I like Woody Allen. But somehow, I watch his movie.... I like his movie.... then, I forgot about them right away.
I've always thought Manhattan was the best. although it only has a brief shot of Tony Roberts in his rolls, listening to headphones in Hollywood. It has a special place for me because its one of the very few movies that me and my wife agree on -- she hates virtually everything I really love, and its the only one that she tends to like repeating lines from. I go home at Christmas with my brothers and sisters and it seems like 80% of our dialogue consists of repeating lines form movies we like. Manhattan has all the best parts of Woody - great characters and dialogue - along with one of his corniest and best endings. Annie Hall is terrific, but it has a darkness about it that was always slightly unnerving to me. Hannah and Her Sisters is another near perfect one -- I always have loved the intense artist played by Max Von Sydow. Another Woman is one of his "serious movies" that I always really liked. The greatness of Woody to me has always been his obsession with Bergman. But I've always thought that if Woody had stayed away from Bergman, he may have found a more unique and special voice. As it is, his signature movies - Manhattan/Annie Hall and Hannah, have a lightness and sappiness that causes some of their forgetablility. Obvioulsy, I am ignoring a shitload of stuff. Another pet peeve I have with Woody is that he always overused Mia Farrow.
Too many to list for me. Love and Death, the black drill sergeant scene was killer. Manhattan, opening monologue, every "Chapter 1" beginning I can relate to. Bananas was beyond comical...The United Jewish Appeal scene was a laugh riot.
take the money and run and bananas are tops. pure straight slapstick gold His other works have been copied and parodied so much (himself included) that they have lost their energy. There were alot of great lines in annie hall though and i loved chris walken as the crazied brother.
I was going to mention this. Annie Hall is probably his all around best, but I think DH is the funniest I've seen from beginning to end. "He put on his friend's monogrammed silk bathrobe and he became the swinger, Mendel Birnbaum." David Letterman once said, in a list of Top 10 things you can't get in Indiana, and number 6 was Woody Allen movies (not that you couldn't obtain them, but you couldn't get them). There is something about them that is so quintessentially (sp, I suck) New York about them.
The first 20 minutes of Annie Hall are perhaps the funniest part of any movie I've ever seen -- between the flashback to his childhood (especially his young classmates), the scene where the two guys recognize him in front of the movie theater but don't know exactly who he is, and listening to the conversation by the university professor behind him, it's sheer genius.
You're all correct. I've seen quite a few of his flicks, but after I thought about it, I can't really make a clear cut #1. What's the name of the movie where he plays a director and Tea Leoni is his ex-wife, Debra Messing is his girlfriend and he gets blind while filming? I thought that was average, but I still laughed a bunch. Well, anyway, a brilliant man. Unfortunately, couldn't he hook up with an Asian girl who was at least semi-cute?
Hollywood Ending. I think Small Time Crooks is one of the funniest PG movies I've ever seen. To Michael Rappaport, whose mining helmet is on the wrong way: "What are you doing, you idiot. You've got it on backwards." "Nah, it looks cooler like this..." *** "You know what they called me in prison, I was 'The Brain'." "That was ironic. Oh my god, you thought that was serious?" Anyway. Really. I see the two of them a Knick games and I think he may have found the ugliest Asian girl under 50 in all of New York City. I can't excuse his relationship with Sun-Yi (sp?), but if she was Lucy Liu hot I would understand. One of the girls from the Joy Luck club...nice (esp. Tamilyn Tomita). Even just average Asian girl hot is pretty decent in NYC. But her? Eiiiyow! Time to go back to the eye doctor. Give me 5 minutes on the 7 train from Flushing and I will find you 5 hotter Asian women that you're not related to.
"I used to be a heroin addict, now I'm a methodone addict." "I'm into leather." I am actually chuckling typing those lines. Hilarious.
Another fave scene from Annie Hall was when Woody talks to Annie on the balcony of her apt and they're talking and the subtext/translation portion shows up on the screen. A great line from Bananas after Louisse Lasser breaks up with him: She said I wasn't leader enough for her, who did she want...Hitler?!?!?! There was a Sylvester Stallone sighting in that movie as one of the leather jacket wearing subway hoods. He dwarfs Wood-Yi.
I've seen all but 2 of Woody's films (Shadows and Fog, and September), and Love and Death is by far the most slapstick. I'd say that's a good one for people to get introduced to Woody. I prefer Annie Hall and Manhattan as more complete and subtle whole works though. And the most recent stuff has gotten very tired, IMO, other than the two Woody didn't act in: Sweet and Lowdown, and Bullets Over Broadway, which are both great. The rest of the recent stuff is just getting very old...continuous rehashing of his old anxieties, but now it's just weird and totally incredible to see Allen pairing up with Debra Messing, Helen Hunt, Tea Leoni, etc.
In terms of just pure slapstick, my favorite of all his movies is "Play it Again Sam". I know it's adapted from a play, but the imprint he puts on it is unmistakably Woody Allen. I love the scene with the first blind date that he goes on (the double date with the "actress" that Diane Keaton/Tony Roberts) have set him up on. From the way in which he tries to arrange the apartment before she shows up to his explanation of how they really eat with chopsticks in Asia ("It's more of a shoveling motion"), I'm usually in stitches. To this day, I can't eat in an Asian restaurant without quoting that line.