Be interesting to see what you make of it. I'm still blown away, maybe because it feels like the kind of film I always wanted Argento to make but which, for whatever reasons, he could never quite seem to pull off - or at least sustain for an entire movie (Suspiria being the one possible exception).

A lot of the dialogue in that seemed like a return to the one-liners of his earlier pre-Annie Hall era, which I never liked. If anything I even prefer his more whimsical stuff like Midnight in Paris and Magic in the Moonlight to his more slapstick/caper based stuff. Of course that period from Annie Hall up to Hannah and Her Sisters was his real golden age for me.

right, this is more like bananas or love and war or take the money and run etc. straight-up comedy. but better than that era.

so maybe this is more like mighty aphrodite where you have jokes but with more structure. also, bullets over broadway.

midnight in paris is great! but magic in the moonlight was meh for me.

i actually just put it on, small time crooks i mean, because we have some last-minute paperwork to do tonigh (uggghh!) and this will help us cope

all the robbers had ronald reagan masks ha ha ha ha

and tracy ullman is so good in it

and michael rappaport is the greatest moron ever

okay. paperwork. fuck!!

I like Magic in the Moonlight but I can't really defend it, if that makes sense. I just like to have it on. The scenery, the soundtrack, Colin Firth being Colin Firth. It's a guilty pleasure.

I've come to the conclusion that I enjoy Woody Allen most when the comedy takes a bit of a backseat. Even bits of Annie Hall irritate me, when he's trying to shoehorn a gag in where it isn't needed. I'd say Hannah and Her Sisters is the one where he gets the balance just right.

this totally looks like something I would dig. by the same director of Drive? it's got Keanu!! everyone loves Keanu right?

Raging Bull - Will be watching some more Marty in anticipation of Silence.

Oh shit, I forgot about Silence! I wonder if it's come to our little shithole theater yet. Definitely feels like a passion-project for Scorsese, as opposed to the "Scorsese" film-as-mini-genre (Goodfellas, The Departed, Wolf of Wall Street). More Kundun than Taxi Driver, I guess. But still... I loved Kundun.

Raging Bull is one of the best films of the 20th century. Fucking depressing, tragic, hard for me to watch, but goddammit, it's the performance of a lifetime for DeNiro. I often find myself going back and forth between this and Taxi Driver as his peak performance... couldn't tell you where I stand now, but this is definitely one of the best screen performances of all time in my book.

No Country for Old Men. Certainly not a great Coen Bros work, but pretty good Cormac adaption, anyways....

sure, and why not


i see. for me he's first and foremost a comic. he started doing stand-up. i go to him primarily for the jokes, with a side bonus elsewhere which might be literary or psychological or whatever.

i remember the first time i saw zelig. i laughed so hard i my belly was hurting. and i'm pretty sure i wasn't stoned. okay, maybe 50/50 chance i was stoned. but still. and yeah there's something more profound than all the laughter (in the case of zelig, a look at jewish assimilation?), but without it it's not great. then again the early german romantics valued laughter greatly-- so let's not underestimate a good joke. maybe the whole universe is a joke.

his supposed big failure was his bergmanian period-- interiors, etc. serious/heavy. which i know i've seen, but can't recall. someone tried to drown herself or something-- i don't know.

Yeah, his Bergman stuff never worked.

I'm probably a bigger fan of stand-up comedy than I am the situation-based comedy you tend to get in movies. Besides that I find a lot of non-comedy movies (say Goodfellas) make me laugh far more than most official comedies.

yes.

but... oh, HEY! you mentioned hannah & her sisters as your favorite of his films.

and what's the great philosophical underpinning of the whole thing...?

DUCK SOUP!

(i love duck soup)

ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

anyway. hannah & her sisters is great for sure no matter how one slices it. great cast, great everything.

Hannah & Her Sisters is great. I miss out on a lot of this Woody talk because I went through my Woody era when I was in high school, so I've missed a SHIT TON OF SHIT at this point, but I do love his films. Gotta play some catch-up.

My favorites are Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors. God damn but those are great movies.

I tend to disagree. It's not "Coensy" in the traditional, lovable, bizarro, funny-even-when-deadly-serious way, but I think as a film, it's a goddamn masterpiece. One of the few instances where I actually prefer the movie to the book (the others are... well... mostly Harry Potter films).

I'm not a Cormac fan generally speaking. Or... at all, really. But I like the stories, if not his style of writing. I think the Coens' take on No Country was fucking mind-blowing. And oddly, even though it lacks "Coenness," it kicks ass as a cinematic feat.

Wish Javier Bardem would stop playing ridiculous villains (he's in the new -- yes, another one -- Pirates of the Caribbean, as the disfigured, creepy, oozey, hunch-backed baddie... just like he was the creepy disfigured baddie in Skyfall, and blah...) and love up to that role once or twice before being the world forgets about him.

All kinds of things make me laugh, I just don't find most comedies especially funny. I see no more contradiction in that than in a music lover saying he doesn't like musicals. It's the form the humour takes that's the problem for me, not humour itself.

Raging Bull had me giggling the whole time as well. Of course not at everything but you get the point.

Yeah I haven't really been excited for a Scorsese picture in years. This one seems like it'll be different but who knows. I love the guy but honestly his list of great films he's made is very very short. I do love the fact that he lives and breaths cinema. He's on almost every special feature I've ever seen in a DVD and involved a lot in restorations and film history. Love the dude for sure. Quote him all the time "great pictcha".

I didn't comment on the De Niro performance because it's been written about enough and I can't add much but yeah... he's terrifying.

Last one I saw: High Noon - oh man this one brings home the goods. The clocks. The old love triangle hidden underneath. How pitiful of a hero Gary Cooper is. And then the climax lasts for like .5 seconds and then it just ends. Great great great western.

oh i wasnt suggesting that youre humorless or that you should like comedies. sorry if that came across somehow-- not what i intended

i was just trying to point that comedy is at the heart of allen's work-- even, in fact, in his best dramas

i.e. for him, the marx brothers have the secret of life

No, i know that's not what you meant.

I know comedy's at the heart of his work, just that I tend to prefer it when he gives it a side role, rather than lets it take centre-stage. One of the best comedies I've seen in recent years is Sideways. Obviously the comedy is there, and very very funny, but it's used more as a natural part of the themes and situations it deals with, rather than the thing itself. I suppose it's the difference between comedy as a genre and comedy as an element.

man, i remember with sideways i cringed a whole lot. that paul giamatti character was fucking disturbing.

there was something funny said about drinking merlot though. dont recall the exact line but it was some kind of threat involving merlot. it was ages ago! but i do remember it mostly as a depressing movie, ha ha ha.

i also remember the cinematography bothered me-- i saw it in a good movie theatre so i don't think it was the projection. yeah, i remember strange shit like that-- the candles at some restaurant bothered me.

then again, it was alexander payne, so it should have its funny parts

i should rewatch it soon actually. perfect for what i need these days--laughs, no heroes. yes.

Went and saw Moonlight before it closed. Beatiful film