Updated Ranking of Woody Allen films

January 5th, 2017 | by rickworley
Posted In: Blogs

Finally saw Cafe Society… It’s not bad, but it’s not great. Some parts I really liked, but it felt like it didn’t quite get to whatever it was going for. I like Jesse Eisenberg, but I feel like he was the weak link. It felt like he was going out of his way to make his character a complete creep, which might have been interesting, but it’s not the character for the movie he was in, and it makes the story around him make less sense, and the ending not quite have the melancholy it was going for. It sort of reminds me of what he did in BvS, where he played a pretty good version of the Riddler, but unfortunately did it in a movie where he was cast as Lex Luthor.

Either way, I can finally bring this up to date:

-The Purple Rose of Cairo
-Match Point
-Annie Hall
-Blue Jasmine
-Husbands and Wives
-Crimes and Misdemeanors
-Radio Days
-Hannah and Her Sisters
-Deconstructing Harry
-Interiors
-Midnight in Paris
-Manhattan
-Sweet and Lowdown
-Another Woman
-Mighty Aphrodite
-Bullets Over Broadway
-Zelig
-Vicky Christina Barcelona
-Anything Else
-Bananas
-Magic in the Moonlight
-Alice
-September
-Stardust Memories
-Casandra’s Dream
-Small Time Crooks
-Whatever Works
-Café Society
-Irrational Man
-Everyone Says I Love You
-Hollywood Ending
-You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
-Manhattan Murder Mystery
-Melinda and Melinda
-Shadows and Fog
-Broadway Danny Rose
-A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy
-Celebrity
-Sleeper
-Love and Death
-Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex
-New York Stories segment
-Scoop
-To Rome with Love
-Take the Money and Run
-The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
-What’s Up, Tiger Lily
-Crisis in Six Scenes

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Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

December 29th, 2016 | by rickworley
Posted In: Blogs

Since I’ve lived in San Francisco, I’ve met a lot of celebrities… some heroes of mine. Usually, I chat with them and we get along and it’s fine. The only time I freaked out was Peter Mayhew. He was the first Star Wars actor I ever met, and I was immediately six again. It was Chewie, standing right in front of me! Even seeing Bob Dylan from the front row didn’t do quite the same thing to me.

Carrie Fisher is the first major Star Wars actor we’ve lost, besides Kenny Baker. And Kenny Baker was in his 80s and had health problems for a long time, so it wasn’t such a shock. Reading that Carrie Fisher has died really feels like a death in the family.

I mention first how important Carrie Fisher is to me because of Star Wars, which she didn’t mind being associated with, but that was a relatively small part of her creative life. She was a wonderful writer and hilarious person… her book Wishful Drinking is amazing! Read it if you haven’t, that would be a great way to remember her.

And then to hear that Debbie Reynolds has died also, obviously from grief the day after, is just so incredibly tragic. My thoughts are with Todd and Billie (And Gary of course) for who, however hard this is for the rest of us, it must be a thousand times worse. I hope they get some comfort in knowing how many millions of people were touched by these two women, and how many people are thinking of them.

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