Magic in the Moonlight.

How can the same man direct and write such an ultra award winning film like Blue Jasmine (2013) and then direct and write such “sugar coated claptrap” as Magic in the Moonlight (2014). I suppose it’s my fault expecting so much from Woody Allen’s new project, why was I so surprised that he had descended back to the level of the disappointing Midnight in Paris (2011) or his labouring farce You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010). Even the normally competent Colin Firth could not pull the amateur script out of its cheesy mire!

 

Even the beautiful settings can't save this dreadful film!

Set in 1928 the story involves a globally famous illusionist (Firth) who has been asked by a friend to expose a medium who has duped a very rich family who reside in indecent spender on the Cote d’Azur.  Both the son and his mother believe that Sophie Baker, a very weak Emma Stone, has supernatural powers, the son Brice, played by a ukulele strumming Hamish Linklater, offers to marry her and promises her personnel riches beyond her wildest dreams while mother Grace, a very disappointing performance by the normally excellent Jacki Weaver, promises Sophie the money to set up a school for psychics if she can put her in touch with her dead husband.  The story revolves around whether Sofie will be exposed and will she fall in love with the misanthrope who has been sent to unmask her. The real question is do we really care, none of Allen characters are anywhere near likable - even Sophie!

 

"Please don't cast me in another Woody Allen film"

The beautiful settings can’t disguise the weaknesses in this dreadful movie, I’m sure that you would get a far better production of this quite stagey narrative from your local amateur dramatic group at the church hall, the acting is as frightful as the weak script. Give this a miss!!

Blue Jasmine.

Regular showings of Woody Allen’s ‘next great film’ have been a staple diet of the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club since its inception but to date nether You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) or the elaborate fantasy Midnight in Paris (2011) the last two films to be shown, have done nothing to impress me. I was hoping that maybe his latest offering Blue Jasmine (2013) might do the trick?

 

The good old selfish days.

Introduced this week by RBC Film Club’s very own web site guru Rachel Findlay who began the evening by telling us a little of the film’s story which involves the downfall of a rich, elegant New York socialite, the Jasmine of the title, who is married to a wealthy financier, Hal. When he is discovered to be running a fraudulent Ponzi scheme he ends up in prison. Destitute, homeless and poverty stricken Jasmine decamps to San Francisco to stay with her working class sister Ginger and her two children. Who indecently, along with her ex-husband had been one of the victims of Hal’s dodgy schemes and had lost the $200,000 they had won in the lottery. Jasmine not only clashes with Gingers lifestyle but also her boyfriend.

 

Before....

Rachel went on to explained how the films financial conspiracy was based on a real life scam that was known as the Madoff investment scandal. In December 2008 the former Chairman of NASDAQ Bernard Madoff admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. Operators of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to sustain the scheme.[1] I’m sure our host’s explanation gave the packed audience a better understanding of the back ground to the story.

....and after.

Written and directed by Allen this comedy drama has been compared to the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire. (A film of the same name was directed by the legendary Elia Kazan and starred Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh). Blue Jasmine was beautifully filmed on location in New York City and San Francisco by the Spanish Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe, who also worked with Allen on what was probable his best film of the last ten years Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008).

 

Jasmine's wonderfully kooky sister Ginger.

As usual an interesting discussion followed the film and I certainly got the impression that most people enjoyed the it, but I think we all agreed that it was the cast that helped raise it well above the standard of some of the directors earlier outings. Led by Cate Blanchett who gave a towering performance as Jasmine, a character that was a little pathetic, pleading that she knew nothing about her husband criminal dealings but whose attempts to reinvent herself after she was brought back down to earth were priceless. The British actress Sally Hawkins played Jasmine’s wee sister, as a cross fertilization between the kooky Poopy Cross in Mike Leigh’s Happy Go Lucky (2008) and the steely Rita O’Grady in Made in Dagenham (2010). It also starred Alec Baldwin as Harold ‘Hal’ Francis and Bobby Cannavale as Chili, Gingers boy friend, an actor you may remember from a very well received film club movie The Station Agent (2003) and 26 episodes of the TV series Boardwalk Empire.   

 

The start of a new life?

Even with the standout cast I can’t help feel that Woody Allen sleepwalks through his directorial duties, working to his familiar formula. For example there is always a character in the film that is ‘Woody Allen’, in Blue Jasmine the character is shared between the actors but you still know it’s an Allen script, you have no problem imagining him speaking some of the dialog. There’s also the Allen soundtrack, which he gets away with because it’s always classy. But the main problem with the mans work is he has no idea how to portray working class people, never getting them quite right, never getting to the basics of ordinary folk, seemingly incapable of showing them in a realistic light. In general his characters come across as dream like and artificial which is probable why I can never totally engage with his work. Never mind, his next ‘great film’ Magic in Moonlight will be along next year.

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[1] U.S Securities and Exchange Commission.

Hannah and Her Sisters.

Hannah and her sisters, lee and Holly.

Another movie from Woody Allan about the arty farty upper middle class and their morally incomprehensible baggage.  Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) chronicle’s the story of an extended New York family over a period between two-thanksgiving celebrations. Hannah, a successful actress, is married to Elliot, who feels inadequate and falls in love with her sister Lee. Lee lives with a much older reclusive artist and for a time returns Elliot's rather clumsy advances. Hannah's hypochondriac ex-husband Mickey rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly, a former cocaine addict who does not seem able to settle to any one career and depends on Hannah's monetary hand-outs. There are even more dubious relationship’s including Hannah’s mother and father who seem unable to except there advancing years.

Hannah and her ex husband Mickey.

Credit where credits due, Allan can write a cracking script at times, and this is one of them bringing a new meaning to share and share alike!  When his writing is good it's very good and this film boasts his great sense of wicked humour. Not content with writing and directing Allan also appears in the film as Mickey just one of the immensely unlikeable character's that always inhabit Allan's world. This episodic movie stars Mia Farrow as Hannah, Michael Caine as Elliot, Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest as the sisters Lee and Holly. With a soundtrack that compliments the movie, it ranks as one of Allan's most successful movies receiving seven Academy Awards nominations, winning Best Screenplay for Allan and Best Supporting actor and actress for Caine and Wiest. Not quite up there with Radio Day's (1987) but so very much better than his recent work. Worth a look even for non-Allan fans like myself.

Michael Caine won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Elliott.

Midnight in Paris.

Allen's whimsical love letter to Paris.

I refer social realism rather than upper middle class whimsy; this is probably why I cannot warm to the recent films directed by my old movie adversary Woody Allen.  The only film I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed was Radio Days (1986) because it dealt with ordinary people in a fairly normal situation. Monday nights Robert Burns Cinema Film Club tortured my viewing sensibilities once more with the showing of Mr Allen’s latest cinematic offering to a full house.

The evening started well enough with a first rate introduction to the evenings “entertainment’ by Rachel Findley, who I know appreciates the work of the Brooklyn born director. Midnight in Paris (2011) involves Woody Allen; oops I’m sorry I mean Owen Wilson, who plays the Hollywood screenwriter Gil, who along with his snobbish fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) are holidaying in Paris. Gil is working on his first novel and after a disastrous meal with Inez fascist parents he goes on a solitary walk around the streets of the city. As the clock strikes midnight he’s whisk back in time to the 1920’s and meets all sorts of famous cultural figures who give him advice and therefore the confidence to edit and finish his book and see the error of his miss matched relationship.

Admittedly I was in the minority going by the after film discussion, most of whom were pretty keen on the movie but I personally could not buy into the films time travel concept or the constant bombardment of ‘oh so clever’ artistic references.  Owen Wilson’s impersonation of Allen was annoying and most of the modern day characters in this film were extremely disagreeable. Allen love letter to the city of Paris, just like London in his last four films, was dreamlike and artificial. Sorry Rachel, sorry RBC Film Club perhaps I’ll like his next one, I heard it was going to be a western “The Return of the Magnificent Allen”

Radio Days.

Excluding Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) there’s never been a Woody Allen film I can honestly say I particularly enjoyed. Most film fans I converse with are quite aware of my feelings but also know that I have made every effort to try and see what all the fuss is about. During one of these conversations with the head projectionist at my local cinema he insisted that there was a film directed by Allen that he had no doubt, I would enjoy. So to cut a long discussion short I promised that I would watch it at my earliest convenience. Being a man of my word I duly added it to my Love Film rental list and low and behold Radio Days (1986) dropped on the mat at the end of last week.

The Family.

Ok Mr Head Projectionist, I admit it, you were right!! This particular film from our Brooklyn born director is a very entertainingly funny movie. The film is about growing up in 1940’s Brooklyn, New York City during the golden age of radio broadcasting. It’s centred on a close-knit working class Jewish family with Allan narrating the story through the youngest member of the family, Joe (Seth Green). Each member of this extended family has their own take on the radio programmes they continually play as a soundtrack to their lives. The narrative is formed from a series of connecting vignettes. It boasts a great 1930 and 40’s soundtrack again mainly heard through the medium of radio programs.

Allen regular's Tony Roberts and Dianne Wiest.

The film stars some of Woody Allen’s regular cast members including two of his muses Mia Farrow and Diane Keaton and the wonderful Dianne Wiest who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in two of Allen’s films Hannah and Her Sisters (1987) and Bullets Over Broadway (1995) also appearing in his The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and September (1987) in her latest release she play’s Nicole Kidman’s mother in The Rabbit Hole (2010).

I would suspect as Allen wrote this movie that it was based on episodes from his own childhood. The film is told with Allan’s normal satirical take on Jewish life and displays a marvellous feel for the period. Yes ok I really liked the film and yes ok I would recommend it to Woody Allen sceptics like myself, and just remember sceptics Mr Allen does not actually appear on screen!!