July 15, 2011

"On Friday, 'Midnight in Paris' will become the top-grossing movie of Woody Allen's long career."

It's "on track to dethrone 'Hannah and Her Sisters' as the biggest grossing movie in Allen's directorial career, which has lasted for 35 years and 41 films."

We saw that movie tonight. A fine romantic comedy. And I'm saying "fine" because Ernest Hemingway was always calling things "fine," especially in this movie.



A fine trailer that does a fine job of avoiding spoilers.

91 comments:

MadisonMan said...

I've never liked Woody Allen movies. I only watched 'Sleeper' -- and that was because of where it was filmed.

Paddy O said...

My wife saw it tonight with a friend while she's out of state.

She said it was extremely good, and she is absolutely not a Woody Allen fan. It's getting great, broad reviews.

dick said...

I always found Woody Allen movies good to watch if I was having insomnia. He can put me to sleep faster than anyone else in the field.

blake said...

I hated it, of course.

If I were going to write the executive summary for Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, it would probably be: "This is The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for nebbishy dweebs who think they're too good for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."

Wait--spoilers? What's to be spoiled? This movie has no twists, no surprises, it's a forgone conclusion from the first scene!

Shouting Thomas said...

No, I'm not giving a dime to that SOB.

It's not like I'm a moralist. Hell, I love the narcocorridos. The narcocorridos are all about drugs, fast cars, loss women, guns and violence.

After all those years of liberal women telling me that Woody Allen was the essence of the new man in touch with his feelings, I was already ill disposed toward him.

But, then he started fucking his step daughter.

That's a little too much for me. I don't care how much you dress it up in Upper West Side sophistication. I ain't giving the bastard a dime.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The key to Woody Allen's formula is the good actors like Ian Holm saying lines like "Forgive me. I accept your condemnation" from Another Woman (1988).

Or E.G. Marshall in Interiors (1978)

I don't know how I'll feel about it when
I finally do it, and it's not irrevocable,

but I feel it's something I have to try.

Now, as I say, it's not
an irrevocable situation.

It's a separation.

It may be for the best. It may not.

But I wanted to lay it on
the table so that everything is open

and as direct as possible
.

Memorable stuff.

sakredkow said...

I'm amazed. Good for him. He's made some really wonderful movies. Yes, a couple of them were awful (Curse of the Jade Scorpion) and there's still a number I haven't seen. I hope I do get to see them all before long though.
Sweet and Low Down, Whatever Works, I liked from recent years.

Fred4Pres said...

The French love Woody?

Figures.

I liked some of his films, but he lost me well before the whole Mia-Soon Yi thing.

blake said...

Memorable stuff.

Seriously? I couldn't remember the beginning by the time I got to the bottom!

If I gotta have Woody Allen, how about these guys?

That's from the amusing show/movie, The Trip.

blake said...

By the way, this is bullshit.

Midnight in Paris will make $40M, surpassing Annie Hall and Manhattan but those $40M were in pre-Reagan dollars.

The equivalent would be around $150M today.

Go see Win-Win instead.

Titus said...

I fucking love Woody Allen and I saw it online with my husband.

Excellent, movie.

Why is Boston, which is a very rough city, home of The Departed and Whitey Bulger, still a city that started Gay Marriage.

An excellent, yet very erotic contrast.

Mafia, definitely. Gays, sure.

I am Shipping Up To Boston very soon and can't fucking wait.

blake said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
blake said...

Win-Win is solid, but not great. There really haven't been any great movies this year.

Last year was pretty dry, too. There've been a bunch of movies that are passable but not really knock-your-socks-off.

Submarine is cute. Or Beginners.

All these movies are in the kind of quirky, but more dramatic than you might expect category. Not hilarious, sort of wry, and then somebody dies or something. Like Jodie Foster's The Beaver.

OK, I've pimped my blog enough to put Crack to shame.

Just don't go see it.

And if you do, don't tell me about it. If you didn't like it, well, I tried to warn you. If you didn't, well, I hate you.

Titus said...

I am in love with a city and it is Boston.

People talk about being in love with a person or a place.

Many people are not in love with the city they live in that is sad.

Boston, you made my heart stop. Thank you.

Titus said...

I feel bad for peeps that are not in love with the city or place they live.

Oh well, fuck em.

Cunt.

Titus said...

ST, did you know Allen lives on The East Side?

What's that all about anyway?

Cunt.

Chip Ahoy said...

Say, would a brazen straight-up thread jack offend you? I sense we'll not be hearing about Harry Potter.

I've been pacing the production of a new pop-up card this week and just now finished. It's four pages long and weights a quarter ounce short of half a pound. Each page would make a fine card by itself but the pages are glued together as a book to convey a fantasy forest. The person who gets this card tomorrow is going to right piss them self.

Shouting Thomas said...

ST, did you know Allen lives on The East Side?

What's that all about anyway?

Cunt.


You calling me a cunt, Tight Ass?

Here I thought we were pals.

New York City is great. I'm in Jersey tonight.

My favorite cities, in order of greatness: Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, New Orleans, Portland, Boston.

Paris is fun. I like the fact that they've got public toilets right out on the street. And, Rue St. Denis is a blast. Terrific whores!

Now, who's a cunt?

Rose said...

Shouting Thomas, AMEN, not a dime.

Titus said...

How many of Rupert Murdoch's execs are going to resign.

And now he is apologizing.

This is fucking bullshit.

Liberal media can suck my dick.

Cunt.

Irene said...

How does it compare to "Annie Hall?"

(In my top favorites.)

Methadras said...

Owen Wilson is a douche. Why is he famous?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Sarah Palin Movie Debuts to Empty Theater in Orange County.

The author of that misleading headline fails to mention anywhere that the "movie" is an anti Palin "documentary" (hatchet job) to which she did not contribute in any way shape or form other than providing a target.

The author failed to say that people seem uninterested in more anti Palin bs.

q12345q6789 said...

"Owen Wilson is a douche. Why is he famous?"

Wes Anderson / "Bottle Rocket" (1996)
See It. It will explain everything.
That's where it all really started.

"And my name's Dignan, Man."

As to how he has built up to the point of celebrity he currently has.
I don't know. Ask Vince Vaughn
("Swingers" 1996) they have a lot more in common than just "Wedding Crashers".

q12345q6789 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Titus said...

Scott Walker was on The News Hour tonight!

From Salt Lake City.

I would suck his dick.

q12345q6789 said...

As a follow-up I will say that *my* favorite Wes Anderson movies all have Owen Wilson as a co-writer (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, Royal Tennenbaums). I think he is a much better counterweight to Anderson's
proclivities than Noah Baumbach.

Titus said...

He definitely dyes his hair though.

Very gay and kind of hot.

He is definitely going to cheat on his fat wife at sometime though.

David said...

Is Jerry Lewis good as Ernest Hemingway?

D. B. Light said...

Owen Wilson is a reasonable facsimile of Woody Allen -- even sounds like him in some scenes. Overall "Midnight" was silly, superficial, and stupid. It panders to the kind of semi-educated PBS fans who pat themselves on the back for recognizing a reference to Salvador Dali, Man Ray, or Gertrude Stein. As such it's a throwback to his early stuff like "Love and Death". His portrayal of his American girlfriend and her family is cliched, dumb, and offensive.

Almost Ali said...

Did someone mention:

Harry of Potter?

Well, okay. So how about:

Closet. Come out.

EK said...

blake is correct. The claims made in the article about box office records being set by Woody Allen are not true because the figures being compared have not been adjusted for inflation. “Hannah and Her Sisters” made $ 40.1 million in 1986—that’s about $82.6 million in today’s money.

Box office figures are never adjusted for inflation in articles such as the LA Times piece Ann linked to, and the reasons are twofold: (1) adjusting the figures would actually require a few moments of work; and (2) doing so would rob the Hollywood hype machine of much needed fodder.

q12345q6789 said...

@ D.B.:
"His portrayal of Non-Manhattan-ite Americans is cliched, dumb, and offensive."

Fixed.

Revenant said...

I've liked quite a few Woody Allen movies. Yeah, the guy is action-packed with Issues, but his films are still entertaining.

My favorite will always be Manhattan, though.

Revenant said...

Owen Wilson is a douche. Why is he famous

He was hilarious in "Wedding Crashers".

edutcher said...

Agree with those on the Soon Yi thing.

Also Methedras.

But, as a stand up comic, he (Allen) was a scream.

Anonymous said...

A pleasant piece of fluff. If he hadn't included a clumsy stereotype of a conservative it would have been more palatable. As one post already mentioned it's all very predictable but a nice break from CGI's and Apatow gross-outs.

yashu said...

I like Owen Wilson. So good in Wes Anderson movies.

And Woody's made at least a handful of movies that I really love. Which is more than I can say for almost any movie director now living. His personal morality (or lack thereof) doesn't nullify that.

Haven't seen this latest one. Re Woody's take on right-wing characters-- I've always found this an interesting case. He's obviously, avowedly left-wing (as his character says in Annie Hall, "I'm a bigot, but for the left"). Right-wing characters appear in his films as the Other.

But he repeatedly thematizes this Otherness as a mystery, a problem, an object of fascination (and not simply contempt & condemnation, though of course there's plenty of that in some of the films). I find this peculiar to Woody, unlike other left-wing directors (who present the right-wing Other as simply evil or stupid or banish them from the world of their films). The figure of the right-wing Other is like an itch he keeps scratching.

Some examples, off the top of my head (NB I'm paraphrasing from memory):

-- Alvy finds a copy of National Review (& rock concert tickets) in Annie Hall's apartment, Annie says she "likes to get all points of view," Alvy asks if she's dating "a right-wing rock & roll star"

-- In Everyone Says I Love You, the son continually pontificates on his right-wing political views (he's presented as an intellectual, e.g. citing Nietzsche & arguing policy), to the great consternation of his left-wing father (played by Alan Alda); eventually it's revealed that a brain tumor caused this aberration

-- In Melinda & Melinda, Will Ferrel's character has a date with a hot Wall Street Republican chick who's a "radical in the bedroom" (Ferrell says "I'll never vote against school prayer again")

--Whatever Works (which I've only seen a few minutes of-- doubt I can stomach seeing the whole thing) is a political fantasy in which the right-wing hillbillies (good-hearted, but dim & ignorant) are exposed to mind-opening NYC liberal intellectual sophistication, see the light, are converted, & everyone lives happily ever after

Etc.

Anyway, I think Allen displays much more contempt for New Age bullshit than for right-wing ideology, generally speaking. Overall, in the end, I think he views all his characters (including himself, or his stand-ins) with similar contempt/ love/ pity/ amusement/ misanthropy, all of us mortals on a ship of fools.

Freeman Hunt said...

I loved it. I don't think it was supposed to be surprising. I didn't miss the twists and turns.

Wes Anderson / "Bottle Rocket" (1996)
See It. It will explain everything.


Bottle Rocket is one of my favorite movies.

Freeman Hunt said...

I especially like scenes in Woody Allen movies that are quintessentially Woody Allen. For example, the expensive chair scene in this movie.

Freeman Hunt said...

I didn't particularly like The Purple Rose of Cairo, but only because the end felt like a big "Fuck you!" to the audience. I understand the point he was trying to make in that movie, but all the same, I don't like to feel as though the director has had me sit there for two hours so that he can say, "Ha ha, suckers!" at the end.

KCFleming said...

tw;ds


(too Woody;didn't see)


It's probably quite good. I just don't want to contribute money to his efforts. Maybe like Titus I'll stream it online illegally. But I doubt it.

About sleeping with one's daughter, I am indeed a humorless prick.

Saint Croix said...

"The biggest movie of Woody Allen's career." Ugh. It's okay. It's not funny, or original, or daring, or amazing. It's not Manhattan. It's not Hannah and Her Sisters.

Woody Allen has always relied upon other artists to give his own art a "classy" vibe. He uses Gershwin, for instance. His movies are filled with references to high art.

But this movie is all reference. It's reference, reference, reference. "Oh, Hemingway. Boy am I smart for going to a movie with Hemingway in it." It's like that.

Take out Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Dali and all the rest of the references, and this movie has no reason to frickin' exist. If this was a book it would be Art for Dummies.

dbp said...

I like the latest series of Allen films, at least in comparison to what he was doing before he started filming in Europe. The films are not particularly original but the locations and filming are beautiful and he still attracts really good actors who are willing to try different things.

Creepy as the Soon-Yi thing is: She was never his daughter, she was the daughter of a woman Allen was dating. This is why her last name was Previn rather than Allen--though she might go by Allen now.

Lincolntf said...

What Pogo said. Saw the movie 2 weeks ago and if it weren't for Hemingway et al it might as well have been the same ten minutes of film repeated ten times. I laughed exactly once, at the "Tell Trotsky I say Hi" line. Woody's paucity of creativity forced him to actually put in lines like "he's a Republican, you know a fascist" and "insane Tea Party Republicans". Libs like their politics without any real discussion so Woody gives them yummy little kibble bits of contempt to let them know they can give him good reviews.

virgil xenophon said...

edutcher is right, Allen as a stand-up comic was hilarious. I STILL vividly remember and can recall from heart some of his better bits from the old Ed Sullivan show..

Lincolntf said...

Ooops, I meant to agree with St Croix not Pogo's post. Damned Blackberry scrolls too fast.

Alex said...

Woody's paucity of creativity forced him to actually put in lines like "he's a Republican, you know a fascist" and "insane Tea Party Republicans".

Holy shit, these lines are in the film? Is he fucking nuts?

Lincolntf said...

I'm paraphrasing, but it's close to the original. A skilled writer could show us, Woody is forced to simply have the star blurt it out. Lame and lazy.

Palladian said...

I love Allen's earlier films; probably the last entertaining one was "Bullets Over Broadway", which is about a bad playwright (the Woody Allen stand-in) who desperately wants to be a great artist. Various things happen and, in the end, the Woody Allen stand-in decides to opt for domestic happiness and give up trying to be an artist. This is an odd coincidence, because it was with this film that Allen seemed to give up doing anything interesting at all, and settled for simply making "Woody Allen-type" films that would satisfy his fans who didn't know better.

Allen also illustrates the occasional consequences of being an ultra-successful creative person: the more successful you become, the more insulated you become from the multifaceted nature of a less-than-comfortable life. Creative people who fall into this trap stop experiencing world in any complicated way, they cease meeting any vital, unusual people, they no longer immerse themselves in diverse situations. They become stagnant, and their work coasts along on increasingly distorted and fanciful memories of what "real" life was like; all they can see is the distant view from their expensive apartments and a spot of gum on the sidewalk as they go from lobby to limousine.

There's something emotionally and intellectually poverty-stricken about Allen's more recent work, as if written by someone who's been in solitary confinement for 40 years. And, as you'd expect from such a person, there's a mustiness to the frame of reference: Paris as avant-garde and artistic? Really? Dalí and Man Ray? Hemingway?

Someone needs to get out a little more.

Mark O said...

I always love it when Freeman talks dirty. Faster Pussycat.

As for Allen, it's all downhill after Bananas. Mostly, his movies have not been funny. This one is moderately funny, in a fuuny way.

Lincolntf said...

Funnily enough, I only went to the Woody flick to repay a "debt" to my wife of one movie that I otherwise would've vetoed. The reason I owed her is that she agreed to go see Atlas Shrugs when it came out. She ended up really enjoying AS and is looking forward to the sequels. I think I got the raw end of the deal.

edutcher said...

virgil xenophon said...

edutcher is right, Allen as a stand-up comic was hilarious. I STILL vividly remember and can recall from heart some of his better bits from the old Ed Sullivan show.

You should have seen him when he was a writer for Carson - when the Tonight Show was still in NY. They'd let him come on and do bits, and even guest host, on a fairly regular basis. Most of his classic stuff was developed there as much as in any club.

Freeman Hunt said...

It's not about the references, though those make for some funny moments. It's about poking at those nostalgic, idealized auras that surround past artists in our minds. That for all the reverence we give these past people, they had very human lives and nostalgia just like us. That we have great artists and happenings in our own time, but we don't appreciate them as readily.

The point may be banal, but it was well done in the movie, and the movie is funny. Owen Wilson makes an excellent Woody Allen.

Phil 314 said...

Professor, you liked it? I thought it was passable but frankly it wasn't even as good as some of his other "lite" comedies like "Radio Days" or "Purple Rose of Cairo".

I haven't seen many of his most recent movies ("Vicki Cristina Barcelona, "Match Point") but this one leads me to believe Woody has lost his edge.

But I'll still love "Hannah and her Sisters", "Sleeper", "Annie Hall" and my favorite "Crimes and Misdemeanors".

Phil 314 said...

I've been pacing the production of a new pop-up card this week and just now finished.

Chip, you are a genius! Do you sell these cards?

Palladian said...

I'm not sure if Chip sells his lovely cards, but I sell lovely prints of my occasionally lovely drawings!

Anonymous said...

Woody is wealthy enough already. Why don't you just give some money directly to a random pedophile?
If you would like fewer morally loathsome people running our culture, politics, & economy, stop supporting them.

Carol_Herman said...

Hannah and her sisters! Manhattan! Odes to America's story telling magic through films.

And, yes. I'm sure Woody Allen hits another one out of the ballpark.

He must feel very old, though. Because he found a player who not only sounds like him. And, follows the voice inflections ... As well as is skinny enough ...

Allen chose someone handsomer.

Did he have to?

Unknown said...

Agree with Shouting Thomas. How people can divorce Allen and Polanski from the things they've done is beyond me.


Gacey was a good painter, I hear.

William said...

By ordinary standards, the personal life of Woody Allen is despicable, but, by Hollywood standards, Allen is in the top 25% of moral beings. Charley Chaplin, for example, waa a far bigger douchebag. If you restrict your entertainment choices only to works produced by the morally exemplary, I wish you joy watching Lawrence Welk reruns......I understand the movie is about time travelling to the Paris of the Twenties. It was a legendary time. The greatest purveyor of that legend was Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast. His characterization of a lot of people was malicious and false, but that's the version that survives.

rcocean said...

Freeman,

Agree with you on "purple rose" but Woody was trying to make a serious point: anyone from Hollywood is a selfish, untrustworthy jerk.

As Mia soon found out.

William said...

Chip Ahoy presents a complex and beautiful fantasy in his pop up card. It's an idiosyncratic art form, but it's done with such inventiveness and joy that it deserves a larger audience than it will receive.....I would recommend to Chip that, if he hasn't already, he work out some kind of lilcensing arrangement with Anthony Weiner. I see a big market for anniversary and wedding cards with this motif.

Freeman Hunt said...

The very rich are constantly surrounded by yes men. Ego, ego, ego. Some get the idea that rules are for the rubes. This leads directly to spectacular moral failings.

Chip Ahoy said...

Phil, I just now saw your comment, thank you.

I get asked that rather often. There is always someone specific in mind when I make one, so no, I've never sold any cards. They take too long, I'd have to charge more than any card is worth. To commercialize the effort would squeeze out whatever fun there is to it, although I do know how that is done, it's just not my interest. Nor have I made any templates. However, I do try to explain as best as I can how I make them for anyone interested in trying, and I describe things that I've never seen anywhere else. Those pages are linked on the first description page for every card that has them. Very few people read those pages, admittedly tiresome, but the people that do read them return to them and they tend to scour the site and hit all of them. It's interesting to me to see in the site stats that someone in some odd Eastern European country going through the site hitting all the odd little construction pages that few people read. It fills my heart with glee.

Palladian said...

Creative people are often loathsome human beings. Take me for example...

blake said...

That's another reason to hate this movie: It actually makes Owen Wilson as unlikable as Woody Allen.

Anonymous said...

It sucked.

Trapper Townshend said...

Woody Allen is one of the most spectacularly horrible examples of the "victim of his own success" cliche.

It's never again be like it was in the 1970s. I don't want to see a movie in which Owen Wilson *shudder* plays Woody's stand-in.

Rather than getting excited about this movie surpassing his old ones in box office revenues, everyone should watch Manhattan and Annie Hall again.

rcocean said...

Great review Blake, and I like Woody, mostly.

blake said...

Freem--

For example, the expensive chair scene in this movie.

I don't get that. What was to like about that scene? It was clear from scene one—actually, what wasn't clear was why McAdams and Wilson were together at all.

The expensive chair shows us how awful his future in-laws will be. But we already got that in scene one, just as clearly as if they'd boarded a rebel freighter and strangled a crew man in search of the missing plans.

I'm still trying to get past the notion of a Jew idealizing 1929 Paris. (I think it is '29 from "Let's Do It", e.g. although it's really not any real time.)

My mom, whose taste runs toward Michael Bay action movies, said she found the speech at the end where the Wilson realizes that modern technology has given us good things "lacking in subtlety".

The interesting thing about that speech being Allen never shows us anything bad about the '20s. So Wilson must come to this conclusion rather unsupported.

It takes no imagination to speculate that the same thing done from a different political/artistic slant would be excoriated, too, but that's just frosting.

Lincolntf said...

I thought the "chair scene" was unintentionally funny. Woody wanted me to think the M-I-L was a typical conservative, but the character fairly screamed "Nancy Pelosi".

Palladian said...

Check out the underrated "Manhattan Murder Mystery" for one of Woody's last, totally enjoyable light comedies.

blake said...

Linconrtf--

As much as I disliked this movie, Atlas Shrugged is just plain hard to watch.

Though there are some interesting parallels. Woody Allen's antagonists talk in a caricature-ish manner that suggests a complete lack of understanding of "the Other", whereas Rand's protagonists talk in a caricature-ish manner that suggests a complete lack of understanding of anybody.

Boy, I'm cranky today, huh?

Maybe the Harry Potter movie will be good. Or at least over.

ken in tx said...

Titus,

Did you know, that in Boston and Cambridge, there is someone who goes around spraying graffiti on USPS mail boxes, and a contractor who gets paid to paint over that graffiti? I think it's the same guy. Boston is a great place, especially if you speak Russian. The Boston library has one whole floor of Russian language books.

da svidaniya

Lincolntf said...

AS was entirely about the "message", the few bits of traditional moviemaking were extraneous at best. I could've closed my eyes throughout and missed nothing. But the message is so subversive (in the context of Hollywood) that it's a thrill to see.

Palladian said...

"AS was entirely about the "message", the few bits of traditional moviemaking were extraneous at best. I could've closed my eyes throughout and missed nothing."

Then it was completely faithful to its doorstop-of-a-book source.

blake said...

Lincolnrtf--

That's a summary. I guess I'm old-fashioned about wanting a movie in my movie. Heh.

blake said...

"A summary". What the hell am I talking about?

It's an accurate summary. I think that's what I meant.

I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

wv: hologrog

Yes. Exactly.

blake said...

Thanks, rc. As Woody Allen pix go, this is one.

yashu said...

Just remembered, I'd saved the following article from back when Woody was shooting this movie. I found it amusing: here's Woody having a breakthrough realization concerning MSM misinformation & lack of integrity, as if he's discovering this for the first time, judging from his own direct experience.

Really, the press might have something against the Sarkozys? We might not be getting an accurate picture from the media on Afghanistan & the economy? Say it ain't so! I wonder if this new-found awareness & skepticism in Woody's mind extended as far as the MSM's coverage of, say, those "insane Tea Party Republicans."

Allen Questions Media Integrity

WOODY ALLEN has lost faith in the media following the furore surrounding CARLA BRUNI's role in his upcoming movie - because he's convinced reporters make up "wild" lies to sell stories.

France's First Lady joined Owen Wilson on the set of Midnight in Paris to film scenes as a tour guide back in July (10).

But Allen was stunned when reports surfaced earlier this month (Sep10) suggesting he was unhappy with Bruni's work and had axed her from the final edit.

He has since dismissed the rumours, telling journalists at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada that everything the beauty filmed has been included in the movie and insisting he was "delighted" with her work.

But the negative press has left Allen questioning the integrity of the media because the claims were "so fake".

He tells the New York Times, "For some reason, the press wanted to say bad things about her. I don't know if they had something against the Sarkozys, or it was a better way to sell papers. But the fabrications were so wild and so completely fake, and I wondered to myself, is this what happens with Afghanistan and the economy and matters of real significance? This is a trivial matter...

"I was not prepared for the amount of press that was attached to the picture because of Madame Sarkozy."

Freeman Hunt said...

The expensive chair shows us how awful his future in-laws will be.

That wasn't the point. We already knew that. The dialogue was funny, the poking fun at the absurd excesses of the well-heeled rich was well done. An old, strange looking rocking chair for $20,000--it immediately reminded me of the NYT style section!

Freeman Hunt said...

SPOILER WARNING

The interesting thing about that speech being Allen never shows us anything bad about the '20s. So Wilson must come to this conclusion rather unsupported.

It's not unsupported. It's based on his realization that a denizen of the 1920's, herself fully immersed in the art scene, idealizes another time and doesn't appreciate her own. He suddenly sees himself in her.

Cedarford said...

Scene appears to be from the famous roof garden terrace at La Meurice.

A little tradition, started inadvertently by my great grandfather and mother, guests at the hotel...was to be photographed at lunch on roughly the same spot. Grandfather and soldier pals in late 1945. Mother and father. Sister and husband, me and my wife on a chilly March afternoon.

Cedarford said...

Palladian said...
Creative people are often loathsome human beings. Take me for example...

=================
I see your point. You are a very likable person!

Seriously, though Palladian...... you would enjoy a stint of time at Le Meurice ......a favorite spot of famous artists from Dali, Coco Chanel, Picasso - through Beyonce.

Lincolntf said...

So Grandpa Cedarford helped rescue the Jews, while Cedarford wants to round them all up again. Apparently all the decent genes in that family have already been used up.

Cedarford said...

Lincolntf -

Contrary to present Jewish mythology, no American served in WWII with the notion of "rescuing the foreign Jews" anywhere on their radar screen.

Especially Jewish Americans, who had amongst the lowest volunter rates of any ethnic group in WWII. Not that they were alone in low volunteer rates. Hence, the Draft was needed to force jewish americans, midwest isolationists, people finally making good money at work after the Depression into uniform. 7 million volunteers, 9 million reluctant Draftees.

My grandfather's experience included peripheral involvement with the court martial of a jewish draftee. Who unfortunately was the 3rd jewish draftee in the battalion to claim a dying mother (and others stuck in Europe on Points smelled a rat by the 3rd try so as to scam the Points System), getting caught by an alerted mail censor - writing a letter to his Mom telling her to get a forged doctor's note to say she was dying.

Outside Revolutionary War, War of 1812, WWII, the Cold War Soviet threat, and the Civil War - there is a high reluctance to simply fight and suffer hardship, risk death and maiming for the "freedoms" of others. Only for helping maintain American freedoms and our vital interests.
My Dad, who luckily didn't go to Vietnam, did not serve to "help the noble Vietnamese".
I did not serve to "give back the noble Kuwaiti monarchs their precious freedoms in the Gulf War".

And when any war inc. Iraq and Afghanistan becomes only about "helping the noble locals now trying to blow us up" - and any real link to vital US interests claimed (by the likes of the neocons) becomes preposterous - support for war dries up.

Lincolntf said...

So Grandpappy would be proud of your hatred of the Jews? I'm guessing he'd punch you in the mouth for emulating the very people who tried to kill him en route to his balcony pose.

Nichevo said...

"Especially Jewish Americans, who had amongst the lowest volunter rates of any ethnic group in WWII. "

You lie, Cedarford. Their motivations aside, Jews comprised 2% of the US population, 6% of volunteers in WWII. This is old stuff.

I let a lot of your vile opinions go by, and I occasionally think you may be part way to a point, but your statement above is false. (Or is 3x on the low side IYO? Compared to whom?)

I'll leave the grandpa-shaming to others.

ajcjw said...

We saw "Midnight in Paris" today and enjoyed it well enough. It's been a long time since I've actually gone to a theater to see a new Woody Allen movie. Watching his movie about nostalgia made me nostalgic for Allen's old movies. "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)" was sublimely hilarious when I first saw it almost 40 years ago. To this day I laugh when I think about Gene Wilder dressing his little lady sheep in black frilly garters, and then, after his life is destroyed by his grand sheep passion, huddled on a sidewalk drinking a bottle of Woolite out of a brown paper bag. "Radio Days" was a lovely movie and I'm happy to re-watch it whenever I come across it. "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" are classics. Allen's themes haven't changed, the same character types reappear in new guises, the humor is still there, but somehow the old movies were better.

blake said...

It's not unsupported. It's based on his realization that a denizen of the 1920's, herself fully immersed in the art scene, idealizes another time and doesn't appreciate her own. He suddenly sees himself in her.

That's not really support. There's nothing shown to be particularly wrong with the Belle Epoque, either. It's just not 1929.

Allen just suddenly starts talking about technology. He just had to suddenly remember Zithromax.