Posts Tagged ‘Woody Allen’

Review: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Woody Allen‘s latest effort, You Will Find a Tall Dark Stranger, finds the director returning to Europe — the fertile ground which, in recent years, has served as the setting for the excellent Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the fair-to-middling Cassandra’s Dream and Scoop. This time around he’s back in London with a story about the futile, perpetual human desire to chase after that ever elusive greener grass.
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“Let Us Now Praise Woody Allen”

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

“Let Us Now Praise Woody Allen”

TIFF Preview, Part Two

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

Previously, I wrote about what you might consider the more “indie” sections of the Toronto International film fest: Contemporary World Cinema, Discovery, and docs, plus Canada First!, which is always interesting.

Now let’s take a peek at the Galas and Special Presentations, plus everyone’s favorite late night, wild ‘n’ crazy section, Midnight Madness.
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Woody Allen’s Manhattan

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

“All of Manhattan is Woody Allen’s Manhattan: the reservoir, the restaurants, the skyline, the shrink’s office, the horse and carriage, the modern art, Central Park, Minetta Lane, the Great White Way, the Pierre, and Elaine’s. Most of all, and most importantly, the patois.”

“Hey Woody Allen, Stop Bitching About New York”

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

“Hey Woody Allen, Stop Bitching About New York”

Woody Allen Reads!

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

Woody Allen Reads!

Impressed with the $36 Million Opening of Flubber Last Weekend?

Saturday, December 6th, 1997

Impressed with the $36 million opening of Flubber last weekend? It couldn’t begin to compare to the continued summertime heat of Men In Black. Not only is M.I.B. still drawing almost half a million a week at the box office (more than the third week of Mad City), but its video release grossed over $100 million in its first week. This figure included the biggest rental numbers ever, pulling in $13.5 million, which alone would place it fifth in last week’s box office race. Add in sales of five to six million copies of the video, averaging $17, and voila: $102 million. And it occurs to me that M.I.B. is one of those rare smash hits that offers the very real possibility that the sequel will improve on the original. With the origin “problem” out of the way, producers can probably concoct a story much more interesting than Chasing Mikey.
Kirstie Alley is pissed off again and it’s not just because she isn’t getting “The Big One” from Parker Stevenson any more. Kirstie was forced to audition for her role in For Richer or For Poorer, opposite fellow TV star Tim Allen. Why? “There was a certain person at Universal, who shall remain nameless, who told me that I wasn’t box office,” Ms. Alley admits. Well, Kirstie, you aren’t box office. But I don’t understand what doing a screen test could ever do to make you box office. B.O. pull has a negligible connection to talent. Either you is or you ain’t.
Alley also appears in Woody Allen‘s upcoming starfest, Deconstructing Harry, which is being described as everything from an Oscar-worthy film to a piece of crap. We’ll soon find out for ourselves. But another piece of Woody history was recently pulled out of the wastebasket at New York’s public TV station, WNET. The film, a 25 minute mockumentary spoof of the Nixon Administration entitled Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story, was made on the fly by Allen in 1971 and was summarily round-filed by the WNET brass for being too politically dangerous. In the film, Allen plays Wallinger, a top Nixon aide with a Harvard Ph.D. in needlepoint, graduating 96th in a class of 95. The film can’t be shown unless Allen agrees, but his management says that it’s unlikely. The film is 26 years old. Way too old for Woody to enjoy.
Will Alien: Resurrection rise from the dead box office week to take top spot? Will Flubber flub its box office break and drown under The Rainmaker? E-mail me what you think.

Woody Allen, Jennifer Lopez

Tuesday, October 7th, 1997

Woody Allen gave a very rare interview to the New York Daily News this week. Guess he wanted to make sure not to lose any ground to the returning Roman Polanski as America’s Favorite Cradle Robber.
Apparently, the U-Turn press junket was a lot more interesting than the movie. First, there was Stone vs. Stone, with director Oliver unhappy with actress Sharon who was told by Oliver, according to him, that the film was relatively low-budget and that there would be no movie star salaries only to have her agent call later with a “request for a huge fee.” Oliver gave the role to Latina-star-on-the-rise Jennifer Lopez, who filled more than the acting requirements in Stone’s eyes. “Jennifer’s full-bodied. She’s got a full butt. I think she’ll make women with big butts feel good.” Well, no wonder Sharon didn’t get the job. Oliver was looking for the wrong body part.
The other one to make heads do a u-turn at the junket was Nick Nolte. He told some reporters that he didn’t use fake teeth to play the John Huston-like Jake McKenna. He did. Then there was the one about his first wife doing a circus high wire act. She didn’t. But the topper was his story about receiving a testicle tuck (I’ll give the male readers a moment to uncross their legs). This one started when he was being pressed by Bryant Gumbel about the possibility of having a face lift. Nolte effectively shut Gumbel up by offering that the only plastic surgery he’d had was a testicle tuck. And the legend lived. Until the U-Turn junket, where Nolte finally fessed up. These junkets have everything from tooth to nuts.
Acting By Phone was reader Joe Duffy‘s suggestion as a possible title for the now-in-development Romancing The Stone sequel. Just goes to prove — I read my email. Send some. It’s your moral duty.