Woody Allen Film "Café Society"

[scotrace]

Lots of things to see! Cars, clothes, hats, architecture, all of it. 1930's Hollywood glam, and a cast of well known and talented actors.

But not a storyline or plot to be found. Watch it with the sound off and get just as much out of it. Kristen Stewart is better than usual, but one still wonders how in the world she ever got cast in anything.

 

[Fading Fast]

My review of it from back in October when I saw it. Basically, we align, but I thought a bit more of it than you did, but not that much more.

Last night we watched Woody Allen's "Cafe Society." The period details are outstanding as the movie abounds in eye candy for Fedora Lounge member that is stunning and keeps coming at you from houses, cars, clothes, appliances and on and on. The movie looks more 1930s than the actual 1930s as the set designers created a visually perfect world versus reality's imperfect one.

The movie itself seems like Woody Allen has consciously and quietly decided to parody himself as the picture feels like someone trying to make a Woody Allen film: the male lead is a young, insecure Jewish man who talks out loud to himself about his eight billion insecurities while pursuing a beautiful Christian woman. All the characters - the successful talent agent, the up-from-the-street mobster, the overbearing Jewish mother - feel like intentional parodies, archetypes you've seen in countless Allen movies that don't even take themselves 100% seriously.

But here's the thing - it basically works. You know you are watching a Woody Allen film that isn't taking itself too seriously, but you wind up caring, lightheartedly, about the characters and their challenges and you end up rooting for this one or that. Also slightly surprisingly, the usually brooding Kristen Stewart plays against type and is charming and unsure of herself in a refreshing and attractive way - the first time I "got" her as an actress. She and the underused-in-this-move Blake Lively bring more realism than the other actors who Allen wrote in the mode of the aforementioned parody.

If you go into this picture with modest expectations - you want to see a decent "Woody Allen" movie with absolutely beautiful 1930s period details - you'll enjoy it. If you are looking for something fresh or revolutionary from Allen, you won't.

 

[emigran]

ANY Woody Allen film'll do... name any one...
Broadway Danny Rose kills me...

 

[hatsRme]

I don't bother with anything from him anymore. Simply no longer interested.

 

[Bigger Don]

I don't bother with anything from him anymore. Simply no longer interested.

Been there for a long time. Won't even consider re-watching his earliest stuff on free TV. There are certain behaviors that earn my undying scorn.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I will see it when it hits cable, and be disappointed.

He's reached the point where he only makes a good, or near-good, film every third time out. For every worthwhile Midnight In Paris or Blue Jasmine, you have to sit through a couple of Irrational Mans, Magic in the Moonlights, or To Rome With Loves. I wish he'd stop making a film every year already, and just concentrate on making that better one every second or third year.

But I've been following his career closely since the early seventies, and I can't look away.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Better, I wouldn't have read the movie-recensions on the internet, early.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had this for three days in September, and I loved it, for exactly the reasons Fading mentions -- it refused at any point in the proceedings to take itself seriously. I've had it up to the neck with Films out to make profound ARRRRRRRRRTistic statements -- give me something that's just out to have fun for an hour and a half. I enjoy Allen's use of stereotypes because it comes across to me as his way of saying LOOSEN UP ALREADY IT'S JUST A DAMN MOVIE. AND WOULD IT KILL YOU TO GO GET SOME POPCORN ALREADY? I'm so sick of ARRRRRRRRRRT in general I'm going to run down in the street the next artist I see, so the more pictures like this that come out the better.

Our audience, by the way, agrees. Did a rush business the whole three days, and people were sore we couldn't hold it over.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Um. My "alternate-cinema", in the next bigger city, runs the movie until tomorrow afternoon. I will think about, over night.

 

[emigran]

C'mon... the scene in the Rome movie where he meets the undertaker out side of the mortuary and shakes hands while discovering he hadn't washed and then does a "take" towards the camera... C'mon...

 

[Fading Fast]

We had this for three days in September, and I loved it, for exactly the reasons Fading mentions -- it refused at any point in the proceedings to take itself seriously. I've had it up to the neck with Films out to make profound ARRRRRRRRRTistic statements -- give me something that's just out to have fun for an hour and a half. I enjoy Allen's use of stereotypes because it comes across to me as his way of saying LOOSEN UP ALREADY IT'S JUST A DAMN MOVIE. AND WOULD IT KILL YOU TO GO GET SOME POPCORN ALREADY? I'm so sick of ARRRRRRRRRRT in general I'm going to run down in the street the next artist I see, so the more pictures like this that come out the better.

Our audience, by the way, agrees. Did a rush business the whole three days, and people were sore we couldn't hold it over.

Why would you guys not be able to keep running a movie that is putting butts in the seats and $s in the till?

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had a "documentary film festival" that had booked the rest of that week months in advance, none of which films entertained me in the least. Bah.

 

[Trenchfriend]

C'mon... the scene in the Rome movie where he meets the undertaker out side of the mortuary and shakes hands while discovering he hadn't washed and then does a "take" towards the camera... C'mon...

I didn't found it. Is the scene anywhere on the internet??

 

[Doctor Strange]

Don't bother, I consider To Rome With Love his worst film. Sure, it occasionally has an amusing moment here and there - Woody can still land a joke.

But it's an embarrassment: Essentially three VERY half-baked sketch ideas that he shoved together into a screenplay when the Italian government offered him a sweet deal to shoot a film in Rome (after he'd had similar deals in England, France, and Spain for the better Europe-set films that preceded it). I will defend a lot of his lesser films as still being worth seeing, but this one is just awful.

 

[emigran]

I saw Woody in the Catskills in the early 60's with his corduroy jacket and patched elbows on a stage in front of a curtain... I suspect I qualify as a nostalgic sentimental low-brow...

 

[Trenchfriend]

I saw Woody in the Catskills in the early 60's with his corduroy jacket and patched elbows on a stage in front of a curtain... I suspect I qualify as a nostalgic sentimental low-brow...

Since today, I know, that I finally should watch "Annie Hall". Woody with an cool olive M65-fieldjacket, oh my god!

 

[emigran]

His physical comedy in the early stuff is great... He claims he stole his whole cowardly bumbler and 'wolf' with the ladies act from Bob Hope...

 

[MikeKardec]

Kristen Stewart is better than usual, but one still wonders how in the world she ever got cast in anything.

The movie was pretty to look at but not too much else. Great cast per usual. Kristen Stewart is back to brooding in Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk but she is also very good.