First, the bad news: Allen (last covered as director/writer of last year's wonderful Midnight in Paris) himself is perhaps the weakest link here--his delivery as retired opera director Jerry is slightly stilted and deliberate, even though he has many of the best jokes (as an actor his performances have been very good in everything except maybe Hollywood Ending (2002) which was still funny to me and Scoop (2006) which wasn't so much as I remember it).
Everyone else shines. Davis' (one of her two Oscar nominations was for Allen's Husbands and Wives (1992) and the other for A Passage to India (1984). I also liked her a lot in other Woody joints: Alice (1990), Deconstructing Harry (1998), and Celebrity (1998), as well as Gillian Armstrong's feminist groundbreaker My Brilliant Career (1979), the Coen brothers' Barton Fink (1991), the hilarious must-see The Ref (1994), Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006), and two TV versions of The Starter Wife, among many) dry delivery is well-suited to the part of Phyllis. The talented Alison Pill (last in these pages in Midnight in Paris, now in Newsroom on HBO) is a bit under-used as their daughter Hayley but the cast is so big I understand. Flavio Parenti, who plays Michelangelo (that's MEE-kel), the object of Hayley's affections, was in I Am Love, but all I said about him was how gorgeous he is and that hasn't changed (that may say more about me than his acting). Roberto Benigni (profiled in Life is Beautiful) is reliably funny as the baffled Leopoldo thrust in stardom. Alec Baldwin (last mentioned in It's Complicated) starts out as a regular man, John, an architect revisiting the Rome of his youth, but somehow morphs into a ghost who has conversations with Jesse Eisenberg's Jack that no one else can hear. He plays it straight to good effect. After I profiled Eisenberg for his Oscar-nominated performance in The Social Network he was in 30 Minutes or Less, and he puts his own stamp on Jack--not as Woody-like as one might expect. Also under-used is the wonderful Greta Gerwig (most recently in Damsels in Distress) as Jack's trusting girlfriend Sally. Ellen Page (covered in Whip It) goes against type as the aforementioned narcissistic actress, finally getting to play someone her own age (25) and Penelope Cruz (last in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) gets a lot of laughs as Anna. The Italian actors who are new to me are no slouches either.
This is one movie I may have been better served to read reviews beforehand, because I didn't get all the Fellini references while we were in the theatre. Now you know and can do your homework. The term paparazzi comes from Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960), and the subject of celebrity is much explored here.
Apparently Allen is responsible for inspiring tourism now that he's left New York for (funding in) European capitals. All of his movies have glossy, expensive locations and sets, and the foreign ones are enticing. I omitted mention of Iranian cinematographer Darius Khondji in Midnight in Paris and Chéri, but will give him his due here for the lovely images (he also shot David Fincher's Se7en (1995) and Panic Room (2002), Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty (1996), Sidney Pollack's The Interpreter (2005), Kar Wai Wong's moody My Blueberry Nights (2007), among others, and was Oscar-nominated for the Madonna-starring Evita (1996)).
The songs, listed on imdb, include quite a bit of opera, as to be expected, and two incidences of Volare, not including Dean Martin.
Because it's there, I'll share with you the expected cast for next year's Woody Allen project. You really don't want to skip one of his movies, so go ahead and see this year's now. You'll be chuckling for a long time.
Because it's there, I'll share with you the expected cast for next year's Woody Allen project. You really don't want to skip one of his movies, so go ahead and see this year's now. You'll be chuckling for a long time.
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