criterionforum.org

Garrel as an asshole director? Sounds like Allen enjoyed Le Redoutable too!

That makes three of us!

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wallace Shawn will also be in this. What a wonderfully inspired cast! I've long thought that Louis Garrel would be a natural fit for Allen so I'm especially excited about his involvement.

The Guardian's announcement adds that Vittorio Storaro will be the cinematographer.

And now I know that Storaro is still alive, which is great news, ha.

One of the all-time greats, to be sure, though I'm not sure how I feel about him using his precious time to do a Woody Allen movie in 2019.

I see now that Storaro also shot Cafe Society and Wonder Wheel, which shows you how much attention I've paid Allen since Blue Jasmine, basically.

His work on Wonder Wheel is the only thing keeping that movie from being Allen's rock-bottom worst.

Persona wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 4:58 pm And now I know that Storaro is still alive, which is great news, ha.

One of the all-time greats, to be sure, though I'm not sure how I feel about him using his precious time to do a Woody Allen movie in 2019.

His three last films were also Woody Allen movies, so...

Yeah, I edited my post because I was like "What else has Storaro done recently that I don't know about?!"

Apparently he also shot that Muhammad movie that Majidi did back in 2015, which means I now really want to check that out as I've always had a soft spot for Majidi.

The Narrator Returns wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 4:59 pm His work on Wonder Wheel is the only thing keeping that movie from being Allen's rock-bottom worst.

Loquasto as well.

That's such a surprising and fascinating response to me as I consider Wonder Wheel to be among his best ever and a clear rejuvenation for Allen creatively. It's certainly the only one of his recent efforts which I've seen multiple times.

John Cope wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 8:50 pm That's such a surprising and fascinating response to me as I consider Wonder Wheel to be among his best ever and a clear rejuvenation for Allen creatively. It's certainly the only one of his recent efforts which I've seen multiple times.

I'm with you. Allen's been one of my two or three favorite directors for more than half of my life and I consider Wonder Wheel to be one of his very, very best films. I found the screenplay devastating and powerful, with a chilling final act - I really don't understand the story or dialogue criticisms as I personally didn't detect a false note in the work. In my mind it's also very much Storaro's film, as it's very clear the cinematographer was given so much freedom here and I consider it the apex of the unique lighting style Storaro began developing with Bertolucci for The Spider's Stratagem and The Conformist, which progressed through One From the Heart for Francis Coppola and Dick Tracy for Warren Beatty, and to Tango for Carlos Saura, etc. The entire cast is great (yes, I even appreciated the much maligned performance by Justin Timberlake), but Juno Temple steals the film and is brilliant - a wonderfully sensitive and touching performance.

I'll third that sentiment although it'll take a rewatch before I know whether I can say I like it as much as you did, Dylan. Was a surprising and really quite fantastic film in my view.

The general plot outline sounds a LOT like a rewrite of Rainy Day In New York (which itself is an extended rewrite of one of the short stories in To Rome With Love and the very beginning of Scoop). Can't help but wonder if Woody thought "well, maybe this movie won't ever get released, I'll just reuse that idea for this Spanish setting" and now it's coming out... and there will be two Woody films in a row with a very similar plot.

I'd still be interested to see how the two compare but the NeuLeft critics will already have their knives out and they will have a field day with that.

Never a dull moment!

If Howard Hawks could do it, why not Woody Allen?

domino harvey wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:52 am If Howard Hawks could do it, why not Woody Allen?

Oh, he'll do it - he's done it before in fact. And regularly revisits themes / plot ideas in different ways, but usually over time. This will be back to back. And the critics who are already going to make sure they align themselves with the Righteous Amongst Humans on Twitter will use this as ample evidence he shouldn't be making new movies because he's now completely terrible at it and can't even think of new ideas or some shit and that the only reason is to enable the enablers or some other slop like that.

Anyways - in the end, who cares, it's a new film, even if critics lambast it for that it will be interesting as a case study in writing and re-writing for the likes of us to look at how a writer such as Woody can approach material in different ways and what works and what does not. After all, my reviews of the 2000's / 2010s material in the List Project here mostly focused on the writing and how he *needed* to do a rewrite to better filter his ideas. Now we might have two fully formed and finished films to examine just that very theory. I'm looking forward to it.

AWA wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 4:24 am

domino harvey wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 3:52 am If Howard Hawks could do it, why not Woody Allen?

Oh, he'll do it - he's done it before in fact...

Back-to-back as well: Scoop (2006) is essentially the comedy version of Match Point (2005).

According to IMDB, the production designer for Rifkin's Festival is Alain Bainée, who previously worked with Allen on Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Rifkin's Festival??? Am I to assume Woody Allen's completely given up? This sounds like a title for a "loosely based version of events" on "Epstein's Island". I can only imagine the groaning from the sales department. How embarrassing.

Maybe he’ll change it to Decameron Bop

That's a good point Woody's been washed for quite a while, Magic in the Moonlight bruh? Bruh.. it's actually not that bad and I do sorta see why you like it — Emma Stone — I personally can't get over Colin Firth in anything, he's such a Paul Henried. I'm also the same person who fawns over Vicky and Christina so what do I know? Wonder Wheel was awful tho, I know that much, bless the few of you showering it positive hyperbole in a way only a bar drunk served left over hamburger meat can. Good grief was Timberlake bad in that movie, so bad that it should be disqualified from even being called a movie.

I've lodged defenses of several late-period Allen films (though not Magic in the Moonlight and especially not fucking Wonder Wheel), but the synopsis of this sounds like it came from a particularly half-hearted Onion article for what a parody it is of Allen's "let's get a vacation out of this movie" period. Given everything that's come after, I'm wondering if Allen blew the last of his creative instincts on Cafe Society and is now content to churn out self-parodies of what were already dangerously close to being self-parodies.

Woody's just old man, the only other job I can think of where you can be that old is President of the United States.

lot of insights in these last few posts....thanks for sharing!