Thoughts on Everyone Says I Love You

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 11:15 PM By Simon

-Easily Woody Allen's greatest late-period film (I haven't seen either Match Point or Vicky Christina Barcelona, so shut up). I mean, characters, as they always do in massive-cast films, come and go with little to no fanfare, and I don't know if the songs were original for the film or not, but they were incredibly unoriginal and generic, but then, there was that amusing Marx dance near the end...

-It really is pretty great. All the good things about (again, late-period) Woody Allen: upperclass New York City, neurotic love, awesomely comfortable women, a biting, self-deprecating sense of humor, all that. The cast is lovely, as you'd expect from the lot.

-One thing I found absurdly amusing: Lukas Haas (who's having a good month here, and somehow avoids a gruesomely implied death for once) plays the son in a large, dysfunctional Manhattan family, who suddenly became the conservative Republican to the extremely liberal Democrats of the familial norm, something his father (playing his type, Alan Alda) constantly laments. As it turns out, this sudden conservative breakout was due to a clogged artery, literally from lack of oxygen to his brain.

-I love Tim Roth. He's so over-the-top weird.

6 comments:

Kevin said...

Have you seen Bullets Over Broadway? I don't know if you would consider that "late-era" Allen, but it's pretty damn good. Or maybe I just enjoy John Cusack way too much?

Oh, and Mighty Aphrodite is awesome as well... mainly because Mira Sorvino is just so damned cute and funny.

See Match Point!

July 21, 2010 at 9:57 AM
Simon said...

I haven't seen many Woody Allen movies, come to think of it. Mira Sorvino is awesome, but Cusack is very bland.

July 22, 2010 at 7:23 AM
Nick Prigge said...

Pretty much all of the Woodman's work in the 90's was quite good, I thought. Manhattan Murder Mystery is fantastic if you want a little Woody/Keaton action.

July 22, 2010 at 11:50 AM
"Yojimbo_5" said...

The film's songs are standards, not original (and I love the Ed Norton number...Norton also does a better job of Allenesque kvelling than Allen does). The Lukas Haas bit reminded me a bit too much of Michael J. Fox's Reagan-loving Alex P. Keaton in "Family Ties." And the swoony-crane dance moves along the Seine are the sort of movie-magic that Allen inserts so effortlessly into his rarified atmosphere screenplays. That's what I love about him.

July 22, 2010 at 11:46 PM