Something's Gotta Give

Something's Gotta Give
December 12, 2003
Columbia
Romance, Comedy, Drama
DVD
B-

I bought this movie on accident.  I was thinking it was As Good As It Gets, because they both have forgettable, almost meaningless titles and they're both rom-coms with dramatic streaks and Jack Nicholson.  By the time I realized my mistake, I wasn't sure if I had ever seen this movie.  Possibly but not necessarily.

It turns out I had but it hadn't particularly stayed with me.  Not that it's bad but it's so I don't know, genteel (even in the crude moments), with characters dressed in white and beige (and sometimes black) and spending much of their time in a Hamptons beach house out of a design magazine, that I had blocked it out.  Watching it again, I remember thinking I couldn't imagine any circumstance in which I would choose Nicholson over Keanu Reeves.  It's not just a matter of looks and age.  Keanu is absolutely sweet but not stupid in this movie, and in my head-canon he later hooks up with the heroine's sister Zoe, played by the wonderful Frances McDormand, who's off the screen far too much.

The heroine is playwright Emily Barry, played by Diane Keaton in a deservedly praised performance.  She hits so many emotional tones and it doesn't hurt that she was still a knockout at 57.  I could've done without the way Emily pretty much libelously "fictionalizes" her relationship with Nicholson's character, especially since the things that writer/director/producer Nancy Meyers finds funny, like "the dancing Henrys," just aren't.  It makes the whole thing feel like the sort of wish-fulfillment yet life-inspired fiction you get in the smarter chick-lit, like the works of Marion Keyes or Susan Isaacs.  (See my book blog for examples.)

Getting back to the Nicholson-Keaton romance, I think we're just supposed to accept that they're in love and right for each other, despite their differences, including his general preference for younger women and inexperience at "being a boyfriend."  Maybe it's that I've always found Nicholson a bit creepy and insincere that I just couldn't buy not only his appeal but his change of heart.  That said, I wasn't repulsed, just not invested.  And I do find it ironic that for a movie about people in late middle age, this movie is more "modern" than some of its peers, with IMing, cell phones, and of course Viagra.  Oh, and note, as when Keanu was paired with Barbara Hershey as an older woman in Tune in Tomorrow..., the film ends in Paris.

At least he makes her laugh.

But she doesn't look all that miserable with Keanu.

The First Wives Club

The First Wives Club
September 20, 1996
Paramount
Comedy
VHS
C+

I really liked this movie at the time, as did many others, including Katha Pollitt, but that doesn't mean we were blind to its faults, faults that are more obvious a couple decades later.  As directed by WKRP's Hugh Wilson, it is very much a cinematic sitcom, with easy resolutions and cardboard characterizations.  Although it's based on a book (which I've never read), the most serious flaws have to do with the writing, many of the implausibilities and inconsistencies centering around Brenda (Bette Midler).  To begin with, is she Italian or Jewish?  If both, why isn't this established earlier?  And how is ir that her husband (Dan Hedaya, for a change in my movies actually typecast) fails to recognize her boss, even the name?  Also, the whole timeline is screwy, from Yellow Submarine coming out in '69 (rather than '68), to the central trio of first wives (Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton) all about 45, although this seems to be contemporary and they've been out of college for about 27 years.  I'm not even clear how much time is passing in the main story, although there's a vague time pressure (even vaguer than in Don't Tell Mom).  Maybe this is all clearer in the book.

The movie is of course notable for its presentation of the exes, particularly the ex of their suicidal friend Cynthia, as being shallow, insensitive, and ruled by their lust for younger women.  (Sarah Jessica Parker is playing against type as a dumb and tasteless blonde.)  But the wives don't come across as much better and, as in The Women almost 60 years earlier, it's unclear why they regret the loss of such awful men.  Yes, I like seeing the cast, and the theme of female friendship and empowerment is good, but it's often lost in slapstick and stereotyping.  And this isn't 9 to 5, where the stock characters are given believability.  There are nice little moments (like how accepting Keaton is of her lesbian daughter), and even occasional insights about how aging women are viewed, and Maggie Smith proves she can do a lot even with a tiny role, but it just doesn't add up to much.

I don't have any other movies with James Naughton but it's a nice touch to make him Cynthia's cheating ex-husband, since he was Angela Bower's ex on Who's the Boss?  (Cynthia is played by Stockard Channing.)  Victor Garber, who plays Goldie's ex, would be Professor Callahan in Legally Blonde.

Anne Shropshire, who's an A Certain Age cast member, was Mrs. Crawley in Tootsie.  Peter Frechette, who plays the Broadway Director, had his big-screen debut as none other than Louis DiMucci in Grease 2.  (He found a lot of other work in between of course.)  Aida Linares also played a maid in Clueless.

Marla Sucharetza, who's Exercising Woman, would be School Reporter in In & Out, while Debra Monk is Jilted Lover here and would be Mrs. Lester there, and  J. Smith-Cameron is Miss Sullivan here and would be Trina Paxton there.  Rob Reiner plays Hawn's plastic surgeon.  And, yes, that's 41-year-old J.K. Simmons in the small role of a Federal Marshall.

Radio Days

Radio Days
January 30, 1987
Orion
Comedy, Historical
VHS
C+

This is the movie that prompted Pauline Kael to say that Woody Allen had become the curator of his own childhood.  And this is not an interactive museum.  Yes, Allen kept us at a distance in Zelig, but that was a mockumentary.  There's no reason that his memories of his childhood have to be overly narrated.  After awhile, I wanted the Annie-Hall era Woody to snap, "Jesus, wouldn't it have been better to write a New Yorker essay?"  It's like Allen didn't trust his cast, including Seth Green as his sort of alter ego Joe (older than Allen would've been in the late '30s to mid '40s) and the potentially great Julie Kavner as Joe's mother, and had to keep hovering over them, presenting anecdotes, interjecting comments, and then drawing up the morals.  Yes, Alvy Singer jumped into his childhood memories, but to riff on them, and it was a free-for-all MSTing that others could join in on.

The movie is an ironic follow-up to Hannah and Her Sisters, with Dianne Weist again playing the sister who's the biggest screw-up.  (Renee Lippin as the other sister is utterly believable as being related to Kavner, and it doesn't hurt that she was Michelle on The Bob Newhart Show around the time Kavner was Brenda Morgenstern on Rhoda.)  This time Mia Farrow is cast against type as Sally, a dumb-blonde cigarette girl who rises to the top of radio.  For her, along with Tony Roberts, Jeff Daniels, Diane Keaton, and most of the other Woody-ites, this movie is only a reminder of better moments.

Not that the movie is bad.  It's just inoffensive and episodic, and even when you think there's going to be a pay-off (like that all the radio stars will end up trapped on the roof when Sally leads them up there), there isn't one, or not much of one.  I would recommend the movie for the cast and the way it sort of captures a time, but lower your expectations.  And I will note that this is the last Woody Allen movie I own; the next and last I saw was 1997's Deconstructing Harry and I found it hostile and unfunny.  This is comparatively warm, if luke-warm.

Hy Anzell, who's Mr. Waldbaum here, was Joey Nichols in Annie Hall, while Martin Rosenblatt, Mr. Needleman here, was Alvy's uncle there.  Among the unnamed radio voices, Norman Rose voiced "Death" in Love and Death, Wendell Craig was the Universal Newsreel Announcer in Zelig, and Dwight Weist was the Hearst Metronome Announcer in Zelig.  Kuno Sponholz plays a German in both Zelig and here, earlier as specifically ex-Nazi Oswald Pohl.  Also, Dimitri Vassilopoulos was Martinez in Zelig and Perfirio here (yes, even with that Greek-sounding name).

Sydney Blake, the Variety Reporter in The Purple Rose of Cairo, plays Miss Gordon here.  Of Purple Rose's penny pitchers, Peter Castellotti is Mr. Davis here and Paul Herman plays a burglar.  Michael Tucker, by this time on L.A. Law, is Joe's father Martin and had been Gil's agent in Purple Rose.  This time, Danny Aiello plays Rocco, a more sympathetic tough guy.  Ivan Kronenfeld was Lee's husband in Hannah and is On-the-Spot Newsman here, while Ira Wheeler was Dr. Abel there and the Sponsor here.  Mia's son Fletcher was a Thanksgiving Guest there and plays Andrew here.  Helen Miller was not only in the Purple Rose movie audience and played Mickey's mother in Hannah, but she's Mrs. Needleman here.

The other burglar, Mike Starr, would be Shipping Co-Worker in Who's That Girl.  Fred Melamed was Dr. Grey in Hannah, is Bradley here, and would be Caid of Assari in Ishtar.  Crystal Field was part of the movie audience in Purple Rose, is half of the Abercrombie Couple here, and would be Josephine Sanders in Tune in Tomorrow....

Having featured Mia's mom and the Marx Brothers' ex-co-star in Hannah, it seems appropriate that we here see A Night at the Opera's Kitty Carlisle, then 76.  Richard Portnow, playing Sy here, was First New York Wino in Roadie.  Wallace Shawn, who has a nice little role as the voice of the Masked Avenger, would shortly be more prominent in Nice Girls Don't Explode.

"My family liked to pose for pictures in the living room...."

Annie Hall

Annie Hall
April 20, 1977
United Artists
Comedy, Romance
VHS
B+

This is probably my favorite Woody Allen movie, but not because I saw it at the time.  I mean, I was 9, so I didn't get very many of the jokes then and most remembered it for the Snow White parody.  I started to appreciate it as a teenager, although I obviously get different things out of it now in middle age, having gone through the good and bad of so many romantic relationships.  It's easy to see why Annie Hall and Alvy Singer are drawn together and why they can't last, and it's interesting that this was made after Keaton and Allen broke up.

The script by Allen and Brickman is strong, with many quotable lines.  And the direction by Allen is equally good, with even the more unbelievable characters, like the one played by Shelley Duvall, believable within the world of the movie.  Although the movie is about Alvy & Annie, it also is about New York vs. California and a lot of other things.  I like that, like novelist George Meredith, Allen is able (at least at this point in his career and life) to include himself in his laundry list of what to mock.  Diane Keaton is absolutely lovable and charming here, but Annie has flaws of her own.

The supporting cast, only some of whom I've tagged, hold their own, including Goldblum with his one scene-stealing line.  Tony Roberts is much more relaxed here than he was in Star-Spangled Girl six years earlier, probably because the dialogue is so much better.  Carol Kane gives a fine early performance, as one of the women that illustrate Alvy's quote of the Groucho line about not wanting to belong to a club that would have him as a member.  Marshall McLuhan shows up as himself-- "If life were only like this!"-- and delivers a line that still cracks me up because it makes no sense yet is meant to be a put-down of a pseudo-intellectual: "You know nothing of my work!  You mean my whole fallacy is wrong."

There's a lot of fourth-wall-breaking, especially but not exclusively by Alvy.  One of the old ladies giving him advice on the street is seventy-six-year-old Paula Trueman, who would be Stick-Up Lady in Can't Stop the Music, as well as Woman on Telephone in Zelig, while another, sixty-nine-year-old Loretta Tupper, would be the music store owner in The Purple Rose of Cairo.  Another "street stranger" is Lou Picetti, who was the beauty pageant MC in Sleeper.  

One Lacey party guest, William Callaway, would be an intern in Rabbit Test.  Gary Muledeer, who's a man at the health food restaurant, would be Gary in The Gong Show Movie.  The two men who bother Alvy outside the theatre are Bob Maroff, who'd be a bartender in I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and Rick Petrucelli, who'd be a penny pitcher in Purple Rose.  "Coke fiend" John Doumanian would be a Greek waiter in Zelig and a Thanksgiving guest in Hannah and Her Sisters.  Hy Ansel, who's Joey Nichols, would play Mr. Waldbaum in Radio Days, which would feature Martin Rosenblatt, who's Alvy's uncle here, as Mr. Needleman.  One of the schoolteachers, Gary Allen, would be a board member in The Hudsucker Proxy.

Love and Death

Love and Death
June 10, 1975
United Artists
Comedy, Historical
VHS
C+

I remembered this film as funnier than I found it this time.  Some of the jokes fall flat, but oddly enough it's not bad as a pastiche of 19th-century Russian novels (with a few dashes of Ingmar Bergman).  I thought the best performance was given by Harold Gould, then 51, who was probably best known at the time for playing Rhoda Morgenstern's father on TV.  As in Sleeper, Woody and Diane plot an assassination, this time Napoleon's.

Norman Rose, who's the voice of Death, did an unidentified voice in Pinocchio in Outer Space and would be a radio voice in Radio Days.  (No, no one personifites Love.)

Sleeper

Sleeper
December 17, 1973
United Artists
Comedy, Sci-Fi
VHS
B-

This is an uneven movie (based very loosely on Rip Van Winkle) in which ironically the most topical jokes-- Nixon, Cosell, Polaroid, McDonald's, etc.-- are actually the funniest, while the physical humor, except for the giant fruits, vegetables, and yes, chicken, only works for me because of the jazzy instrumentals.  The sci-fi elements though are I think mostly successful, especially the look of the movie, including the heavy use of white and black.  Diane Keaton, once her character shakes free of her pretentious, upper-class background, is a lot of fun, whether doing Tarzan swings or imitating Brando.  Woody Allen is playing his usual character, but the idea of placing him in this futuristic setting (where almost no one reacts to his jokes) is a good one.  I do have issues with the movie-- too much kidnapping! and stereotypes that don't redeem themselves by being actually funny-- but overall, I recommend it.

George Furth, who was Howie in The Cool Ones, is one of Luna's party guests.  Lou Picetti, who's the Miss America M.C., would be one of the strangers Alvy questions on the street in Annie Hall.  Peter Hobbs, who plays Dr. Dean, would also be a doctor in Nine to Five.  Whitney Rydbeck, who plays the robot Janus, would be the auctioneer in A Very Brady Sequel.