C'est Non Un Blog

(July 17)

——A Nos Amours (1983)——

Those crazy French and their sexually charged dramas. They just know how to get it on, don’t they? This is a New Wave nonjudgmental character study of teenage sexuality twenty years after the French had their New Wave. Suzanne is a teen just discovering sex. She is in love with her boyfriend, but has become frigid and can’t seem to get over the puppy love phase, so she breaks up with him. Just as quickly she is having sex with a random American sailor she meets in a bar. It means nothing, and she jokes about how it was free and he doesn’t owe her anything. Her home life starts crumbling around her. Her father leaves the family suddenly to live with his mistress, causing her mother to become boarderline psychotic in how she raises her daughter, and her loving brother starts slapping her around trying to fill the role his father has left in the family. Suzanne copes by sleeping around with more and more men, never quite happy with life but always seemingly better in a man’s arms. It’s an interesting film. Not one I’ll rave about on and on forever, but worth your time if you are interested.

(SEE)

——A Scanner Darkly (2006)——

I should warn you, Harry and I got good and blazed before seeing this movie at the Spectrum 8 in Albany. Wow, I was feeling good. Which I think only helped the experience of watching this movie, based on the excellent Philip K. Dick book about the horrors of drug addiction. It will probably help if you did read the book, by the way, because the story takes a lot of twists and turns unexpectedly, which can leave you quite lost if you aren’t willing or able to make those jumps with the film. I’m pretty sure I would have been totally lost if there wasn’t that faint déjà vu going on in the back of my head. But like I said, I was pretty wasted.

Which is a good way to see this movie. I recommend it, anyway. The rotoscoping animation just seems to make a little more sense when you are not all there. The dreamlike quality of it starts to make some sort of fucked up druggy sense. When you are seeing the world that way already, it doesn’t seem that odd. It also helps you get into the mindset of the main characters, most of them drug addicts of Substance D. Keanu Reeves is an undercover cop sent in to try and cripple the Substance D industry from the inside out, but slowly as he becomes addicted to Substance D his mind splits and he starts an investigation on himself, not realizing he is doing so. He starts to lose his mind and his life, just one more victim of the drug war. Dick suffered a lot from drug addiction, both with himself and in losing so many of his close friends, a list of which appeared at the end of the book and at the end of this movie. It’s a powerful anti-drug statement. I think its worth your time, but I’m a little biased, being such a big fan of the book.

(SEE)

——Bound (1996)——

Terrible. Just awful. I thought this debut lesbian thriller from the Wachowski brothers was supposed to be good? Instead it just foreshadows the later writing nightmares that would plague the otherwise excellent Matrix movies. The dialogue in this movie is absolute shit. I could not find myself caring less what was going to happen to these characters. I just wanted some mobster to bust in and kill them all, start a new movie from that point on. If you could just see the looks on the faces of the other people I watched the movie with, everyone wanting the movie to end but hoping that somewhere the movie would get better like they thought it would. Nope. Total suckfest. If you see this one of the shelf at Blockbuster, put it back. Now.

(AVOID)

——Jay-Z: Fade to Black (2004)——

I heard a lot about this documentary/concert film, and being a huge fan of Hova’s last album couldn’t wait to see it. I’m sad to say that I was actually kind of disappointed when I got to see this. He didn’t play nearly enough songs from his Black Album here, which was a shame, and too many songs I’d never heard before that allowed him to duet with various members of the hip hop community, which I’m sure pleased people who only listen to hip hop on the radio, but to me felt pretty tired at times. There are some definite bright moments, but its not good when the best part of the concert is when Beyonce comes on stage for a three song medley while Jay-Z goes off-stage to change clothes. I love Beyonce. Just thought I’d mention that. Anyway, what kind of redeems the film are the segments intercut with the concert footage of Jay-Z meeting with the various producers who would contribute the awesome beats to his Black Album. I love seeing the creative process grow and blossom. You get to see Jay-Z listen to crap generic beat after beat until finally a kick ass one shows up, Jay’s eyes light up and he starts writing lyrics right there on the spot. Cool stuff. For fans of Jay-Z I’d say see this, but to everyone else you can

(MISS)

——Sweet Smell of Success (1957)——

Sweet Smell of Success is one of those classic movies that you can’t deny is expertly written, acted and directed, and yet you still don’t really like it all that much. How could you, really? It’s all about a journalist and a press agent who will do anything and hurt anyone (including their own family) to get ahead. Tony Curtis is a shameless press agent who will do and say just about anything to make a living, weaseling his way into all sorts of social circles in the hopes of exploiting them for financial gain. His main buyer (Burt Lancaster) has recently shut him out though, as Curtis was supposed to break up his sister’s relationship to a jazz bandleader. The two are still in love and Curtis is running out of options for his career. He has no problem inviting a girl up to his bedroom, letting her think she is going up to sleep with him, only to set her up with some sleazy businessman Curtis needs for a big break. It’s just one of those movies that eats at your conscience. Not fun. It’s a great movie, don’t get me wrong, but I still don’t really feel like recommending it to anyone.

(MISS)

(July 18)

——Cries and Whispers (1972)——

I’m a big fan of Ingmar Bergman’s work. Love it. That said, I didn’t really get into Cries and Whispers when I saw it. I still think that it is a marvelously well made film, but my cup of tea? Not really. Probably because the film is so bleak and depressing. Yeah, I know. Not exactly something new in a Bergman film. This time I just wasn’t up for being deeply depressed though, I guess. Cries and Whispers is about Agnes, who is painfully dying of cancer. Her two sisters come to take care of her, but are so self-obsessed that they don’t really seem to be doing much of anything for her. Agnes still appreciates their being there, as she loves her sisters immensely. The only real love she gets in return though comes from their maid, who mothers Agnes as if they were blood related and doesn’t want to take anything of Agnes’ after she dies, because the memory of her alone is all she needs. Bergman, of course, beautifully directs the film, one of his few that actually make use of color, but something about the movie just didn’t connect with me. Hmm…I dunno. Still, this is

(SEE)

——Dames (1934)——

So far this has been my favorite Busby Berkeley film from the Warners boxset. It doesn’t have the most impressive musical numbers (that honor would go to Footlight Parade) but they are still pretty damn spectacular, as you would come to expect from this modern art genius. The movie definitely lives up to its name, filling the screen with probably the most women of any of his films I’ve seen so far. There is one shot in the film where a women floats through a line of women’s legs, going in both directions, reminding me a lot of similar shot in Kubrick’s 2001. There is also a pretty impressive shot where Berkeley actually shoots the center girl in one of his formations at least fifty feet into the air straight at the cameraman stationed at the top of the studio roof. Make sure you don’t have a mouthful of liquid at this point because you will be sure to spit that all over your TV set when it happens.

The plot I found easily the most enjoyable of all the Berkeley films thus far, easily funny enough slapstick to hold itself together without the big musical numbers at the end. But why have the film without the musical numbers? Just doesn’t make any sense. Basically a rich relative has come into town, saying that he is going to give a great chunk of his fortune to his sister. He also has a nephew in another part of the family tree, but that nephew wants to be in the disgraceful profession of theater, and is thus out of the living will. Even though there doesn’t really seem to be that many branches on the family tree, the movie goes far to explain that he is a distant relation, mainly because he’s in love with his cousin, whose family stands to inherit the fortune. Um, OK. Moving on, the daughter loves her cousin and gets wrapped into this new show he is putting on after extorting money from the brother-in-law after an unfortunate misunderstanding. The brother-in-law of course has to keep all of this secret from the millionaire. Hijinks ensue. The family finds out about the play, go to the theater to shut it down, but get too drunk of hiccup medicine (don’t ask) to do anything and actually end up liking the show. Happy ending. Throw in some amazing dance sequences and you are in for a treat.

(MUST SEE)

——Basic Instinct (1992)——

I’d never seen this before and I have no idea what is in this Unrated Director’s Cut that wasn’t in the original theatrical release. Let me just say anyway that Paul Verhoeven is one of those directors where you don’t have to worry about the unrated version of one of his films still being a lot tamer than what you were hoping it to be. I remember when I first saw the uncut version of Robocop and was shocked to see how many times that guy at the board meeting was shot by ED. The scene just went on and on and on. So when it comes to the sex in Basic Instinct, you don’t have to worry that he’s going to cut away from all of the good stuff like in a typical Hollywood production.

Basic Instinct is a genre film that rarely gets made, a thriller that joyfully wallows in its sex and sleaze. The film became infamous for Sharon Stone’s beaver shot, which is as good as any a symbol of what this film is about. It’s about using sex as a weapon, about how Stone’s character, Catherine Tramell, walks through the cops like she owns them, especially Michael Douglas’ Nick Curran. They play one of the best sexual games of cat and mouse put on film, in that they use each other so thoroughly that you begin to wonder which one is crazier. Douglas has a great character to play, being a cop that was a bit rough around the edges and accidentally killed some tourists only to clean up his life in the time since. Seemingly within minutes of meeting Catherine Tramell he’s slipped back into his old ways, becoming a danger to himself and all those around him. It’s all good fun with an ending that leaves you guessing all the way to the final frame. Good stuff.

(SEE)

——Fight Club (1999)——

Fight Club was one of the very first DVDs I ever bought, purchased with Josh right after I dropped a good chunk of change on my first DVD player (I now, somehow, have five, not counting the others my family own). It seemed like a no-brainer to own, as me and my friends had seen in numerous times at the theater and talked about it endlessly. And despite the fact that it was released early in the time of DVDs, the two disk version of Fight Club is still one of the best DVD packages out there. Man, I saw that film a lot in college. So much so that I got burned out on it and didn’t see it again for quite a few years. I just suddenly got the urge to see it again though, and thus it ended up in my DVD player once again.

What’s still amazing about this film is how well the whole thing holds up watching it again after you know the twist ending (I’ll try not to give that away, just in case there actually is someone reading this who hasn’t seen the movie a hundred times). This is one of those rare movies that is still fun to watch after you know the twist because it is just so damn fun to see how they actually pulled it off. I still find the controversy surrounding the film funny, because if you really watch it and pay attention to its message you will realize that it is about a whole lot more than just two grown men beating the shit out of each other. Ed Norton starts the Fight Club with Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden after they realize how much society has shut away their emotions. Consumerism has replaced feelings. Instead of doing things we buy things. Norton’s character is so dead inside emotionally that he suffers from insomnia, probably brought on by not doing anything to actually make himself tired, that he has to go support groups and see others in pain in order to feel anything himself. Then they discover fighting and a whole new universe opens up to them. Feeling pain on the outside opens them up to feel emotions on the inside. Of course things then start to get a little out of control…

David Fincher’s direction combined with Norton and Pitt’s acting and Chuck Palahniuk’s writing is just the perfect combination of creative talent all in one place. Say what you will about Brad Pitt, but he is frickin’ awesome in this movie. Add to all of that the addictive and surreal Dust Brothers score to the film and you’ve got one rockin’ movie. This is part of the class of 1999 that made you think anything was possible in the future of film. And after all of these years, it still kicks some ass.

(MUST SEE)

(July 20)

——The Honeymoon Killers (1969)——

I love the Criterion Collection because it gives me access to films like this one that I otherwise would have never even heard of. This is a true independent film made decades before Sundance made it cool to love indie movies. It’s so rare to see a film like this from this time period in America that it just makes the viewing of the film feel that much more special. Like you are in on some special experience that only a few brave and adventurous souls before you have ever experienced.

The Honeymoon Killers was shot in black and white with an almost documentary-like feeling to it. It’s hard to know how much of the lighting and staging in the film was left over from its original director, Martin Scorcese, but what is definite is how brilliantly Leonard Kastle staged his version of the film. It’s one of those movies that are unusual, with something just not quite right about it. You can’t place your finger on it until you realize that it isn’t really like any other film you’ve ever seen. Leonard Kastle unfortunately only made the one film, leaving us to wonder what could have been and placing this film in the same surreal one-hit wonder class as The Night of the Hunter.

The film is based on a true story, embellishing only on small details in order to give the film a cohesive narrative thread. It’s about an overweight nurse looking for love, whose friend puts an ad out for her in a pen-pal type dating service. Ray takes an interest in her and comes to visit. But Ray is a con man, a guy who marries wealthy emotionally fragile women only to steal their money and split town. Except he doesn’t try to con Martha, the nurse. They fall in love. Martha loses her job and wants in on Ray’s cons, except for the fact that she can’t stand the thought of Ray getting close to another woman. Things don’t go as smoothly as Ray originally planned them, and soon, because of Martha, the bodies start to pile up. Through all of the ups and downs, however, the story remains a love story, oddly enough. The violence is filmed neutral, with little sympathy shown to the victims, giving the film a very different tone that will leave you thinking about it for a good time to come. I give this a hearty recommendation.

(MUST SEE)

(July 21)

——The Matador (2005)——

Already reviewed this earlier this year. Still love it. Moving on.

(SEE!)

(July 22)

——Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story (2006)——

How do you film the unfilmable? That is what has always been said about the book Tristram Shandy, a post-modern work of fiction written centuries before there was even modernism to be post about. The answer to that question? Barely film any of it at all! The genius of Tristram Shandy the movie is that it perfectly captures the nothingness nature of the book by being about the filming of the making of the film, while the film is being made, making random observations about life, love, etc. while accomplishing nothing and yet making everything funny. Steve Coogan plays Tristram Shandy, Tristram’s dad (since Tristram isn’t even really even in the movie), and himself, playing Tristram and Tristram’s dad. Is your mind blown yet? There is a big deal made over how they need to get Gillian Anderson for a key role in the film, and then Gillian herself comments at a screening of the film and the end of the film (this getting post-modern enough for you yet?) about how she isn’t really even in the film. It’s a bizarre way to make a movie, utterly confusing, and yet about as hilarious as anything you are going to see this year. Genius.

(MUST SEE)

(July 24)

——My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)——

This movie isn’t as bad as some would have you believe, but it doesn’t really hit any high marks at the same time. It’s merely a decent, standard romantic comedy with one key thing that makes it different. The girl has super powers. That fact inspires a few funny scenes, most notably the one where Uma Thurman throws a Great White Shark into her ex-boyfriend’s (Luke Wilson) bedroom after finding him with another woman. But the idea is never really taken to the heights of what it could have been. Why does Uma’s G-Girl have to be so crazy? Can’t she be a normal girl with a few odd aspects to her personality? Why does Luke Wilson have to be so milquetoast about everything? Why can’t they play up the superhero thing to a higher level? The writing here just doesn’t feel like it went through enough drafts before being filmed.

For a much more realistic and better depiction of a superheroine in the dating world, look no further than the Luna Brothers’ graphic novel, Ultra: Seven Days. I hear that they are making it into a movie. Let’s hope so, and let’s hope they do it right, so that Ultra can be what My Super Ex-Girlfriend should have been.

(MISS)

——Clerks 2 (2006)——

Kevin Smith’s movies haven’t been all that great lately. He’s really only made two great movies (Clerks and Chasing Amy) and a few interesting ones, but otherwise he’s still not known as a great director. A great writer, maybe, but only when he gives his characters plenty of time to chat without much actual plot getting in the way. I wasn’t quite sure what to think when I heard that they were making a sequel to Clerks. I of course had to see it, because I love the original so much, but would it be as good? Thankfully, Clerks 2 brings back all of the sweet, sweet magic of the original that was sorely missing from the cartoon show (sorry fans of the cartoon, but yeah, it sucks).

Clerks 2 barely has a plot. Dante is getting married and moving to Florida to work in his fiancee’s father’s car wash, so that he can finally get one of those real lives he’s been hearing so much about. Randall, his lifelong buddy, of course doesn’t want him to go. Nor does Rosario Dawson’s character, a rather improbable hottie working in a fast food restaurant, even more improbably intelligent and in love with Dante. The movie only pretends to be about growing up though. Really this is just a good excuse for Kevin Smith to let out his inner dirrrty geekboy. There are many debates. Do the Transformers suck? Is it OK to go ass to mouth? Lord of the Rings or Star Wars: which is the true trilogy? All of these are started with hilarious results by Randall. There are SO many funny parts. I’m not even going to tell you what a mouth troll is. You’ll just have to see the movie for yourself. Trust me. It’s worth every minute.

(MUST SEE)

(July 25)

——Track of the Cat (1954)——

This is an interesting little semi-Western from John Wayne’s Batjac production company. Interesting in that at times it feels more like an Ibsen play than anything else. The plot is as follows: A panther has come down off the mountain to kill some of the Bridge’s family’s cattle stock. The three sons of the family have to go out and kill it, but the panther is really more than a panther. It’s a metaphor for the strained familiar relations in this house. The stern matriarch dotes on the middle son, played by Robert Mitchum who is a great hunter and tracker, but is otherwise a giant pain in the ass. His skills helped save the ranch from falling out of the family’s hands and with his mother’s blessing he thinks that he should keep a hold of it. The older brother speaks out for the more subservient members of the family, like his quiet reserved younger brother, but his words usually fall on deaf ears since he never follows those words up by taking any action. The younger brother just lets the others fight his battles for him. There is a girl living with them that they hope he will propose to, but he is too weak to take anything for himself. He’s always doing things for the family. The movie is about him overcoming that demon, and in turn, the panther.

(SEE)

(July 26)

——Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998)——

This is another one of those amazing Werner Herzog documentaries that just blows away in your mind what you thought a documentary could be. There is just something about how Herzog directs these films, where he seems to take you deeper into his subject material than you ever thought possible. It helps that he is great at picking his subjects, and Dieter Dengler is one of those amazing people.

Dieter grew up in World War II Germany. One day he saw an Allied plane dive bombing his house. Instead of terrifying him though, it created a lifelong obsession with flying. Little Dieter really did need to fly. Constantly throughout the documentary you see how flying is the only one true necessity for Dieter’s life. It’s all he needs.

Anyway, at the end of World War II German had no airforce, no commercial airlines. So when he became 18 he took everything he owned and moved to the US. Almost immediately he enlisted into the Navy so that he could fly planes. As soon as he finally became a pilot he was shipped to Vietnam in the opening conflict of the war, before it really was a war. On his first mission he was shot down and taken prisoner by the Viet Cong. The movie is primarily about that experience and how he survived it. It’s infinitely fascinating stuff, made even more interesting by how Dieter presents it, with a bit of excitement and humor in his voice despite how the experience obviously took its toll on him. There was just something in him though that isn’t in many of the rest of us. Nothing else mattered to him, except for flying.

You’ve really got to see this movie. It’ll knock your socks off.

(DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH)

——-Turkish Delight (1973)——

This is an interesting little film Paul Verhoeven made in his native Holland that first put him on the map as a director. It’s pretty good too. Turkish Delight is a love story that will surprise you, especially if you compare the first scene and the final shots. It’s about a crazy love between two sex-crazed youths. They meet at random, have sex at random, get into a car crash. They move in together and have fun being young and having sex. And then she gets bored with him. All they do is have sex. It doesn’t really matter that she leaves him to go have sex with someone else. He’s destroyed. But was he really in love with her? That’s what the movie is really all about. It seems throughout the whole movie that all he really wants her for is sex, but when the opportunity comes for him to be something more, what is he going to do?

The movie is very well made, with some great acting from the two leads and great direction from Verhoeven. There is lots of nudity, just so you know. Verhoeven even in the beginning wasn’t shy with both his sex and violence. Still, the movie may seem one note, but give it a chance. It will probably surprise you.

(SEE)

(July 27)

——Atlantic City (1980)——

This is my first Louis Malle film outside of the Criterion boxset, also the first American film he’s done that I’ve seen. I like it. A young Susan Sarandon is in it, and she is mad hot. The story is about how she is trying to make it in Atlantic City, after her brother screwed up a job for her in Vegas. She wants to be a blackjack dealer and go to Monte Carlo. Her brother finds her in Atlantic City, though, dragging along her sister, who he left her for. He stole some cocaine that he is trying to unload. In the same apartment building is Lou, an old-time gangster who has lost his edge in old age. The brother thinks that he can take advantage of the old man in unloading the coke. Lou sees this as an opportunity to make it back into the big time. He’s fallen in love with Sarandon, having watched her every day after she gets home from shucking oysters clean the fish smell off. Lou gets the money for the drugs but things don’t go as plan for the brother, and suddenly Lou finds himself with a bit of money and a new life he thought he lost long ago. It’s a really well put together film, infinitely watchable, and very, very good.

(SEE)

(July 28)

——-Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)——

I’m still relatively new to Jim Jarmusch. What I’ve seen of his so far (Coffee & Cigarettes, Broken Flowers) I didn’t really like too much. So I approached this one with some hesitation. Thankfully it wasn’t needed. This is an excellent film and probably the best I’ve seen of transposing samurai values faithfully to the West. Forest Whitaker as Ghost Dog just embodies the samurai figure I’ve seen so many times before in film and in the pages of Lone Wolf and Cub. A lot of the quirky details fit the genre perfectly too. Like, it just makes sense that Ghost Dog’s best friend would be someone who doesn’t even speak the same language, and yet they are always thinking the same things at the same time anyway.

The plot is actually fairly standard for a samurai film. Loyal samurai does job perfectly for his master. Master’s master thinks samurai fucked up and is so good that he has become a liability and wants him dead. Betrayed samurai then has to cut his way through backstabbing lords to stay alive, without breaking the warrior code that he lives by. Just like all of those Japanese samurai movies. Except for this one takes place in modern day New York City and the soundtrack is done by the RZA. This is an action movie for those more concerned with mood and tone than kinetic editing and crazy camera angles. Ghost Dog is constantly reading from different chapters from The Way of the Samurai, and these quiet little asides really help those in the West not familiar with these texts understand where Ghost Dog is coming from and why he does things the way he does. What an awesome movie. Definitely check this one out. It’s got heart and action. It’s a movie for everyone.

(MUST SEE)

(July 29)

——Super Troopers (2002)——

I was at a birthday party. This was on. I need say no more.

(MUST SEE)

(July 30)

——Date Movie (2005)——

Gawd, is this movie bad. Like, really, really bad. Like, I’d really love to like this movie, but I just can’t, bad. On the box it says the movie is from two of the five writers of Scary Movie. They must be the two that made those movies suck. Instead of spoofing horror movies, they spoof romantic comedies. The one problem with this is that in most cases their comedy is spoofing…a COMEDY. Trouble is, the original jokes were a lot better. It’s as if they think just referencing another movie in a slightly more absurd way is somehow funny. They aren’t even really trying. The smiles that do come across your face will be from the memories of better movies this film illicits, not actually anything from this. Ouch.

(AVOID!!!)

——Dogtown and Z-Boys (2002)——

The nice thing about that $1.99 rental card I got from Blockbuster was that it allowed me a chance to see a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise spent my hard-earned money on. Like documentaries. For some reason I just really don’t like paying to see documentaries, especially when there is good scripted fiction films to be seen. Which is a shame, since there are a lot of great documentaries out there, like this one.

Dogtown and Z-Boys is about the modern skateboarding movement. I actually learned quite a bit about skateboarding from this. Like, I didn’t know that skateboarding was originally a fad like yo-yos and hula-hoops in the ‘50s. As a sport it kind of dropped off the planet until the miraculous invention of plastic wheels. Then a group of badass surfers (which is where the whole punk aesthetic of skateboarding originated) in Dogtown started skateboarding all the time when the waves weren’t good, using the odd suburban landscape of LA as their playground. This small group of skaters basically invented pretty much everything we now take for granted in modern skateboarding. Probably the most startling section of the film is when the Z-Boys go to the first skateboarding competition since the 50’s and completely change the rules as to what skateboarding was in front of all of these competitors doing it the old way. It’s good stuff, and all of the interviews they get with the original Z-Boys are extremely animated and interesting.

If you like documentaries, or are just like me and want to see more of them, this one is

(MUST SEE)

——Take the Money and Run (1969)——

This is the earliest Woody Allen film that I’ve seen so far. The DVD is put out by MGM, so I’m not exactly sure why it wasn’t included in one of their three Woody Allen boxsets. Got me. This is funny, if still early in Allen’s creative development as a writer and director. Bananas would be much funnier. It’s very much like his later and greater Zelig, in that this is shot like a documentary about a small time loser crook (played by Allen) whose crappy childhood of everyone beating on him lead to his life as a really bad thief. There is definitely a pattern to his life, in that every once and a while he comes up for a really great idea for a big score and then promptly finds himself in jail. There are a lot of homages to other prison movies in this, most notably in a later sequence that rips off whole chunks of I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang. The movie is really just an excuse for nonstop silly gags. Nothing too brilliant, but when you compare this to say, Date Movie, this is Shakespeare in comparison. The best thing about the movie I think is the documentary angle, which I’m sure was pretty revolutionary and unusual when the movie first came out. I enjoyed it. Woody Allen has made a lot more much better films, but this one is no clunker either.

(SEE)