The Best Of Film Babble Blog (A Self Indulgent 20th Anniversary/Birthday Post)

Film Babble Blog has been AWOL since my DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE review as things have been hectically busy lately, but I’m back to make a self-indulgent post on my Birthday. I’ve been meaning to do something to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of this blog (first post was March 12, 2004) all year, and I finally came up with compiling a list of my Top 10 favorite posts.

 

Among the movie reviews have been assorted articles, lists, and interviews and this what I consider the cream of the crop. By the way, the pic at the top is from Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation of THE GREAT GATSBY (I just wanted to have a lavish big screen party scene image, the movie isn’t even mentioned in any of these posts).

So let’s get right to ‘em (click on the highlighted titles to read the posts):

1. In Memorium: My Dearly Departed Cat Squiggy (September 14, 2014)

Of course, #1 would be honoring my first adoptive cat, Squiggy, who passed away 10 years ago (Sept. 12, 2014). This remembrance might be too icky for some who are not cat or pet people, but I think most folks will appreciate the sentiment. Squiggy lives!

 

2. William H. Macy Chats With Film Babble Blog About His New Film KRYSTAL (April 12, 2018)

Over the course of Film Babble Blog’s first two decades, I didn’t do many interviews, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to talk to the great William H. Macy. He was promoting his second film as director, the odd Rosario Dawson vehicle KRYSTAL, and it was an insightful, fun phone chat with the acclaimed actor. 

3. Ingmar Bergman: The Woody Allen Angle (July 31, 2007)

 

When the iconic Swedish filmmaker Igmar Bergman passed on 2007, instead of doing a standard obit, I decided to do a deep dive on his influence on the films of Woody Allen. Now Allen is a controversial figure these days, but this film geek’s noting the many elements whether they be thematic, technical, personal, or personnel that Woody Allen has borrowed from the movie master still holds up to me.

 

4. Apocalypse Then (September 11, 2021)

My 20th Anniversary recollections of the week of the tragic events of 9/11, which started off with a Birthday viewing of the then new APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX is one of my favorite pieces as it captures my what my world felt like during that sad, shocking time when it felt like the world stopped.

 

5. That Time Orson Welles Ended His Career (And Life) On An Episode of Moonlighting (December 30, 2023)

I was reminded of the legendary filmmaker’s final moments in front of a camera when Hulu started streaming the hit ABC series, Moonlighting, late last year and I exercise-bike binged it. It’s an interesting tale of how fortunately the late, great CITIZEN KANE actor/writer/director had one last gasp meaning that his ridiculous voice turn in the 1985 animated TRANSFORMERS wasn’t his last credit. The Film Babble Blog favorite Welles was also featured in the posts, A Birthday Tribute To Orson Welles With 10 Welles Wannabes (May 5, 2008), and Classic Cinematic Cameo: Orson Welles in THE MUPPET MOVIE (MAY 6, 2022). 

 

6. That Time THE BODYGUARD Soundtrack Saved Nick Lowe’s Ass (August 12, 2021)

An amusing look back at a happy happening involving the great British singer/songwriter benefiting greatly by the use of one of his classics (albeit a cover) on the best-selling soundtrack of the Whitney Houston/Kevin Costner hit, THE BODYGUARD. 

7. The Legacy Of Mrs. James Bond 007 (September 10, 2020)

Much like the Bergman post, I was wanting to pay tribute to a legendary figure who had passed (in this case Diana Rigg), but through an specific angle that most obits mentioned but didn’t fully investigate. Another post in this same vein is: How James Bond Was Indiana Jones’ Father Long Before Sean Connery Played Indiana Jones’ Father (October 31, 2020)

 

The final posts are lists, which I’ve done a lot of over the years. A few of these were featured on the Internet Movie Database when they used to update a “Hit List” on their main webpage. That got my page a lot of action back in the day, which I miss now.

 

8. 20 Great Modern Movie Cameos (6/5/07)

9. 10 Definitive Films-Within-Films (7/4/07)

10. 10 Movie Soundtracks That Think Outside Of The Box Office (9/01/09)

So there you go. Hope you enjoyed this trip down Film Babble Blog’s memory lane.

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One Of Woody’s Worst Films May Be His Best Looking

Now playing:

WONDER WHEEL (Dir. Woody Allen, 2017)

The most striking thing about Woody Allen’s latest film, his third project for Amazon, is how lushly lit it is. Leading actresses Kate Winslet and Juno Temple’s red and blonde hair appears to always be glowing in golden light, whether in day or night scenes; and the gorgeousness of the color schemes employed by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro is palpable in every scene.

It’s too bad that it’s all in the service of the tired themes and clichéd characters that make up WONDER WHEEL, yet another nostalgic period piece from the Woodman - one that recalls the aura of his previous works CAFÉ SOCIETY (which Storaro also shot) PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, RADIO DAYS, and that fantasy flashback in ANNIE HALL where Allen’s Alvy Singer reminiscences about being brought up underneath the roller coaster in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn.

In very Allen-esque opening narration, Justin Timberlake sets the scene: “Coney Island, 1950s. The boardwalk.” The camera pans over a crowded beach until it hits Timberlake, as Mickey Rubin, a lifeguard who identifies himself as an aspiring playwright, breaking the fourth wall to tell us he’s got a story to tell, “in which I am a character so be warned as a poet I use symbols and as a budding dramatist, I relish melodrama and larger than life characters.”

Mickey introduces Carolina (Juno Temple), who has unexpectedly come back into the lives of her carousel operator father Humpty (Jim Belushi), and her stepmother Ginny (Winslet), because she is seeking refuge from the mob due to being marked by her never seen gangster husband.

Humpty and Ginny live in a shabby apartment, which used to house a freak show, with big open windows that has a great wide ranging view of the park including of the towering ferris wheel of the title. This is all back-drop to a well worn narrative involving a love triangle between Mickey, Ginny and Carolina.

Ginny dreams of running off with Mickey, but then Mickey falls for Carolina, despite the threat of a mafia hit job, which is made clear in a bit that has Sopranos regulars Tony Sirico (in his sixth film for Allen) and Steve Schirripa come to question Humpty about his daughter’s whereabouts.

There’s also a subplot about Ginny’s pyromaniac son that doesn’t really go anyhere, but it does provide shots of fire that go along with the rest of the movie’s orange bathed in blue glow.

Perhaps in the same vein that Andrew Dice Clay gained cred for his role in Allen’s BLUE JASMINE, Belushi puts in a great supporting performance as an angry, broken down working class slob who trying to stay on the wagon. I wouldn’t say it’s quite worth a Oscar nomination, but it nicely continues the ‘hey, Jim Belushi isn’t bad!’ vibe from his appearance on the Twin Peaks revival early this year.

Winslet’s acerbic Ginny is the dominant character here as the film seems to focus on her neurosis over her stepdaughter’s impending involvement with Mickey, and her frazzled attempts to thwart their romance. Winslet puts her all into her acting and anchors the film until it and she goes off the rails.

Timberlake’s Mickey wasn’t lying when he said he uses symbols as he even says “The heart has its own hieroglyphics” when trying to chose between Ginny and Carolina. He also speaks of “the tragic human condition” while giving Ginny a book of Eugene O’Neil’s plays for her birthday - an example of Allen’s screenplay laying it on a bit thick.

All this is transparent decoration around another one of his ‘women be crazy’ plotlines. The repetitive and overly drawn out dialogue doesn’t help either.

WONDER WHEEL’s melodramatic (Mickey wasn’t fooling there either) mix of hefty philosophizing with an all too typical tale of ill-fated infatuation makes for one of Allen’s least satisfying films of his later career.

But while it’s far from his best work, it may be his best looking movie. With hope, the Woodman, in his next film, A RAINY DAY IN NEW YORK in which he’s again working with cinematographer Storaro, will come up with a story that’s as good as the visuals.

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Film Babble Blog's Top 10 Favorite Cinematic Sight Gags

Back in the day, I used to post listicles (before they were called listicles) of movie tropes that I would attempt to amusingly connect to break up the flow of review after review. So with the upcoming glut of year-end releases plus the stress of the holiday season coming (not to mention the craziness of the post election season we're going through) I thought I’d rekindle that idea and do something silly – list my top 10 favorite movie sight gags.

The following are what I consider meme-worthy screen shots from the obvious suspects: Monty Python, Zucker brothers, Mel Brooks, super hero movies, etc, They’re the engrained images, mostly from my childhood, that always make me laugh when I think of them. So here goes:

1. The shit hits the fan in AIRPLANE!

(Dirs. David & Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, 1980)

Almost every other shot in the line of movie spoofs made by the Zucker brothers (David & Jerry) and Jim Abrahams is a sight gag – some brilliant; some idiotic. The one that most appeals to me is an absurdly literal visual joke from their classic disaster film satire AIRPLANE! that involves Ted Striker (Robert Hays), who’s been called in to land Boeing 707 (Trans American Flight 209) after the pilots have been taken ill. Striker: “The oil pressure, I forgot to check the oil pressure. When Kramer hears about this, the shit's gonna hit the fan.” The film then cuts to a shot of actual shit hitting a fan in the airport control room. Hey, I warned you above that there would be stupidity.

2. Clark Kent can't find an old school phone booth in SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (Dir. Richard Donner, 1978)

As an eight-year old kid, I remember the laughter from the audience being really big when Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) was first called into action in the first big screen Superman movie and found that the walk-in phone booths of the past, that he regularly used to change into his suit in the comics, were largely non-existent. Reeves’ expression at this realization of modern times is priceless.

3. The town sign for Plotpointburg in MUPPETS MOST WANTED (Dir. James Bobin, 2014)

Sure, MUPPETS MOST WANTED isn’t the best of Muppets movies, but it’s far from the worst, and this meta gag about how their European-set adventure, the latest in the cinematic series that was rebooted by Bobbins and Jason Segel in 2011, was adhering to a tried and true formula, got the biggest laugh of any of the jokes in their 2014 follow-up.

4. Sherrif Justice's restroom faux pas in SMOKEY & THE BANDIT (Dir. Hal Needham, 1977) 

The second biggest grossing movie of 1977 (STAR WARS was the biggest – duh!) had its share of dumb visual jokes, but this one which had Sherrif Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) leaving the men’s room at a truckstop with a line of toilet-paper following him out the door really made me giggle as a kid. According to Wikipedia, Burt Reynolds said that it was Gleason’s “idea to have the toilet paper coming out of his pantleg” in the scene. I may just have to agree with writer Tyler Coates, who said in his Decider post about seeing the film for the first time, that the shot may be “the greatest toilet-paper sight gag in the history of motion pictures.”

5. A 23rd century McDonald's in SLEEPER (Dir. Woody Allen, 1973)

Many of Woody Allen’s movies have sight gags, especially his “early funny ones,” but this particular one has stayed with me as it’s a really outdated, but still funny joke. In the film, which concerns Allen’s Miles Monroe, a nebbish NY neorotic (duh!) waking up 200 years in the future, our protagonist walks by a 23rd Century McDonald’s that has a sign boasting “Over 795,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000" Served.”

In the IMDb trivia section for SLEEPER, it is noted that “if translated into American numeration this value would be Seven Hundred, Ninety-five sexdecillion," a value with 51 zeroes. By comparison, Avogadro's Number, 6023E23 (or 6.023^23), or "mole," is a value normally used to count atoms or molecules, and, incidentally, thought to be about the number of grains of sand on all the beaches on earth, give or take a couple orders of magnitude. The value of 795 sexdecillion is very nearly a mole of moles.”

As McDonald’s was a somewhat seemingly new fad of a fast food chain in the early ‘70s, you can see why Allen made this joke. Though these days, it seems like a hell of an under-estimate.

6. Combing the desert in SPACEBALLS (Dir. Mel Brooks, 1987)

Another Jewish comedian turned ‘70s comedy star, Mel Brooks, also had many sight gags in his films. In the late ‘80s, Brooks’ schtick was pretty played out, but that didn’t stop him from making a spoof of the STAR WARS films and modern movie sci-fi in general called SPACEBALLS. One of its most memorable involved Rick Moranis’ Darth Vader spoof Dark Helmet ordering his troops to “comb the desert” for the missing Princess Vespa, and, of course, they do just that.

Maybe a funnier sight gag in SPACEBALLS was in the film’s few minutes, in which there was a parody of the opening of the original STAR WARS’ long, continous shot of a ginormous starship. That one, isn’t as well captured in a gif though.

7. The Black Knight's limb loss in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (Dirs. Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, 1975)

More ‘70s sight gag funniness comes from the iconic British comedy group Monty Python, whose films are full of them. I’ll go with this one from their 1975 classic MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, in which a black knight gets both his arms chopped off yet afterwards still continues fighting. The blood gushing was a new thing for a comedy film in that era (Dan Aykroyd's Julia Childs SNL bit around that same time  hit the same vein - sorry), so this was as groundbreaking as it was hilarious.

As a runner-up, I’ll go with this shot from MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN which happens after Brian (Graham Chapman) has been up all night following a strict Roman Centurion’s (John Cleese) orders (again with the literal following of orders) to paint “Romani ite domum,” which means “Romans go home,” a hundred times all over the Roman Palace’s walls:

8. Steve Martin cleans his gun in DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID
(Dir. Carl Reiner, 1981)

Okay, so either the ‘70s-‘80s is the glorious age of cinematic sight gags or I’m just old and that’s the era that I most identify with, but I have to go with either this Steve Martin should be comedy classic’s shot of Martin’s detective character Rigby Reardon cleaning his handgun in a sink with a bottle brush, or the tie shot that has him shaving his tongue. How either of these really satire the world of Humphrey Bogart-era gumshoe film noir is debatable, but I still find both damn funny.

9. TIE: THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (Dir. David Silverman, 2007) & AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY (Dir. Jay Roach, 1997)





Both of these films feature sight gags involving the obscuring of the male member. I don’t feel I need to explain any more than that.

10. Brick Tamland's reaction to his dismembered TV image in ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGANDY (Dir. Adam McKay, 2004)

Although Will Ferrell's big deal newscaster Ron Burgandy could be seen as a walking sight gag (as could just about every character he's ever played), it’s Steve Carrell’s character in the 2004 '70s news spoof, Brick Tamland, freaking out because his green pants made his legs disappear on a weather green screen that makes the cut here.

Okay! So what are your favorite sight gags? Let me, and other readers, know in the comments below.

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Woody Allen's Lightly Charming CAFÉ SOCIETY

Now playing at an indie art house near me:

CAFÉ SOCIETY (Dir. Woody Allen, 2016)

Jesse Eisenberg makes a great Woody Allen surrogate. Previously he performed the function in smaller doses in Allen’s forgettable 2012 ensemble comedy TO ROME WITH LOVE, but here he gets to carry the movie as Bobby Dorfman, a young Jewish neurotic (of course) from the Bronx.

Allen’s 47th film as writer/director is a period piece set in the late ‘30s that follows Bobby as he gets a job working for his uncle, high powered agent Phil Stern (Steve Carrell) in Hollywood, and falls in love with Phil’s secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). Thing is, she’s having an affair with Phil, who’s married to a woman that we never meet (the way they talk about the wife made me think she’d have some actual presence but no dice).

Citing that he can’t leave his wife after 25 years of marriage, Phil breaks the relationship off with Vonnie, and Bobby, who doesn’t know that his uncle was his competition, starts pursuing Vonnie romantically.

Eisenberg and Stewart, who’s first Allen film this is, have palpable chemistry together in their courting scenes, most likely because they’ve worked together previously as love interests in ADVENTURELAND (2009) and last summer’s AMERICAN ULTRA.

Carrell, also an Allen veteran (he had a small part as Will Ferrell’s best friend in MELINDA AND MELINDA), has a juicy role as Uncle Phil, though it’s not as comical as I was expecting. Bobby’s budding romance is cut short when Phil leaves his wife and proposes to Vonnie.

Sad that Vonnie chooses Phil over him, Bobby returns to New York and opens a swanky night club called Café Society with his mobster brother Ben (Corey Stoll in a slick hairpiece). Bobby meets and marries a blonde bombshell named Veronica Hayes, played by Allen newcomer Blake Lively, but when Vonnie and Phil visit the club, emotions are again stirred up.

The love triangle starts out resembling the one in MANHATTAN, but later recalls CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS. So yeah, big surprise – Allen again trots out some of his old trusty themes.

Shot by Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (LAST TANGO IN PARIS, APOCALYPSE NOW, REDS), CAFÉ SOCIETY looks gorgeous from start to finish. The glamour of golden era Los Angeles is lush, and the grittiness of Ben’s gangster world, in which people get wacked and then dumped into graves of wet cement, is splendid visually as well. It’s Storaro’s first film for Allen, and with hope not his last.

It’s an improvement over his last two films, MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT and IRRATIONAL MAN, but nowhere near the quality of BLUE JASMINE, which is one of Allen’s best later day films. Despite Bobby’s talk about all the industry talk, name dropping, and backstabbing of the “dog eats dog world” of showbiz, there’s a notable lack of stinging satire. The ritzy world of the beautiful people jet set isn’t so much commented on either. Allen appears to want to indulge in these old timey aesthetics, not skewer them.

Also Allen’s voice-over narration is really unnecessary as we can see what’s happening without him needing to tell us. Not sure why he felt it should be added.

Parker Posey, who was in Allen’s last film (IRRATIONAL MAN), and Paul Schneider play a married couple of happy socialites who befriend Bobby that I would’ve liked to see more of, as the blonde Posey lights up the screen, and Schneider just needs to be used more in movies in general.

With only intermittent flashes of wit, CAFÉ SOCIETY is only lightly comic, but its light charm made it work for me. Setting it in the post-Prohibition era may be just an excuse for Allen to again fill up a film with a jazz standard playlist – mostly Rodgers & Hart songs performed by Vince Girodano & The Nighthawks make up the movie’s wall-to-wall soundtrack – but it’s an era he obviously yearns for and one that can be fun to see him so lovingly recreate.

Sure, he did it better in THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, RADIO DAYS, and SWEET AND LOWDOWN, but there's still amusement to be had here.

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No Rationale Makes IRRATIONAL MAN Into Worthwhile Woody Allen

Now playing at an art house near me:

IRRATIONAL MAN (Dir. Woody Allen, 2015)

In my review of Woody Allen’s previous film, 2014's MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT, I proposed that in the last decade or so of Woody Allen's nearly half-century filmmaking career, every other film is worthwhile. However, while his latest, IRRATIONAL MAN, is a considerable improvement over the fluffy, inconsequential rom com MAGIC, I'm seriously re-thinking that theory.

However, it does starts off intriguingly with protagonist Joaquin Phoenix as Abe Lucas, a boozing, tortured philosophy professor arriving at the fictional Braylin College in Rhode Island to teach a summer session. Phoenix’s inner monologue/voice over tells us that he’s hit rock bottom emotionally and existentially, while gossip among the staff and students around campus tells us that that’s exactly what makes him attractive (“I kind of like the burnout look,” we hear a coed tell her friends, who wholeheartedly agree).

Before long, Phoenix’s Abe is spending a lot of time with one of his students, Jill Pollard played by Emma Stone, making her second appearance in an Allen film (MAGIC was her first), and he’s also being pursued by Parker Posey as Rita Richards, an unhappily married science professor.

Abe succumbs to Rita, but his mental hang ups have rendered him impotent. This helps him to resist Jill’s attempts to seduce him, citing that she has a devoted boyfriend who’s more suited for her, the preppy Roy played by Jamie Blackley. Blackley is stuck with one of Allen’s clichéd archetypes – the nice guy boyfriend who’s destined to be cheated on.

So for a bit we follow Phoenix and Stone around as they stroll around Braylin (actually Salve Regina University), and Newport discussing the subtleties of situational ethics, and referencing the work of such grand thinkers as Dostoyevsky and Kant. Then an actual plot development occurs – in a diner they overhear a conversation in which a woman talking with friends about her bitter custody battle. The judge presiding over the case is on her ex-husband’s side, and he’s drawing out the trial in order to bleed the woman dry. “I hope the judge gets cancer,” she exclaims, but Abe, stricken by what he hears, starts to hatch a plan in his head.

Abe, believing that he has finally found a meaningful act that will snap him out of his despair, schemes to murder the judge. He figures that his lack of motive and connection to the involved parties will make this the perfect crime, and that the world will be a better place without the corrupt judge. This decision changes Abe’s outlook on life radically, and the scenes in which he plots his victim’s demise are the most compelling in the movie – aided in no small part by the well utilized lively piano jazz of the Ramsey Lewis Trio on the soundtrack.

Abe secures cyanide to do the deed by stealing Rita’s key to the college’s chem lab, and stalks the judge so that he can learn his routine. Early on a Saturday morning, Abe is able to successfully poison the judge’s orange juice while he’s taking a break from running to read the paper on a park bench.

Initially, it looks like Abe has indeed committed the perfect murder as the judge’s death is considered to be by heart attack, but days later an autopsy detects the cyanide. Both Jill and Rita begin to suspect Abe, especially after certain clues start piling up that point to his guilt. Jill confronts Abe and he confesses the crime to her, but sticks to his stance that the murder was morally justified. Then its announced that the police have a suspect and Abe has to deal with the fact that an innocent man may take the fall.

As similar situations have happened in Allen’s work before – most notably in CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS and MATCH POINT – it can appear that the 79-year old writer/director is obsessed with whether murder can be gotten away with or if we live in a moral universe where that’s impossible. Problem is that he’s handled these themes much better before (especially in CRIMES which it appears he's remade several times now) and in this effort it feels a lot like he’s yet again treading water.

Underneath all the talky philosophizing, there's no interesting ideas that are being expressed in Allen's screenplay. It's pretty by-the-numbers stuff narratively, and its ending is an unsatisfyingly rushed wrap-up. The love story angle, whether it's between Phoenix and Stone or Phoenix and Posey, is fairly unaffecting as well.

But it does feature some fine, appealing acting - Phoenix’s lived-in performance as Abe, a guy who's into Russian novelists and Russian roulette, beautifully conveys a kind of meticulous messiness, Stone makes an energetic effort in embodying Jill, and Posey makes the most out of a underwritten role. On another plus side, returning cinematographer Darius Khondji, who shot Allen's TO ROME WITH LOVE, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, and MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT gives the film a great, lush look (the town of Newport, Rhode Island never looked better), but there’s just not any there there.

Allen’s 46th film as filmmaker is sadly another weak late period effort. It’s time for me to throw the “every other one is good” theory out the window, because there’s not a rationale I can think of that makes IRRATIONAL MAN into worthwhile Woody Allen.

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Blu Ray/DVD Review: Woody Allen's Not So Great Latest, MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT

Out today on Blu ray and DVD:

MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT

(Dir. Woody Allen, 2014)

There's a strong case to be made that in the last decade or so of Woody Allen's nearly half-century filmmaking career, every other film is worthwhile. That's certainly holding true. Last year's Oscar-winning BLUE JASMINE was one of the 78-year-old writer/director's very finest, while Allen's current feature, MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT, is one of his all-time weakest.

A fluffy period piece rom-com that joins A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT SEX COMEDY, HOLLYWOOD ENDING and CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION (just to name a few) in the annals of Allen's forgettable throwaways, it at least begins promisingly enough with Colin Firth in Oriental garb, playing an arrogant illusionist named Stanley Crawford in the guise of a Chinese conjurer in 1928 Berlin.

Stanley delights his audience with such classic tricks as sawing a woman in half and making an elephant disappear, then berates the crew backstage so we get a sense of his pomposity.

A fellow magician, Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney), tells Stanley about a woman who claims to be clairvoyant and who may be swindling a rich family.

Howard asks Stanley to accompany him to the French Riviera to debunk the phony psychic, a prospect that appeals to Stanley and his lack of spiritual belief. Of course, shortly after meeting the young lady, Sophie Baker, fetchingly portrayed by Emma Stone, he finds himself more and more charmed, and starting to believe that Sophie may actually possess supernatural powers. Disappointingly, Stanley's enchantment with Sophie is unconvincing, with many scenes consisting of variations of the same dialogue. For instance, Sophie talks repeatedly about how she can see into the future, but all her proclamations have to do with the past.

The wealthy marks - Sophie's dorky ukulele-playing suitor (Hamish Linklater of The Newsroom and The Crazy Ones) and his mother (Jackie Weaver) - are very taken with her, possibly to the tune of their fortune. There's also Marcia Gay Harden, as Sophie's business-minded mother, who is nearly forgettable because she isn't given a single significant line or moment.

Allen has toyed with these themes before - science vs. spirituality, the redemption of true love. But this narrative has nothing new to say about the mysteries of existence; it just serves as a thread through another May-December romance. A romance, that much like Stanley's transformation, isn't very believable.

It's not that the 53-year-old Stanley courting the 25-year-old Sophie is creepy, it's that the relationship feels forced and lacks chemistry. This is apparent when Stanley's car breaks down and the couple takes shelter in an observatory (at least moonlight makes an appearance, because magic surely doesn't).

Worst of all, the script's many one-liners fall flat throughout.

At least the cinematography by Darius Khondji, who shot Allen's MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, is gorgeous. Perhaps the glow given to all those pretty people strolling on beautiful beaches, driving down winding mountain roads and walking on paths through rural France may fool the audience into thinking they're seeing a more charming movie.

And at least Stone's wide smile, alluring eyes and adorable '20s wardrobe give the movie a little zing. Here's hoping her second film with Allen, an untitled project now in production, will be a weightier work. The odds are in her favor.*

Special Features: Woody Allen films have never offered much in the way of bonus material and MAGIC is no exception. Only 15 minutes of supplements are included: an over 10 minute making-of featurette: “Behind the Magic,” a less than 3 minute segment: “On the Red Carpet: Los Angeles Film Premiere,” and the theatrical trailer.

* This review originally appeared in the Nov. 15th, 2012 edition of the Raleigh News & Observer.

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Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/08/14/4069639/review-a-little-moonlight-but.html?sp=/99/107/153/#storylink=cpy

TOP FIVE: The Film Babble Blog Review

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

TOP FIVE (Dir. Chris Rock, 2014)

Finally, a good Chris Rock movie!

Yes, the third time is definitely the charm in the actor/comedian’s latest directorial effort after the critical and commercial flops that were HEAD OF STATE (2003) and I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE (2007).

In the semi-autobiographical TOP FIVE, Rock portrays movie star funnyman Andre Allen, who just like Rock’s idol Woody Allen in STARDUST MEMORIES, repeatedly says “I don’t want to make funny movies anymore.”

Rock’s Allen wants to hang up the bear costume he wore in the “Hammy the Bear” comedy buddy-cop franchise and be taken seriously in a historical drama about Haitian revolutionary Dutty Boukman called “Uprize,” which looks like a boring piece of Oscar bait.

Shades of TROPIC THUNDER, shades of Entourage, shades of every movie satirizing celebrity, but that’s so not a bad thing in these capable hands.

The film centers around Rock doing publicity for “Uprize” on its opening day, which is on the eve of his much hyped wedding to Gabrielle Union as socialite/reality TV star Erica Long.

In one of her most appealing performances, Rosario Dawson plays a New York Times reporter doing a profile on Rock, which he has mixed feelings about because the Times film critic, the fictitious James Nielson, has panned all his previous output.

With Rock and Dawson tooling around New York conversing about everything from PLANET OF THE APES to appraising favorite comic icons (Rock calls Charlie Chaplin “the KRS-One of comedy”), TOP FIVE can been seen as a “hangout movie.” Especially in a scene in which they visit Rock’s childhood home and chill with his family and childhood friends, mostly made up of SNL alumni including Jay Pharoah, Leslie Jones, and most hilariously, yet also sadly, a pre-accident Tracy Morgan, in which they discuss their individual top five rappers of all-time.

The laughs are consistent throughout, though some of the less successful bits concern relationship stuff. When Dawson catches her boyfriend cheating with another man and recounts via flashbacks how she should’ve known he was gay because of his anal fixation, it comes across like a throwaway joke sequence on the sitcom The Mindy Project, and not just because Dawson’s boyfriend is played by Anders Holm, who had an arc as one of Mindy Kaling’s suitors.

Otherwise, Rock, who unlike on his other films as director wrote this without a co-writer, has constructed a solid, thoughtful comedy that gives a bunch of his talented friends a chance to shine. 

An extended strip club scene, another of the many points in which the movie earns its hard R-rating, has funny turns by Jerry Seinfeld (you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Seinfeld make it rain at a strip club), Whoopi Goldberg, and Adam Sandler (funnier than he's been in a while on the big screen) playing themselves, and in another laugh out loud bit set in a jail cellblock, DMX sings and somehow nails Chaplin’s “Smile” in an unironic manner. J.B. Smoove and Cedric the Entertainer also amuse in their sideline roles. If you're a comedy fan at all, you won't want to miss this movie.

Resembling a hip (or hip hop) take on prime period Woody Allen, TOP FIVE is a bit uneven, and it won’t make my actual top 5 (or top 10) of movies of the year, but it’s an immensely enjoyable and heartfelt project that’s a big leap forward for Rock. Here’s hoping he builds on it – i.e. makes more ambitious and worthwhile work – instead of going back to the same ole crap.

In other words, I hope he makes like his character turning down another Hammy movie, and doesn’t take the call asking him to appear in GROWN UPS 3.

While movies like GROWN UPS and the assorted rom coms and animated films that have dominated his career of late have made me forget how crucial Rock can be, TOP FIVE really reminded me big time.

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Flashback: Film Babble Blog's Top 10 Films Of 1984

 
On a three episode series of the podcast, postmodcast,
Kevin Brewer (Twitter handle: @RealKevinBrewer) and I have been celebrating the pop culture of the year 1984. Our first installment, which dropped on August 19, 2014, dealt with the music of that era, including Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen, so the second in the series (Episode 5: Movies of 1984), which dropped last week on September 2nd, focuses on the films (the upcoming third entry will cover television).

Because of all this babbling about 1984, I decided to post my top 10 films of that year. A few of them I re-watched recently after not seeing them for three decades, some I've been watching over and over in that time.

So here are my 10 favorites from 30 years ago:

1. BLOOD SIMPLE (Dirs. Ethan & Joel Coen)

This one shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who follows this blog. The Coen brothers are among my all-time favorite film makers and this, their cold thriller debut, is one of their best. It's also the film debut of Frances McDormand (she and Joel Coen were married in April of '84 and are still together), who plays the cheating wife of crusty Texas bar owner Dan Hedaya. The always reliable M. Emmett Walsh portrays a somewhat sleazy private detective that Hedaya hires to kill his wife and her lover (John Getz). It's dark, twisted, and absolutely essential stuff.

2. THIS IS SPINAL TAP (Dir. Rob Reiner)








Rob Reiner's directorial debut is one of the funniest, most quotable, and sturdiest satires ever made. As if you don't know already, the film is a "mockumentary" concerning Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer as the core members of a fictional heavy metal band who are followed on an ill-fated tour by Reiner as a documentary film maker amusingly named Marty DiBergi. I've seen it many, many times over the years, and am looking to many more starting with catching one of its multiple screenings at this year's Escapism Festival at the Carolina Theatre in Durham the weekend of September 19th, and on the NC Museum of Art's giant outdoor screen in the theater park on October 4th. Oh, yeah - it will also be shown as part of the long-running Cinema Inc. series on January 11th, 2015. Definitely one that never gets old.

3. REPO MAN (Dir. Alex Cox)

Read what I wrote about this also very quotable '84 offering on its 25th anniversary after attending a screening at the Colony Theater here in Raleigh as part of their Cool Classic series. An extremely cool classic indeed.

4. GHOSTBUSTERS (Dir. Ivan Reitman)
  

There's been lots of hubbub celebrating the 30th anniversary of this big-time box office champ (it battled BEVERLY HILLS COP for the #1 spot of '84) lately. A theatrical re-release, a new Blu ray special edition, and even a "National Ghostbusters Day" (August 28th, though the film was originally released in June) all go to show that this film has still got it goin' on. That's largely thanks to Bill Murray as the sarcastically cocky pseudo scientist Peter Venkman, but Dan Aykroyd and the late, great Harold Ramis (who both co-wrote the movie) aren't too shabby either. Now please, Aykroyd would you please back off making another one? 

5. AMADEUS (Dir. Milos Forman)

Just re-watched this grandiose Oscar sweeper (it won 8) and loved how still powerful and funny it is. It may be a bit padded with too many scenes in which composer Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) looks on with both amazement and disgust from the wings as his unknowing rival Mozart (Tom Hulce) brilliantly conducts a lavish orchestra (we get it - you hate how great he is), but it has plenty of impact and it proves that lofty prestige pictures don't have to be devoid of fun.

6. ALL OF ME (Dir. Carl Reiner)

Another Reiner (Rob's father) makes the list. Steve Martin should've been Oscar nominated for his role in this fast paced farcical comedy also starring Lily Tomlin in one of her most invested performances. I mean, who else that year pulled off a convincing performance of a man who has a woman trapped in half of his body? Nobody, that's who.

7. STOP MAKING SENSE (Dir. Jonathan Demme)

This incredibly uplifting concert film, which captures The Talking Heads onstage at the Hollywood Pantages Theater in late '83, may be the most joyous rock and roll movie ever. The boundless energy of front man David Byrne, backed by his band mates (Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, and Tina Weymouth) and a well chosen mix of back-up singers and guest musicians (including members of Parliament-Funkadelic and The Brothers Johnson) bouncing behind him through an amazing set of some of the strongest songs of the '80s makes an exhilarating experience from start to finish. This is being celebrated with a theatrical re-release in many markets, and, I'm happy to report, will also be shown at the NC Art Museum next month.

8. BROADWAY DANNY ROSE
(Dir. Woody Allen)

It may be a throwaway Woody Allen to some, but I love how this is one of his works that's unconcerned with questioning meaning, or making any statement, it just wants to tell a silly story about a sleazy talent agent who gets caught up in a series of mishaps involving Mia Farrow (with a hilarious Brooklyn accent) as the mistress of his lounge singer client (a wonderful Nick Apollo Forte), that have him on the run from mobsters. The shenanigans are enhanced greatly by the sharp black and white cinematography of Gordon Willis, who recently passed.

9. PARIS, TEXAS (Dir. Wim Wenders)

This spare, visually stunning work is probably the closest to a Foreign film on this list despite being filmed in the scenic desert locations of middle-America. German film maker Wim Wenders, via the Robby Müller's exquisite cinematography, poetically presents Harry Dean Stanton in possibly his most affecting performance as a man on a journey through the Texas desert to reconcile with his wife (Nastassja Kinski).

10. STARMAN (Dir. John Carpenter)

I was a fan of Jeff Bridges long before he became re-branded as "The Dude" and this poignant sci-fi romantic drama (now there's a neglected genre!) is his best '80s film in my book (or on my blog). Bridges got an Oscar nomination for his acute portrayal of an alien that has inhabited the body of the dead husband of the grieving Karen Allen, who's pretty terrific in it too. It also serves as a fun road trip film, which I touched on a few years back in a series of posts covering "Obligatory Road-Trip Vegas Scenes."

Other notable movies of 1984: W.D. Richter's THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI, Paul Mazursky's MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON (Robin Williams' first bearded dramatic role!), Albert Magnoli's PURPLE RAIN (mainly for its concert scenes), John Byrum's THE RAZOR'S EDGE, and Jim Jarmusch's STRANGER THAN PARADISE.

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