Bad Woody

Originally Posted Friday, July 25, 2014

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I stole this from The New York Times Book Review section today.  It looks like a storyboard for a new Wes Anderson film to me.  And speaking of films, Woody Allen has a new one.  Oh. . . the reviewer at the Times didn't like this one.  At least that is what he says.  But he gives himself away.  He doesn't like Woody Allen.  The new film is called "Magic in the Moonlight."  You can read the review here.  His opinions about the film may be right.  I don't know since I've not seen the film, but Allen has made some blocky, stagey films before.  Two things about the review stand out to me, though.  First is his concern with the age difference between the male and female leads.  Really?  How does agism get a pass.  If he were opining about the love of different ethnicities, he would be swatted down like the snot-nosed gnat I think he shows himself to be.  Everybody loved "Harold and Maude."  What's the deal?  But the second thing, though, is this:

"Even if it were possible to watch this movie without thinking about Mr. Allen’spersonal life — or to avoid arguments afterward about whether he is a creep, a monster or a misunderstood artist whose behavior has no bearing on his work — it would be hard to miss the complacency at its heart and the purely mechanical expediency of its execution."

Sorry my friend, but this leap of logic wouldn't be allowed in a freshman composition.  Perhaps, though, when you write for the Times. . . .  Maybe Allen is a creep, a monster, I don't know.  I've only met him a couple of times and not under good circumstances at that.  O.K., O.K., so it was in the street and lasted about thirty seconds.  But Sun-Yi didn't cry for help or signal secret messages to me behind his back.  There is that, at least.  

Having said that, I don't hold out great hope for the film.  Well, hope, maybe, but not expectations.  

My back was better when I got up this morning, but sitting here at the computer has wrecked it again.  I went to get more coffee and looked like a question mark.  This sort of suffering seems unreasonable to me and unjustified.  What sort of universe is it that punishes the wicked and the innocent alike?  I'll have to ask my sorcerer friend and see if he has an answer.  Right or wrong, I'm sure he does.