James Lileks on Woody Allen:

Saturday night I stayed up very late and watched “Annie Hall” and “Anything Else,” two Woody Allen movies on the HD feed. Instructive, and a little depressing. Long –time Bleatniks (sorry) will recall how much I love certain Woody Allen films, but find the bulk of his later work labored and mannered beyond redemption. Of course, I should be so lucky as to make 30 money-losing films. Still, I do not understand the uncritical response of his fans – maybe because I am still a fan myself. “Annie Hall” works for a variety of reasons – the exceptional cinematographer, the canny editor, the (AHEM) co-writer, the loose structure that makes the story a journey of constant discovery. It’s such a strong movie it even survives the Dreaded Animation Sequence. I first saw the movie alone in Iowa City, and it was like Star Wars: this is for me. This one goes right to the pith of the gist of the marrow of me. O to be a neurotic amusing nebbish incapable of dealing with California. O to live in a world where literary allusions hang from everyone’s lips like bait from fishhooks. O to have been a little boy in New York in the 40s with Aggressively Ethnic Parents. Of the great films of the 70s, it’s in my top five. I love that movie.

“Anything Else” is “Annie Hall” c. 2004, but Allen’s powers have deserted him; it’s empty, tired, mannered, unfunny, and the actors are not so much “directed” as they are poked around by a long stick with a vinegar-soaked sponge lashed to the end. His hero is a young comedy writer who never says anything particularly funny, and who lives in a gigantic apartment while he avoids writing a novel. His girlfriend is Christina Ricci, a girl who has all of Annie Hall’s neurotic tics with none of the charm or heart. Woody plays a cynical, slightly paranoid schoolteacher who stammers advice to the hero while they walk around the park. On and on it goes. Young people in analysis who talk about Dostoevsky - it’s a parody of Woody Allen, and the only reason it got some good notices had to do with the reviewer’s relief that Grandpa Woodman did not play the romantic lead. Having him paw Ms. Ricci would put the “Paw” in paw, frankly. It’s depressing to watch a movie and realize that a parody of modern Woody Allen would be funnier than a Woody Allen movie on almost any level, since the parodists probably couldn’t resist the opportunity to be honestly funny and interesting, two things Allen can’t do anymore. No one dares tell him.

“Sweet and Lowdown” is next. Like I say: I’m a fan.

He's more of a fan than I am--I loved Woody Allen (for much of the same reasons that Lileks did) right up until Manhattan Murder Mystery. (To follow up on Lileks' "Ahem", not coicidentally, it shares the same co-writer and co-star as Annie Hall.) After that, his touch seemed to ooze away from him, film by film. I TiVo-ed Anything Else last month and couldn't make it past the first ten minutes. And while Sweet And Lowdown is a much better film (I saw it in the theater with my wife), it's lumbered with one big problem: that foreign affairs correspondent from the San Francisco Chronicle that Allen disconcertingly chose as his lead.