Here's the trailer for Woody Allen's next.

Aaaand Javier Bardem just became a new hero to hormone-driven, male moviegoers everywhere.

So lesbianism, or bi-sexuality, is "in," right? Guys have a fascination with girl/girl stuff, but I don't recall such mainstreaming of it before.

I don't know that a brief shot of two women kissing qualifies as mainstreaming, but this news comes after I heard a song on the radio called, "I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It," by someone named Katy Perry. (I thought there was a former Christian singer by that name, but that's probably my foggy memory getting the better of me.)

So Scarlett J., and a pop-radio hit. And no one bats an eye.

I wonder how I'm going to handle this. My girls are 5 and 3, and we have a new baby due in June. (Don't know the gender.) I have no idea how I'll explain same-sex attraction to my girls -- or my son, for that matter -- when the time comes, but I have a feeling that, based on the cultural references to homosexuality and bisexuality, that time is coming sooner than I think.

No, you were right.

Woody Allen gets more embarrassing every year.

Fixed it for ya.

Wells has seen it.

There's a longer trailer up now on Apple: http://www.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/vi...stinabarcelona/

Saw it.

It was beautiful. Well, except for the characters. And the story.

My review.

Thanks for that review. I was beginning to get caught up in the hype, but you reminded me of why this one probably isn't a must see.

Hey, when you wrote this:

"His seducer-devils and troublemakers have occasionally come away from their conquests and mistakes haunted by conscience (Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point)"

It reminded me to ask if you ever caught up with Cassandra's Dream. I'm among its few fans, so I wouldn't presume that you'd like the film. But it fits the description in your review quite well, FWIW.

In spite of VCB, I'm eager to see Cassandra's Dream. Just haven't found the right opportunity. (Anne can't stand Woody Allen these days, so I need to watch that one on my own.)

I don't get the people who say this is one of Woody's better films in years, bla bla bla. Yeah, they usually follow that claim by admitting that that isn't saying very much, but, well, why not just say the film is yet another of his recent lamer efforts? The claim particularly irks me because we seem to hear it every two or three years -- and every time we hear it, it almost sounds like the critics in question are trying to pretend that they weren't really all THAT positive about the movie that came out two or three years ago.

I haven't seen Cassandra's Dream yet, because it's the only Woody film that never played in Vancouver and the DVD is still pretty new, but apart from that, every Woody Allen film for the past decade or more has been rather "meh" on some level or other. I just don't get the impression that the issues he WRESTLED with in the '70s and '80s really MATTER to him any more. He's just lazily trotting out the same old stereotypes (marriage dull, affairs exciting) and half-baked scripts that feel stuck in an older decade, an older way of life (in one of his '90s films, Kenneth Branagh had only one copy of his book because he used a typewriter and not a computer that could make back-ups; in this film, as Andrew O'Hehir notes, Scarlett Johansson uses a darkroom -- which is at least presented as a personal artistic choice -- and Rebecca Hall's fiance plays bridge, which prompts O'Hehir to ask: "Hello? What century is this, Woody? When was the last time anybody under 40 played bridge, except at some so-square-it's-hip 1950s retromania party?"). So not only do Woody's films not really matter to HIM any more, they don't really matter to anyone ELSE, either.

And I can't believe how much hype there was over two very brief, very non-exciting kisses, simply because they were between two women. Please.

BTW, did Rebecca Hall remind anyone else of Mia Farrow?

Karina Longworth:

Above all else, Vicky Cristina reveals that Allen is developing a late career style of distant, extremely expository satire of romantic givens. The American girls, smart and experienced though they think they are and even might be, are reduced to fools by their attraction to the Spanish painter. They remain consumed with the question of what their dalliances mean, convinced they must mean something, even after he’s told them repeatedly that nothing means anything. This is insanity defined—holding onto faith that something is true when all evidence would mark it as false–and it’s this lust-bred insanity that’s the more precise Allen theme than the oft-cited neorosis. In Vicky Cristina, as the events play out in a tone pitched about ten degrees closer to comedy than tragedy, Allen mocks his girls for their illusions–harshly, at times, but not without sympathy. He’s been there.

FWIW, this was Woody Allen's first film to crack the weekly top ten list since 2000's Small Time Crooks.

Variety:

Two notables defined the specialty space. MGM/the Weinstein Co.’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” which technically counts as a wide release at 692 playdates, dropped just 20% as the Woody Allen pic saw grosses rise in many markets en route to a $3 million frame. The well-reviewed film is on track to deliver one of the strongest results yet for the Harvey side of the 3-year-old Weinstein Co.

Pic, which stars Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, has a good chance to equal the grosses for “Match Point,” which took in $23.1 million for DreamWorks in 2005 and ‘06 to become the fourth-biggest film of Allen’s prolific, five-decade career.

A few markets and runs will be added for the Labor Day frame, a natural move given that grosses in Middle America -- including Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee and Columbus -- actually rose from last week.

Woody Allen's VCB production diary is funnier and more enjoyable than the movie itself... by a long shot.

You know, I'm OK with it.

There's a pessimistic view of human relationships on display, but Woody works hard to get it onscreen. The omniscient narration, admittedly annoying at first, allows events to unfold in a manner that seems both swift and leisurely. Everything about the film feels direct and to-the-point. An hour and a half, and it's done.

I also think a strong case can be made for his later films (from Match Point on, basically) being stronger from a stylistic standpoint. No longer in his pictorial Gordon Willis phase or Bergman copycat phase, his films display a smooth professionalism, a confident mastery. They feel all of a piece. On the downside, we can no longer expect that Woody sparkle. I think his funny days are through.

Side note: I believe this is the third Woody Allen film in a row that uses the phrase "sensual lips." This may have something to do with Scarlett Johansson.

I agree on this point.



I agree to this point.



Confidence, yes. Mastery? Of what?



You conclude this after reading that "production diary"? I think it proves that the Woody "sparkle" is still alive and well... he's just leaving it out of his movies.

For what it's worth, Brett McCracken very much disagrees with me as well.

Maybe "mastery" is too flattering, but his latest films suggest an old pro who knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. There's hardly a wasted shot in Vicky, and he moves his characters around like a master chess player.


True, he shows absolutely no interest in making another Annie Hall. Scoop is amusing enough, but in its own way, just as cynical as Match Point. That production diary you linked to is funny in a Groucho Marx sorta way, but it's all for show. That's just Woody. In interviews, he keeps insisting that he's miserable.

Brett concludes that this is "everything a film should be." I hope not! Make no mistake, this is a sour, sour film, but one has to admire, grudgingly, Allen's modest achievements. Maybe I'll watch it again in a few years and hate it.

I like it; I don't love it. In fact I found the VO terribly annoying and I generally hate when they use a narrator to tell us what we're seeing, as happens here. If you can't make yourself clear on film, write a damn book instead. However, the film does make itself clear (which why the VO is so annoying.)

I don't agree with the vision, but Woody Allen does such an interesting job of taking what is so gloomy and making it tolerable. It's not just a disdain for convention and celebration of the freedom that comes with nihilism; it is a recognition that neither way is the answer. It's depressing, but in a good way.

My review

Well ... almost. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is currently sitting at $21.8 million, and has been making only a few hundred thou per week for the last few weeks. Maybe it'll hang in there, maybe not.

At any rate, one thing's for certain: Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona are the two top-grossing Woody Allen films of the past two decades plus. You have to go back to Hannah and Her Sisters (1986, $40.1 million) to find a film that did better (though there might be one or two other success stories in there, once ticket-price inflation is taken into account). The only other films with higher grosses than these two, on Woody's directorial resume, are Manhattan (1979, $39.9 million) and Annie Hall (1977, $38.3 million).

Starsky and Hutch? (The Wilson -Stiller version)

Matt