Annie Hall is fantastic. As are Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Midnight in Paris. I also have a soft spot for Manhattan Murder Mystery, but most of that is Keaton.
The ‘lobster scene’ in Annie Hall is maybe my favorite comedic pieces. It seems soooo real—her reaction to his reactions… absolute gold.
I’m lucky to have discovered Woody Allen films as a sophomore at SU. Went to see one at Crouse[?] circa ‘86, because an eventual roommate was already a more ‘sophisticated’ cinephile than I was.
Yeah, Woody is a brilliant filmmaker. And a cruddy person. The Soon Yi thing is bizarre. I don’t know what happened with his daughter, but it was investigated with no validation of the accusations, right? And regarding the ‘dynamic’ between him and Mia—I don’t trust anything from her mouth, either, because she and Woody had a relationship together with an underage girl. The Woody/Mia thing is just bitchcakes crazy, so I choose to ‘trust’ neither of them. And without truth, I just appreciate the work and dismiss the persons.
I’m also not going to stop listening to Led Zeppelin because Jimmy Page ‘abducted’ a teen girl; or David Bowie for an alleged underage relationship, or Stevie Ray Vaughan for his pretty public relationship with a too young girl. Awful stuff, sure. Not excused. But it’s separate from the product.
Oh, and I’m (only) 56 but two of my favorite films are from ~1939 [Bringing Up Baby and The Phildelphia Story]. I think growing up with The The Three Stooges made it easy to accept and appreciate very old films and even to love the aesthetic of that era.