Random Thoughts

Alice. Woody Allen. 1990.

This is a Woody Allen film from after I stopped watching him (I think I stopped the year before, growing tired of watching film after film concerning the problems of rich people in Manhattan), so I’m curious as to what he’s up to now, then.

Aaaaand… it turns out to be about rich people in Manhattan.

Or is it “on Manhattan”?

But this time the Woody character is played by Mia Farrow, so that’s different. And she’s having fun mirroring his mannerisms, I think.

During the 80s I would see “William Hurt” on a DVD cover or movie poster and I’d go “yay” and then I’d be disappointed when I saw the film because I was totally thinking of John Hurt.

That feeling’s still with me: Even if William Hurt is a good actor, I’m always disappointed on some level when he appears on the screen.

I do like Mia Farrow in this, though. I don’t believe in her character, but she’s entertaining to watch. But Allen isn’t good with actors: None of them are convincing.

The cinematography is a bit iffy. They try to do interesting things with mirrors, tracking shoots and stuff, but it’s a bit mannered. It’s like “NOW WE”RE DOING THIS” and “NOW WE”RE DOING THE OTHER THING”.

I find myself wanting to like this more than I am, and I’m also thinking that I was right to abandon Woody Allen when I did.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

Rosalie Goes Shopping. Percy Adlon. 1989.

This is one of the less-than-handful of films from the Percy Adlon DVD box set I bought that I can actually watch (most of the rest are in German without subtitles in any language I understand), but, oh, what a film. I remember watching this when it was new and being absolutely transfixed. Not as mesmerised as I was by Adlon/Sägebrecht in Zuckerbaby, but it’s still a pretty special film.

And I apparently bought it three times on DVD.

It’s quite similar to that film in some ways. Of course, this one is set in the US and is in English while Zuckerbaby was in Germany and in German, but it’s got that somewhat heightened reality thing going on: The colours are a touch too vivid and the people are a bit more extreme than in reality.

I love it to bits.

And did I mention that Brad Davis is in this? Brad Davis is in this.

It does have some pacing problems just when they switch to the incomprehensible computer heist bit (i.e., the third act), but making a computer heist work dramatically is difficult. So it’s not perfect, but there’s still so much to love here, from the different children, all with their quirks, to the father, the airplane enthusiast, to the evil grandmother, to the nightly entertainment (watching TV ads), to the priest who gets more and more involved.

There’s so much in here. Percy Adlon is a genius.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

Pee Wee’s Christmas Special. Wayne Orr. 1988.

OK, I’m on today’s nth cocktail, but I think this might be the best TV thing ever shown anywhere ever. Pee Wee has gotten an amazing number of amazing stars to appear on his special (Grace Jones, k. d. lang, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg), but it’s still the same insanity as every Pee Wee episode is.

It’s simply perfection.

I haven’t watched this far in the TV series yet, but it seems like they’ve deemphasised Gary Panter’s designs here… It looks slightly less punk than it did at the start.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

September. Woody Allen. 1987.

Hm… what was the film that made me stop watching the yearly Woody Allen film? I don’t think it was this one… Perhaps it was one a couple of years later? Crimes and Misdemeanors? I don’t recall.

But I do remember why I stopped watching his films: I was sitting in the cinema and thinking “I don’t fucking care about these people. It’s the same upper class New Yorkers and their incredibly uninteresting problems every fucking time!”

It’s basically the same criticism that was levied against Ingmar Bergman, but in his case it was unjustified.

I didn’t watch another Allen film for two decades.

And I do see the elements that ticked me off here, but I think I probably enjoyed this one. Allen has problems directing people talking to each other earnestly: It never seems real. (The lines aren’t particularly convincing, either.) But Dianne Wiest is the focal point whenever she’s on the screen, so it’s got that going for it.

Wow:

Allen shot the film twice. It originally starred Sam Shepard as Peter (after Christopher Walken shot a few scenes, but was replaced), Maureen O’Sullivan (Mia Farrow’s real life mother) as Diane, and Charles Durning as Howard. However, while editing the film, Allen decided to rewrite it, recast it, and reshoot it, but he himself was dissatisfied with the results.

It seems unimaginable that Sam Shepard would be worse than Sam Waterston in the Woody stand-in role, because he’s the worst.

I do like the mood in the film. The lights are out and they spend an evening lit by extremely light-emitting candles and storm lanterns. I love that bit.

But the film doesn’t really work until the last bit where Mia Farrow learns (and tells) the truth and can do her thing. From that point on, it’s great.

This blog post is part of the Century series.