August 4, 2003
Woody Allen's Loser Movie
Movie City News directed Gothamist to what they called the "worst Woody Allen poster ever" - the new one-sheet for the upcoming Anything Else. We thought it was just hyperbole, but Mein Gott, it is awful. It looks like something that should be directed by some third tier director, like Robert Iscove (well, he's first in crap: She's All That, Boys and Girls , From Justin to Kelly), not Woody Allen. Poster also has shades of Career Opportunities, maybe. From Manhattan to this? And we're just talking poster wise, forget content (for the moment). We know that audiences have changed over the years, but this is depressing.
And then there's the trailer. From what we can tell, Christina Ricci and Jason Biggs are dating, Christina is crazy and won't sleep with Jason - though she'll sleep with others, and that makes Jason crazy. Ai. Isn't this like a platonic version of Loser meets, oh, Dawson's Creek? See it for yourself here at the official site. The movie's description is about "an artist (Allen) who mentors his assistant (Biggs) in winning the heart of his girlfriend (Ricci)," but as reader Matt H. points out that since the trailer seems to use footage from the same five scenes over and over again, it feels like "there's an entire other film (starring Wood-man and Danny De Vito) that we're not seeing."
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It's over. It's profoundly over. He should stay in France and just stop working.
Why does Ricci look exactly like a Real Doll in that picture? Her face appears to be made of vinyl.
I've never been a huge Allen fan, but this still saddens me. How many more flops can he afford to make, anyway?
Yes, please stop. We all love you. You've made us die laughing numerous times. You will forever be one of the greats if you just STOP NOW.
Ugh, Jason Biggs.
Heard Allen originally wanted to cast himself in Biggs' role.
Of course he did! He wanted to make out with Christina Ricci!
Teen romantic comedy? Maybe he really needs a box-office hit, and he thinks this'll do at least as well as American Wedding. Oh dear, the trailer does look horrible, but of course I'm going to see it anyway, just because I always see all of Woody's films (yea, even Celebrity and Sweet & Lowdown). Christina Ricci -- she was gorgeous in Sleepy Hollow, I do hope she doesn't make a habit of appearing opposite Jason Biggs.
Oh, and the first link to the film has a superfluous hyphen.
Does this mean Christina Ricci wasn't cast (again) as the sour bitch? Which, judging from the interviews I've read, doesn't call for much acting on her part.
Felix,
I thought Sweet and Lowdown was good, better than The Curse of the Jade Scorpion anyway.
I think the problem is two-fold. When Woody signed on with DreamWorks, there was a lot of mention made about how the deal was specifically for comedies.
So I think he has been focusing too much on less thoughtful films, with seemingly broader appeal. Hence, the new poster and trailer. Sadly, Woody doesn't have the clout he once did, and to keep working, it seems like he's made a few compromises.
And, no matter what your thoughts on the Soon-Yi situation, Woody has been casting himself against much younger women for a long time. Unfortunately, since his widely publicized troubles, as Woody gets older and older, and his leading ladies stay quite young, there is a growing sense of creepiness in his acting roles.
And in some films, like The Curse of the Jade Scorpion Allen's character isn't an artist or at all wealthy, which could at least justify or explain Helen Hunt or Charlize Theron's attraction to him. Instead, he was just a rumpled detective, and not a very good one at that.
He's just too old to play the quintessential "Woody Allen" character any more, but when anybody else plays the part, it tends to become an exaggerated caricature.
I'm thinking about Dianne Wiest, who is an older actress who does get good roles from Woody. And she did play opposite him in Hannah and Her Sisters. But yes, overall, Woody likes girls who are nubile while he can't get more and more fragile. He did "fall in love" again wtih Goldie Hawn in Everyone Says I Love You. Then again, she's relatively nubile for a 50 year old.
Thanks Felix for noting the first link's problem.
And Glenn, I think Christina was cast as (again, taking from Matt H.) the neurotic frigid bitch. So not sour bitch.
Listen, it's 2003 -- get over it. Britney Spears is being cast as Daisy Duke. Ashton Kutcher as the new Superman. Nothing is sacred. There are no surprises left. At least Woody holds a shot longer the 8 frames. And we'll always have 'Manhattan' and "Annie Hall' (until Gus Van Sant remakes them).
"Britney Spears is being cast as Daisy Duke. Ashton Kutcher as the new Superman. Nothing is sacred."
I'm going to have to second that. Although, I personally can't get over it. The extreme vacuousness that is American pop culture is beginning to make me choke on my own bile and grab my passport.
*time get the hell outta dodge check list:
-no more elections, presidents are 'selected'
-congress no longer needed to declare all out war
-no safer now than pre-9/11
-NYTimes loses all cred
-J. Blair becomes media star with new glossy writing gig
-Stephen Glass becomes media's conscious on the matter
-the 80's are back...?
-The Patriot Act/Total Information Awareness
-neverending recession (take your Masters & bus table 4)
-2nd term G.W. Bush, yeeeehaw!
-NPR and Slate (Microsoft) get married
-Woody Allen makes empty (MTV) teen movie
yep, that's it. check please.
"As Woody gets older and older, and his leading ladies stay quite young, there is a growing sense of creepiness in his acting roles."
I think the leading ladies are getting younger. "Curse of the Jade Scorpion" had him pitching woo at Helen Hunt, who's at least old enough to drive, but his girlfriend in "Hollywood Ending" was three years old when Clinton was elected. At this rate he's going to make a movie where he's 93 years old and soul-kissing a blastocyst.
To me he seems more attracted to a type of female rather than an age; enthusiam and naivete seem to be the common denominator no matter what the actress's years.
Take the roles played by Diane Keaton (Annie Hall), Mia Farrow (Radio Days), Tracy Ullman (Small Time Crooks), Samantha Morton (Sweet and Lowdown), Charlotte Rampling (Stardust Memories)... All enthusiastic, naive, and game for pretty much anything.
You'd have to be to the very opposite of world weary to want to sit around and endure the vanities of a stuttering, stumbling goofball for more than 20 minutes.
I think Woody should just play cowboys. He played a cowboy-type in Picking up the Pieces, and I think that worked very well. The Jew-as-cowboy motif is consistently hilarious but definitely under-utilized:
A) Bob Dylan in the new Masked and Anonymous
B) Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles (also as an indigenous native whatever-we're-calling them this week person)
C) Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys - not one of the greatest country acts of all time, but worth listening to.
I agree with Tim on this one. The trailer seems like Dreamworks PR department made it, not Woody. I don't think Woody has the clout he once had, and the Studio wanted to make sure it reached more than his hardcore fans. I mean Woody is a very basic director who doesn't even do audio commentaries, I wouldn't be suprised if they made him do one for this film. "It sells Woody, it sells!"
If you look beneath the trailer, you can see some good Woody Allen dialog and story there.
Allen's last great movie was probably "Husbands and Wives." During the '80s, he produced some astounding satirical works ("Stardust Memories," "Crimes and Misdemeanors" -- even "Hannah and Her Sisters" in a way). However, he completely lost it afterward. Some claim he's too old and settled to accurately send up society. Others point out that he might actually be -- gasp -- "happy" with Soon-Yi, the result being that he's becoming more and more a piss-poor artist.
He has nothing more to say and nothing more to accomplish. Unlike Bob Hope, who did damage to his legacy with the NBC specials, he can't claim to be endearing himself to his fans (as Hope did well after his comedic prime). He's degenerating into a "dirty old man" (although he always was, apparently -- "Manhattan" was not complete fiction in this regard) who makes tired movies that are almost parodies of Woody Allen films. He's like Groucho Marx in the '70s -- it's embarrassing to even see his work (his recent play was also dreck and "The New Yorker" probably only publishes his current essays because of his marquee value).
He also, aside from the essential badness of his last however many movies, doesn't work on stuff long enough. He just churns it out year after year. So even if there is a kernel of something interesting in one of his latest movies, he doesn't explore it, he tramples it, tripping over himself to get his new movie out there. Poor Woody. 'Tis sad.
I was just going to write that the poster has eradicated any chance I'm ever going to see this movie except for by not having anything else to watch on cable when I can't sleep at 4:30 in the morning, but then I saw Stockard Channing's name at the bottom and so now I will have to watch it on purpose. Damn you, Woody Allen! Damn you!
Yeah, that's a whole other subject: why in the world do all these good and interesting actors agree to be in his new crap? I wish someone as cool as Stockard would be like "Bah!" and throw the script back at him.
Don't you think Christina Ricci is trying to look alot like moi in the poster?
Jon Benet-Ramsey
In regards to the creepy age disparity b/w the Woodman and his leading ladies, I read an interview with Mariel Hemingway in which she said Woody would constantly come onto her during the shooting of "Manhattan" (she was 17 at the time).
Creepy, indeed. Makes me wonder about Mia's allegations.
eh, I'm just one of those losers who is going to see the movie because jimmy fallon is soooooo cute!
First off. Dreamworks made the woodman cut the trailer like this. They've lost tons of money on his films and cache or not. It's a business. So there's that.
Now, having seen the trailer a ton of times, I don't see the big beef. Jason Biggs IS woody and Christina Ricci is essentially Diane Keaton. I'm a huge Woody fan, although I hated the last one -- but I think this might be funny... Call me insane.
If Pierce Brosnan could still play a smoldering leading man in "Die'alogue' Another Day", perhaps it is all a Baby-boomer need to see themselves as young,--- and as people are living much longer, in this country, we may be in for a long parade of this charade.
I guess I would have been frustrated wtih a Woody focused trailer, but I wouldn't have bitched as much, since we know his shtick. I have issues thinking Christina Ricci is the new Diane Keaton. Diane seemed/is genuinely loopy. Christina, she's a brat. So Kristen, you are insane, especially since you are freaked out by my panda fixation.
I think that ANYTHING ELSE cast member Stockard Channing's comments at the end of this Daily News piece are more than telling....
Woody Allen died and went to Hell YEARS ago with that dreckula fest "Everyone Says I love You." The good actors won't work with him anymore because he's a twisted sicko in a trench coat like the protagonist in Caleb Carr's "The Alienist" (which would make a fabulous film).He has not changed since the Sun Yi disaster, because Christina Ricci has inetercourse with this fossil (Woody) in the film! That is DISGUSTING! What is she, like, 25? Then he hires the pie molester (Jason Biggs) who SWEARS he's "not a Jew." He claims to be an "Irish Catholic" from a small Jersey town, meanwhile, he only dates Jewish chicks and his father looks like Wolf Blitzer. PUHLEASE. So let me get this straight? We have yet another pervert fantasy from Woody Allen since "Manhattan" (which was spectacular, of course--at least Ricci is OVER 18 *gag*)PASSING for a fall teen date movie. Then we have Woody Allen PASSING for a magical wizard who can make all of us forget about his psychosis. Then we have Christina Ricci PASSING for a girl whose career highlight was NOT her portrayal of Wednseday Addams (although The Opposite of Sex was passable). We have Danny DeVito PASSING once again as a guy whom we do not wish to send to a travelling circus. And finally, we have Pie Molester Biggs who still thinks a JUHJUHJUHJEW has to PASS in Hollywood. If he IS a "Catholic" he needs about a thousand Hail Mary's to save this film from flopping quicker than Sun Yi at the promise of a Happy Meal.
THUMBS DOWN!
How about THIS for a Jason Biggs picture?
LOS ANGELES -- "Everyone thinks I'm Jewish," says actor Jason Biggs. The 23-year-old star of "American Pie," "Loser" and "American Pie 2" is actually an Italian-Catholic from New Jersey. But he looks like the kind of nice Jewish boy you had a crush on in Hebrew school. Which is why he keeps getting cast as such, he says.
His big break, at age 13, was playing Judd Hirsch's son in the Broadway run of "Conversations With My Father." In 1997, TV mogul Steven Bochco cast him as Robby Rosenfeld in the series, "Total Security."
In "American Pie 2," Biggs' character, Jim, gets a Jewish surname, Levenstein. "Yet again, I am playing a Jew," quips the exuberant, personable actor.
If the misconception lingers, it doesn't help that Biggs has a Jewish girlfriend, a 24-year-old writer, his first serious relationship since high school. In the year-and-a-half they've been dating, he's celebrated Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah at her parents' Los Angeles home. When she flew off to Israel in June to visit her brother, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem exchange student, Biggs tagged along. "I was definitely concerned about the political situation," he confides, "but I've always wanted to see Israel."
Hours after he flew into Lod airport, Biggs was walking in Tel Aviv when he heard a loud explosion. "When we got to our restaurant, all the Israelis were on their cell phones and suddenly they were clearing out of the place," he recalls. "Then our waiter told us there had been a suicide bombing at a discotheque less than half a mile away. It was as if the headlines had come to life."
When the shaken actor walked past the disco two days later, there was still blood on the sidewalk. "But the Israelis were getting on with their lives, so we felt, 'We must get on with our vacation,'" says Biggs, who was often approached for autographs. "They were impressed that we would show solidarity and come at a time like this to see their country."
We can call it "Passing in Seattle"
Source:
www.jewishsf.com/bk010810/etp28b.shtml
Oh and another thing--
Quote:
jen h. Aug 6, 2003 3:55 PM
In regards to the creepy age disparity b/w the Woodman and his leading ladies, I read an interview with Mariel Hemingway in which she said Woody would constantly come onto her during the shooting of "Manhattan" (she was 17 at the time).
Creepy, indeed. Makes me wonder about Mia's allegations.
Why would Mia LIE? Frank Sinatra offered to "take care of him" at the time of the trial but she had to play it nice, damnit. She could have spared us all from "Celebrity."
In Allen's defense, hitting on a seventeen year old when you're forty-two doesn't make you a pedophile -- in fact, about a hundred years ago, no one would have blinked an eye at such a match.
If you wish to get bogged down in, oh, the law, it has been revealed that there was no physical evidence of any inappopriateness on Allen's part. If there was, he would have been arrested. Farrow certainly would have pressed charges.
Why would she lie? Why wouldn't she. Her own self-serving version of events in her memoir depicts her as a woman so infatuated with Allen that she ignored most of the warning signs (not of his pedophilia, but of his inability to connect with another human being on a mature level). She had no problem with that until he left her. In fact, he showed zero interest in her children (they also never lived together, which made the allegations of his "sleeping with his adopted daughter" completely false).
Allen probably isn't the nicest guy in the world, but that doesn't make him a criminal.
the problem with this trailer is that it really makes no sense...which always portends of an awful movie (although i thought the trailer for "le divorce" was hilarious and hated the movie). but i tend to find if a trailer makes no sense, the movie is even more senseless.
BUT, maybe this is just a coverup for an actually good movie, i.e. annie hall updated, which could be hilarious.
just a devil's advocate thing though, i groaned through the whole thing.
"In Allen's defense, hitting on a seventeen year old when you're forty-two doesn't make you a pedophile -- in fact, about a hundred years ago, no one would have blinked an eye at such a match."
Okay,how about hitting on a 17 year old that you helped raised for 17 years with your girlfriend and looked up to you like a father. There are photographs of him and Mia walking little Sun Yi in Central Park!!! If that doesn't make him a pedo, how about molesting your nine-year old daughter and having the babysitter CONFIRM the things you did to her? How about a 42 year old man sticking his thumb in a two-year old's mouth and telling her to suck on it? How about sticking his head in between her thighs when she was watching TV? Why did little Dylan run and hide in TERROR hwnever he came over to the house?(confirmed by several non-partisan eye witnesses).
Why "wouldn't" Mia lie? What did she have to "gain"? That book was only released after she found gyno photos of her DAUGHTER in her ex-boyfriend's HOUSE. Molestation stories about her daughters seems highly unlikely fodder for a publicity stunt!After the trial everyone already knew Woody was a scumbag, and the book wasn't called "Woody is a Dirty Rotten Scoundrel" it was her bio. In fact, the entire debacle only takes up like two chapters in the entire book.
He's a disgusting pig and you can decorate it any way you please. If it were YOUR daughter I am sure you would be singing a different tune.
Yes, Woody Allen is a mid-life-crisis-having incestuous weirdo.
But I think he should do a movie starring our friend Ben Stiller. That might be interesting to see. And Woody should not appear in one single fucking scene.
Woody Allen is the worst. Prolly the most pretentious person ever.
Career Oppurtunities was amazing! It was my first date movie, I think, maybe it was Richard Greco's "If Looks Could Kill". They are both timelss classics of the neglected early 90s teen movie genre.
People were dissing Allen for years, saying he was a spent force, then he goes and makes "Sweet & Lowdown", which is a magnificient movie. And similarly I remember being years ago being disappointed by "Hannah & Her Sisters", and then a few years later "Crimes and Misdimeanors", an utter masterpiece comes out. Boom!
The truth is, Allen has always surprised us, off and on. And unless he goes senile, I'm guessing he will continue to do so. There are very, very few directors, American or otherwise, who I can say that about.
Variety's David Stratton saw ANYTHING ELSE at Venice fest --- here's his gently - some cineasts still possess a soft spot for the Woodster - dismissive review's first two paragraphs
"In his impressive body of work, Woody Allen has repeatedly depicted the battle of the sexes with humor and insight, usually playing the character buffeted by passion's ebb and flow himself. In "Anything Else," Jason Biggs plays the guy with the sexual hang-ups, who, with a confident stab at the quintessential Allen screw-up, proves there's more to life than "American Pie." The younger casting brings a freshness to the material and, with Allen as the weird mentor, there are plenty of laughs, even if the pacing's slow and the running time over-extended. A mid-range Allen, pic is sharper than his latest offerings, but very far from top form. B.O. prospects seem only marginally better than the recent Allen norm.
What's new in this Gotham-lensed comedy is a surprisingly dark element to the humor. Allen plays a sad-sack 60-year-old school teacher and would-be comic named David Dobel, who becomes increasingly obsessive as the film proceeds. With a history of mental illness, Dobel makes questionable jokes about the Holocaust, and has a fetish about being an armed survivor in what he sees as perilous times."
gigli-- you seem like a really hateful person. how can you trust a another persons word on the personal happenings of these people's lives? do you have hard proof? I feel for Mia Farrow, but everyone is capable of lying. Maybe Mia lied, maybe Woody did. To call someone a pedophile with no hard evidence is a disgusting thing in itself. As for your comment on "if it were your daughter...", if it were his or her daughter, I'm sure they would know the facts of the matter and therefore have a right to call that person a pedophile.
As for the new film.... I am going to give it a chance.
woody allen is great and this movie actually rocked. sure, biggs sucks, but with allens dialogue its hard to screw up. and ppl say that his new movies are flopping. ha, who the hell actually liked the purple rose of cairo, or husbands and wives, or crimes and misdemeanors? not i, not i...
annie hall or bust
I love Woody Allen. Shame on Dreamworks for trying to hide a great filmmaker.
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