allen 4 
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 5

Manhattan (1979)
Best Supporting Actress: Mariel Hemingway
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman  6

Zelig (1983)
Best Cinematography: Gordon Willis
Best Costume Design: Santo Loquasto

Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
Best Director: Woody Allen 7
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 8

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 9

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Caine WINNER
Best Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest WINNER
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen WINNER 10
Best Art Direction: Stuart Wurtzel, Carol Joffe
Best Director: Woody Allen 11
Best Film Editing: Susan E. Morse
Best Picture Robert Greenhut

Radio Days (1987)
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration: Santo Loquasto
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen  12 

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Best Supporting Actor: Martin Landau
Best Director: Woody Allen 13
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 14

Alice (1990)
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 15

Husbands and Wives (1992)
Best Supporting Actress: Judy Davis
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 16

Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Best Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest WINNER
Best Supporting Actror: Chazz Palminteri
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Tilly
Best Art Direction: Santo Loquasto, Susan Bode
Best Costume Design: Jeffrey Kurland
Best Director: Woody Allen 17
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen, Douglas McGrath 18

Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
Best Supporting Actress: Mira Sorvino WINNER
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen 19

Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen  20

Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Best Actor: Sean Penn
Best Supporting Actress: Samantha Morton

Match Point (2005)
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen  21

-sweeneyrules

BREAKING NEWS: my future woody

This just in to the Rocket News Center...

According to NY Post’s Page Six: Woody Allen’s new flick Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which the nebbish, pedophile auteur just completed shooting in Spain, will contain a steamy lesbian sex scene between the Oscar nominated thespians Scarlett Johansson (Eight Legged Freaks, 2002) and Penelope Cruz (Captain Corelli's Mandolin, 2001). 

A source told Page Six "It is also extremely erotic. People will be blown away and even shocked....it will leave the audience gasping." 

Curious.... I really have nothing to add.

ALSO

According to Entertainment Weekly, The Woodster’s follow-up to his The Hunger-like romp, is about to begin shooting back in his beloved New York and will be starring the Across The Universe

 songbird / Thirteen train wreck Rachel Wood and also starring, presumably in the Woody Allen role, as her (slightly older) lover the obnoxious Larry David. 

David, the co-creator of the hit time-filler Seinfeld, whom on his own show, Curb Your Enthusiasm has many of Woody’s mannerisms. Though much louder and more ‘in-you-face’. Since Woody Allen the actor has become completely unwatchable (as have most of his films), his replacing himself with a somewhat younger model does in fact give me hope. David seems better suited for the role of “Woody” then others who have taken on the part, over the years (John Cussack, Jason Biggs, Will Ferrell or Kenneth Branagh)

RELATED:

I just finished watching the new DVD of Season Six of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

And I’m happy to report it’s much better then I recall some of the previous more recent seasons.

After initially finding Curb Your Enthusiasm it to be a funny insider (the Westside) take on life of a guy (Larry David) who made to much money and now has nothing to do but annoy people.  After a few seasons, he begun to annoy me.  

The shows got to predictable (act one, someone has a new watch, Larry say’s he doesn’t like the watch. Act two Larry tries to apologize but make’s it worse. Act three, an ironic twist, Larry runs the watch over in his car. Etc. I think I’m making that episode up. But it felt very formatted).

Season Six also follows the pattern. But it feel fresher for two reasons. 

1) Mirroring real life, his wife leaves him which creates some new possibilities. Frankly, the actress is good, but the wife to me... okay a saint for having sex with the guy. But she always came off as just as selfish as Larry and in Season Six I was glad to see Larry become single.

2) But what makes this season work best, is beginning with the first episode the Davids take in a displaced family from New Orleans. There name (and race) The Blacks, which of course leads to a lot of great new situations. After Larry’s initial reluctance they become his friends. Best of all the brother Leon, becomes Larry top ally in his ridiculous schemes and plots. The last episode has a great twist with the head of the family, played by the sometimes sexy Vivica A. Fox (speaking of which I recently rewatched a guilty-pleasure Booty Call (1997). And she is very funny in it, holding her own with Jamie Foxx).

Now back to you in the studio, Tom...

-sweeneyrules

GETTING A WOODY

Woody Allen's latest obligation, Cassandra's Dream opened last week to mostly blah reviews.

It’s the third of his “English-Cycle”.

There was a time when a new Woody Allen flick meant something. 

But alas those days are gone.

In my humble estimates his last great film was in 1992 (Husbands & Wives). Since then he’s made two very good movies Bullets Over Broadway (1994) and Sweet and Lowdown (1999) but even those were rather slight films, elevated by the excellent acting. He’s done two fairly enjoyable films Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) and his “wow, so un-Woody” Match Point (2005). Mostly though he’s directed a bunch of junk. The thought of say, a second viewing of either Scoop (2006), Melinda and Melinda (2004), Anything Else  (2003), Hollywood Ending (2002) or egads, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) sound like some Abu Grave type torture to me. But maybe worse of all, his oh-so overrated (by many) lowbrow epic Deconstructing Harry (1997), yuck.

But still, I always want to believe! So I’ll probably drag myself to Cassandra’s Dream, hoping to get a vibe that Woody has returned to planet earth and started making films about human beings again. My faith rest in the fact that this is the dude who's Big-Three, Hannah & Her Sisters (1986), Manhattan (1979) and Annie Hall (1977) might rival any other directors Big -Three... Yeah I said that. 

I might put Woody's Big-Three up against, um, any Big-Three....

The Godfather 1 & 2 and Apocalypse Now, yeah? Believe it or not I might go with The Woodmiser.

George Stevens? What are his? A Place in The Sun, Shane, Giant. How about Hitchcock’s Vertigo, North By Northwest, Notorious. Or Wilder’s Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd. and Some Like It Hot. I might stick with Allen, it close though. However Wilder and Hitch have a Big-Ten that know one can touch (My big-ten, I try but nobody wants to touch).

They must really need to make their money back because the normally press shy Woody has been doing more press then I recall for past films (he’s really trying to sell himself as just a normal-one-of-the-guys’, maybe he’s gonna run for office).

- There’s a on-camera “Ten Questions” from Time Magazine, he mentions having offered three other scripts to Sean Penn before Sweet And Lowdown.

- Or you can read some of it here.

- He did a fairly long radio interview on something called The Leonard Lopate Show. Interestingly he explains his new working relationship with monotony composer Philip Glass.

And in print....

- In the Daily News he’s boringly modest “I can see the influence of Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese - but I don't see my influence anyplace”. He’s obviously not then aware of Whit Stillman or Wes Anderson or heard the jazzy scores of most romantic comedies.

- He gushes over his cancer-voiced thespianette Scarlett Johansson and admits to having an IPhone to MTV

- And he tells Cineaste that he not a Purple Noon fan

- With the Washington Post he comes off as grumpy, "I do feel disconnected [from today's culture]. And I don't want to be connected there, because I don't like it," he explains. "The culture, at the moment, is not one that inspires me."

For old times sake. Check this out.

Woody Allen Interviews Billy Graham

SEE PART 2 HERE

-sweeneyrules