To Rome with Love (Woody Allen, 2012)

[CSM126]

You haven't seen it, but you somehow know that it's cliche. Or perhaps you meant that those critics called it cliche? Bad grammar if the latter.

[rohmerin]

Sorry about my grammar. Critics said it is cliché (not me).
I've just seen an interview to Benigni in RAI news tonight. They offered a clip from the film where He is introduced to a beautiful secretary, his new sec. Cut to, both on bed. Cut to another woman knocks and enter into the house. It's the sec's best friend, who was promised to be next on Roberto's sex life. Very Berlusconiesque (power and sex), the Italian film producer is Mr ex president with his powerful Medusa (producers of Tornatore) company. Woman says "power and fame are erotic" (or something like that).

All is spoken in Italian, but I don't know if it's original (I think so) or dubbed. I know Penelope speaks all her role in Italian because I saw another interview for a gossip Spanish site.

The film is made with 4 episodes. Critics have hated specially the one where province just married couple go to Roma for honeymoon (The white sheik??? ) but remember, I am not Italian and English is not my mother tongue.

The film opens this week here in Italy.

[Saimo]

Yes, rohmerin, you have understood Italian criticism about cliché in Allen film. However, I am not sure if our point of view is affected by a certain degree of national pride. We are now struggling so hard in order to reaffirm our credibility with Mario Monti, and instead Allen's film -produced by Berlusconi's company- stresses our boccacciesque qualities.
Also consider that Italian critics have never liked Billy Wilder's Avanti! either... or at least, they hadn't liked it until last week, when a few days before Allen's premiere they started appreciating Wilder's film!

By the way, the only Italian critic worth reading is Paolo Mereghetti (Il Corriere della Sera), even if I am not always in tune with his tastes. Other newspapers just have gossip and press-agent pieces: Repubblica has the worst tandem ever, Natalia Aspesi + Curzio Maltese (they often review films they -probably- haven't even seen: Maltese wrote a delightful appreciation of Super8 marvelous 3D!).

That said, I am very eager to see this film...

ps. all Italian reviews are based on dubbed version.

[rohmerin]

Vicky Cristina BCN was massacred by 99 % of Spanish critics, they saw the film just like a tourist tour + clichés that foreigners have about us. Except the dreadful song, the fact they listen a Guitar concert !!!! in a Oviedo park !!!! and the compose named (Maria Elena, Juan no sé qué), I found it pretty good, and VERY French. It was Allen's Jules et Jim, but set in Spain.

If you the Italians are struggling, I don't know what can I say about the Spanish situation with the King's whore, the elephant hunting, corruption (royal or not), inflation, rumors of corralito, the new tension with Argentina, crises, and all these things. Yes, we have to watch Luis García Berlanga's films again, or just the 3 Marco Ferreri's movies he did in Spain for understanding what happens now, all was filmed 60-50 years ago.

Anyway, I'm enjoying your country very much! I'm in Salò tonight. Jesus, what a landscape! Brescia has been a real good surprise. This is heaven. Finally I found two 2nd hand book stores in Brescia and bought 3 books about Italian cinema.

[Saimo]

"Who is for you Roberto?": Allen talking about Benigni and his Italian experience.

("May I embrace you?" )

[rohmerin]

Saluti from Bologna. Not even here in the multi cultural University town !!!! I have found a non dubbed version (minchia). I think that I won't find one even in Milano (double minchia!)
Surprising, Italians complain about how bad they speak English !!!!!! Mussolini did the law about dubbing !
The only original version film running across ALL Italy is the awful Untouchables, even in the Bologna cinematic cinema !!!!! Can you imagine the most successful commercial film shown at MOMA ? I can not.

Ma che cazzo accadde in questo paese con il doppiaggio??????????????????? It's even worse than in Spain.

Anyway: I adore this country and I still will be ten days more. \:D/

[Alan Smithee]

"Who is for you Roberto?": Allen talking about Benigni and his Italian experience.

("May I embrace you?" )

The moment Benigni starts speaking and Allen looks lost, it's like Down By Law with Woody Allen.

[Saimo]

Yes, it is just impossible to see Allen's film in original version... I suppose Italian co-producer hasn't relesead any subtitled print, so I am afraid I will only see the film on DVD.
However, in Rome we have three of four films with subtitles.

[Brian C]

US one-sheet.

[domino harvey]

The R rating is promising... His first for a comedy since, what, Deconstructing Harry?

[Dylan]

Anything Else and Celebrity were also rated R.

[domino harvey]

I'll plead guilty to having switched years on Deconstructing Harry and Celebrity but I forgot Anything Else was rated R-- jog my memory, is it like Everyone Says I Love You where because Allen has final cut he refused to trim a bad word or two to achieve a lighter rating, or was there something salacious there I just don't recall?

[Brian C]

The official explanation is "Rated R for sadistic scenes of torture and bloody violence against children, graphic aberrant sexual content including nudity, and a scene of teenage smoking."

[knives]

I love how each item seems more trivial than the last. Is smoking all that R rated when you're dealing with 'sadistic' scenes of 'torture' against children?

[Dylan]

I'll plead guilty to having switched years on Deconstructing Harry and Celebrity but I forgot Anything Else was rated R-- jog my memory, is it like Everyone Says I Love You where because Allen has final cut he refused to trim a bad word or two to achieve a lighter rating, or was there something salacious there I just don't recall?

I was - and still am - rather perplexed by the rating for Anything Else (which is my personal favorite Woody Allen film in the last fifteen years or so). With the film's back against the wall, I'd say the only real excuse for an R was the scene where Christina Ricci and her mother snort cocaine off the laptop (which actually happens in the background, not even entirely in focus if I recall correctly, while Biggs is talking to the camera). The fact that it contains rather frank discussions about sex and masturbation, I suppose, was the final teeter that pushed it over (but I don't believe it would these days - in 2003 "adult themes" were still sometimes enough for an R-rating). It certainly should've been PG-13.

[ShellOilJunior]

The film is being released 7/6 where I live (Cleveland). I think the last time Woody did a July 4th weekend release was Whatever Works...

[mfunk9786]

15% on the Tomatometer thusfar. Can't remember the last time an Allen film was so universally panned.

[domino harvey]

Don't read Todd McCarthy's Hollywood Reporter review, which helpfully spoils the punchlines of several of the segments. Gee thanks!

[swo17]

15% on the Tomatometer thusfar. Can't remember the last time an Allen film was so universally panned.

Maybe Allen just really hates Rome?

[starmanof51]

15% on the Tomatometer thusfar. Can't remember the last time an Allen film was so universally panned.

Of course so far that's dominated by critical bellweathers like JimmyO and Cole Smithey - not much of a universe. Among "Top Critics" it's 2 for 3. So it's probably headed up at least somewhat.

[wigwam]

I had such low expectations based on the trailer that I might be overrating this now, but I had so much fun at this. All the stories' variations on fantasies, wishes, regrets, and desires were done so wonderfully, even when a plotpoint was predictable, it was still joyous to see it play out. Judy Davis is sorta wasted here but she does have the movie's (and one of Allen's) best lines. Alec Baldwin's bitterness is so underplayed and grounded but beautifully rendered, and Woody's performance is his funniest in quite a while. This is no perfect film to me, like Midnight in Paris, but it also doesn't ever suffer dead spots like Whatever Works or many of his recent decades' worth ones.

[ShellOilJunior]

I enjoyed it. It was great to see Woody and Judy Davis together again. I thought all 4 scenarios were quite good. I think Benigni's story was an even better examination of celebrity than Celebrity.

As far as Woody's "postcard" (I don't include Match Point or Cassandra's Dream in this classification) movies go:

1. VCB
2. Midnight in Paris
3. To Rome with Love.

[Roger Ryan]

Add me to the list of supporters for this effort. The film starts out a little creakily, but finds its footing fairly quickly and becomes a fun, if minor, Allen romp. This is essentially four short films inter-cut into one feature and while the stories do have similar themes there isn't much cohesion to be found. The good news is that the structure effectively prevents any one of the stories from overstaying its welcome. The sense of surrealism and stylization that occurs throughout is the most refreshing surprise. Also, Allen has been quite stingy with his visual gags over the past 20 years, so I laughed a lot during the opera scenes!

[ShellOilJunior]

I do think Woody could have done without

Spoiler

the average Roman citizen guy opening the window and talking to the audience at the end. I thought the use of the traffic cop in the beginning was enough to make his point.

[dustybooks]

Just saw this and really enjoyed it, but that probably isn't too useful an opinion because I've ended up liking pretty much of all of Allen's meandering "lesser" films, and I swear it's not an intentional bias -- something he does just invariably rubs me the right way, I guess. I appreciated the frothy whimsy of the enterprise and thought the Benigni story was especially well-handled, but the biggest delight for me was seeing Allen himself acting again. He's still pretty terrific and I didn't realize how much I'd missed him in his recent films.

The entire movie felt like the really absurd private detective subplot of Midnight in Paris stretched to feature length, but it actually feels a bit comforting to see so much silliness in a Woody Allen movie right now.

I'm posting because I had a Barmy moment. There was a huge crowd (for Wilmington) at the screening, probably about 400 people, mostly seniors, and they were so loud with their laughing and cheering I missed a lot of the dialogue. Sort of annoying. Still, though I thought the movie was quite good, I can't imagine it will ever be as fun as it was with such a receptive group; the same was true of Match Point for me (though that was gasping and rapt attention, not laughter, of course). Also: if I'm not mistaken, first time I've ever witnessed the phenomenon of people applauding at the closing credits of a movie, though maybe that just suggests I need to get out more.