Woody Allen has a new movie coming out this fall, but you wouldn’t know about it since he’s become person-non-grata in the States. Hell, even his last movie, the 2018 Amazon-dumped “Rainy Day in New York,” has yet to be released here. However, that hasn’t stopped the 84-year-old director from continuing to work — Europeans have welcomed him with open arms and been willing to finance the cinematic endeavors he chooses to write and direct.
Read moreLarry David Says “It’s Hard” To Think Woody Allen Did Anything Wrong
Larry David owes a lot of his comedy shtick to Woody Allen. You know, the Jewish, neuro-eccentric style of comedy that Allen basically made his own in the early to late ‘70s with classics such as “Bananas,” “Sleeper,” “Love and Death,” “Annie Hall,” etc. Jerry Seinfeld and David eventually took that style of comedy and infused it with the kind of everyday minimalism with now associate it with. Hell, David was even cast as the lead to Allen’s 2009 “comedy “Whatever Works.”
Read moreWoody Allen Claims He Has Proof That Timothée Chalamet Publicly Denounced Him to Win an Oscar
As I await my hardcover order of Woody Allen’s memoir, “Apropos of Nothing,” subtly released earlier this week, details from the book are starting to slowly trickle in. A particularly interesting tidbit, involving Timothée Chalamet, has made the news rounds today. In one of the book’s chapters, Allen states thatChalamet’s public denouncement of him wasn't motivated by morals as much as the actor’s Oscar chances.
Read moreScarlett Johansson Says Woody Allen is Innocent: “I Believe Him, And I Would Work With Him Anytime”
Scarlett Johansson, one of the most famous people on earth, has finally come out and defended Woody Allen, a director whom she has worked with as an actress in three movies ( “Match Point,” “Scoop,” and “ Vicky Cristina Barcelona”).
Read moreReport: Roman Polanski and Woody Allen set to Premiere New Movies at Venice Film Festival
According to reliable sources, the heads of the Venice Film Festival are very close to nabbing both Woody Allen’s “A Rainy Day in New York” and Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy” as part of their upcoming lineup, set to unfold from August 28th to September 9th on the Lido. This could turn out to be a much-talked about event for the movie world, as Allen and Polanski have both been, by all accounts, blacklisted in Hollywood due to decade-old allegations of sexual misconduct resurfacing in the #MeToo era.
Read moreSan Sebastian Film Festival Boss Is Thrilled That Woody Allen Has Set His New Movie There
It’s been a tumultuous last 20 or so months for Woody Allen, what with American distributors all but blacklisting the legendary writer-director, all due to dubious, already twice settled-in-court, claims, made by his ex-wife Mia Farrow, which resulted in the director’s “A Rainy Day in New York” being shelved by Amazon and never released in U.S. theaters. With all that being said, Allen has gotten back the rights to the film, which is set to premiere, according to my sources, at the Venice Film Festival next September and will then roll out in most of the major European movie markets.
Read moreWoody Allen's New Movie Casts Christoph Waltz; Set to Begin Shooting in Spain Next Month.
Woody Allen’s long-delayed last film, “A Rainy Day in New York,” will probably have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this coming September, but that hasn’t stopped the filmmaker from moving on to his next project, an untitled film set to begin shooting in Spain next month. According to France’s Le Parisien, Allen has already signed-on actors such as Christoph Waltz, Gina Gershon, Louis Garrel, Sergi Lopez, and Elena Anaya to appear in this mysterious new film.
Read moreWoody Allen's ‘Rainy Day In New York' Venice-Bound? Italy, Germany and Spain announce release dates.
Good news came on Sunday, courtesy of Italy’s Lucky Red. The Italian outlet reported that Woody Allen’s currently-in-limbo “Rainy Day in New York” was confirmed for an October 3rd Italian release date. This instantly led to speculation about a potential Venice Film Festival bow in September.
Read moreWoody Allen's Delayed/Suspended ‘Rainy Day In New York' To Be Released in Mexico and Europe Later This Year
The always-insightful Robert Weide has a new Woody Allen defense titled “The Truth About Woody Allen (Part II)“, which was posted on 4.8.19. If you haven’t read Weide’s other knowledgeable, first-hand defenses of Allen I highly recommend them.
Read moreAmazon Defends Its Decision to Fire Woody Allen
When Amazon decided to break its contract with Woody Allen back in 2018, due to the still unwarranted claims from Mia Farrow that Allen had sexually abused their daughter back in the ‘90s, Allen’s latest film, “A Rainy Day In New York,” was a victim of the fallout. It has yet to be released by Amazon and likely won’t be anytime soon. The film, in other words, is in total limbo.
Read moreWoody Allen Set to Shoot New Film in Spain This Summer
Woody Allen will begin shooting his next film this July likely in San Sebastian. The film will be financed by the Spanish production company MediaPro [El Diario Vasco reports]
Read moreWoody Allen Sues Amazon For $68 Million Lawsuit; Claims Breach Of Contract Due To “A 25-Year-Old, Baseless Allegation”
Woody Allen will not go down without a fight.
After accusations of child molestation being brought back to the forefront last year, most notably by Ronan Farrow and Mia Farrow, the filmmaker, whose latest work “A Rainy Day in New York” seems to be in total limbo, has decided to sue Amazon for $68 million
Read moreWoody Allen’s Former Teenage Girlfriend Defends Their ‘70s Relationship; He Was 41, She Was 17.
THR's Gary Baum posted an interview-profile about former Woody Allen girlfriend Christina Engelhardt, but more importantly her eight-year relationship with the director, which inspired him to write "Manhattan." Their affair started in 1976 and ended 8 years later in 1984. It was, by all accounts, a very sexual relationship which happened when she was 17 and he was 41. Eventually, Engelhardt would begin partaking in threesomes with Woody and Mia Farrow in the ’80. Baum writes about the menage-a-trois', “Despite the initial shock of jealousy, Engelhardt says she grew to like Farrow over the course of the ‘handful’ of three-way sex sessions that followed at Allen’s penthouse as they smoked joints and bonded over a shared fondness for animals.”
Read moreJude Law says ‘It’s a Terrible Shame’ Woody Allen Can't Release His New Movie
Jude Law has a role in “A Rainy Day in New York,” the Woody Allen film which has been indefinitely shelved by Amazon Studios due to accusations made against him by daughter Dylan Farrow, and the ensuing anti-Woody campaign concocted by Dylan's mother Mia and brotherRonan.
“It’s a terrible shame,” Law told The New York Times about “A Rainy Day in New York” not being released in theaters. “I’d love to see it. People worked really hard and put a lot in, obviously himself included."
Woody Allen says he is still writing screenplays
What will happen to Woody Allen's "Rainy Day in New York"? With Amazon having taken hostage his latest film, due to the smear campaign concocted by Ronan and Mia Farrow, 2018 will be the first year that Allen won't release a new film since 1982. And, despite the backlash, Allen, speaking to the New York Post's PageSix columnist Cindy Adams, said he is continuing to write screenplays. The 82-year-old filmmaker confessed “I’m a writer. It’s what I am,” he said. “What I do. What I always will be. I’ll write. Since I continually have ideas it’ll be new ideas and I’ll write new things,” he added.
Javier Bardem Decides to Defend Woody Allen Yet Again: “I Don’t Agree With The Public Lynching”
Speaking during a masterclass at the Lumiere Festival [via The Guardian], Javier Bardem continued to defend Woody Allen, who has been vehemently accused by wife Mia Farrow of sexually abusing her daughter Dylan back in 1993:
“At the time I did ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona,’ the allegations were already well known for more than 10 years, and two states in the US deemed he was not guilty,” explained the actor.
Soon-Yi defends Woody Allen, says Mia Farrow abused her
A Soon-Yi Previn interview, courtesy of Vulture, has Woody Allen's wife of 30-odd years defending her husband. Suffice to say, it didn't please Ronan Farrow as Mia Farrow's son immediately rebutted with his own statement. Jesus Ronan, let her speak.
Soon-Yi admits in the interview that "what's happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust." She's, of course, referring to accusations by Allen's adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, that she molested by her father back in the early '90s.
Read moreWoody Allen Will Not Release A Movie This Year, This Hasn't Happened Since 1981
I haven't spoken about Woody Allen for quite some time now. You know by now how I feel about the way the venerable writer-director has been treated on social media. All but shunned, with his future as a filmmaker now being questioned. The bad press he has gotten has resulted in his latest film, the Amazon-produced “A Rainy Day in New York,” being stuck in post-production limbo with no release date in sight.
Read more12 Great films made by directors over 80
1) L'Argent (Robert Bresson, 82)
Robert Bresson won the director's prize at Cannes for this stinging indictment of poverty and crime in France as a fake 500 Franc bill gets passed around from person to person until an unlucky delivery man tries uses it buy some food and gets caught by the police. He passes through a flawed legal system, holding no mercy for the poor, and eventually resorts to a life of crime to support his struggling family. "L'Argent" is a compelling morality tale that holds no prisoners and works on layers of social issues as its protagonist's innocent soul, slowly, but surely, turns into black ink by its conclusion. This would be Bresson's swan song as he would go on to live the last 16 years of his life in retreat.
2) Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" (Sidney Lumet, 83)
Post-1988's "Running on Empty," Sidney Lumet was struggling to regain his voice as an artist. The '90s weren't very kind to the man known as "The Prince of New York," with "A Stranger Among Us," "Guilty as Sin," "Critical Care," and, especially, "Gloria" burying his career down to the abyss. It wasn't until his final film, 2007's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," that Lumet pulled out his final great statement. In a career that spanned more than five decades and dozens of classics ("12 Angry Men," "The Verdict," "Prince of the City," "Network," "Dog Day Afternoon," "Serpico") Lumet put his old-school directorial chops to good use and his familiarity with crime genre. I wrote back in 2007 "It'd be a real shame for young filmmakers to not watch, study and ponder Lumet's film. It might feel small-scaled and simply rendered, but there's an artistry to the way the story is told that just doesn't exist in today's Hollywood and that, I fear, is going extinct." Sadly, I feel like that is exactly what's happened.
3) I'm Going Home (Manoel De Oliveira, 94)
This is another low-key yet compelling latter-day offering from the indefatigable Portuguese film-maker; given that it deals with a famous but ageing actor (Michel Piccoli once again) who decides to give up his boots, it was probably meant as such by Oliveira himself – though he was still going strong years later, having not only made some half-a-dozen other films in the interim but, at nearly 106, had two more productions already lined up before his death. "I'm Going Home" was, by far, the most accessible and approachable film the director made in his latter-day "renaissance," with a naturalism and emotional resonance that harkens back to the golden-age of European cinema in the 60s.
4) Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, 79)
Yes, I'm cheating a bit here. Woody Allen was 79 years of age when "Blue Jasmine" was released in the summer of 2013, but we can all recognize that the film was an exemplary showcase of how the Woodman's still got it. I could have also included "Irrational Man," an underrated stunner from 2015 that had him dealing with the darkest of themes, and more importantly, with death itself. "Blue Jasmine" is the crowning performance of Cate Blanchett's career. Here she plays a Xanax-popping, middle aged New York bourgeois whose husband divorces her, sending her in a state of suicidal, depressive panic. I don't think I'd be stretching it by calling it Allen's best film since 1989's similarly themed "Crimes and Misdemeanors."
5) Saraband (Ingmar Bergman 85)
It'd be crazy to think that "Saraband" belongs in the same company as "Cries & Whispers," "Persona," "Through the Glass Darkly," "The Silence," "Wild Strawberries," "Scenes From A Marriage," "The Seventh Seal" and "Fanny & Alexander." However, what exactly is as good as these films? The impressive filmography Ingmar Bergman built over his long-storied career is the stuff of legend and, yet, here he was in his mid 80s making a film as luminous as "Saraband." It's a final roar from a master of cinema. as he revisits the characters of 1973 "Scenes from a Marriage" thirty years older, with Marianne sharing the dramatic and complicated relationship of John's family.
The film is vintage Bergman with revealing close-ups, emotionally intense dialogue, an old-fashioned style of film-making, and a surfeit of bitterness about the human condition.
6) Madadayo (Akira Kurosawa, 83)
The thirtieth and final film of Akira Kurosawa's career shows that he had plenty left in the tank before passing on. The film is a profoundly moving treatise on facing death with dignity and honor. The college professor in the film is entering the final years of his life, but he is always surrounded by fellow peers and students who have the most adhering of respects for him. As the birthdays pileup, so do the celebrations and the beers, which he always manages to drink down to the final gulp. There are tears, there are toasts, there is song — it's a celebration of life. The expressionistic simplicity and themes make it a heartbreaking swan song for one of the greatest cinematic directors we will ever see.
7) The Dead (John Huston, 81)
According to Pauline Kael, John Huston directed "The Dead" at eighty, from his wheelchair, "jumping up to look through the camera, with oxygen tubes trailing from his nose to a portable generator." If that wasn't enough, most of the time, he had to watch the actors on a video monitor outside the set and use a microphone to speak to the crew. And yet, what grand, masterful statement "The Dead" is, from one of the immaculate American directors of our time. He contemplates his own death through the story of a family gathering and the mistakes that haunt their pasts. The message of the film is simple, yet retains a heartbreaking sentiment: No matter how long they have been in their graves, the dead will always influence the living. Huston is proof of that.
8) Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman, 81)
In a career that spanned dozens of classics ("Nashville," "The Player," "MASH," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "The Long Goodbye," "3 Women," "Shortcuts," and "California Split") nothing could prepare us for this kind of swan song from Robert Altman. "A Prairie Home Companion" is one his simplest, lightest affairs. It's a cinematic valentine to the radio, one that rivals Woody Allen's own "Radio Days" as a depiction of a simple, melancholic, diverse, but bygone era. Just like many of the other films on this list, it's a meditation on death, and yet, what joy that there is in every frame. Altman refuses to eulogize, and he instead dares us to think of the end while humming A Prairie Home Companion's most insanely catchy tunes imaginable.
9) Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, 86)
As if Alain Resnais didn't mess with our heads enough in his legendary five decade career as filmmaker ("Last Year at Marienbad," "Hiroshima, Mon Amour"), he pulled one final rabbit out of the bag with "Wild Grass." Time's Richard Corliss said the film was a tribute to the "con-artistry" that enveloped his career. Resnais has rejected cinematic naturalism all throughout his career, so why would he embrace it now? You might be tempted to say he riffs on David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" here, until you realize that Resnais actually influenced Lynch in the first place. The surreal landscape he creates in "Wild Grass" isn't far off from the Twin Peaks valleys that have invaded Lynch's own filmography. As a character in the film states: "After the cinema nothing surprises you. Everything is possible."
10) The Last of the Unjust (Claude Lanzmann, 87)
Claude Lanzmann has had a fascination with the holocaust his entire life. His seminal eight-hour 1985 documentary "Shoah," is the final statement on the tragedy. No offence to Steven Spielberg of course. "The Last of the Unjust" is a spiritual sequel to "Shoah," a series of interviews Lanzmann concocted over the years, some that didn't make "Shoah" and others that were never even thought to have existed. At 87, Lanzmann is still haunted by the genocide that killed six million Jews, so much so that it's become an obsession, a seeking of the truth and a way for him to release all the tension and demons that have lured inside him.
11) Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, 84)
One may believe that Jean-Luc Godard long ago jumped onto the bandwagon of cinematic insanity, at least since 1967's "Weekend," which many recognize as the last great, relevant statement of his career. Yet, you might have missed the true gem of his twilight years: "Goodbye to Language." Yes, it still has the odd political quote and name-dropping he has been known for churning out these last 30 odd years, as well as the fragments of thoughts that have invaded his post-'60s radical filmmaking, and the patchiness of his narratives. The man is, after all, Jean-Luc Godard, and with any film he makes comes a well-recognized package of ideas and metaphors and images that the cinephile, if he feels like doing so, tries to scramble together. Sometimes it does gel and other times it just doesn't. In "Goodbye to Language" it's the former that happens, but no thanks to the 3D, which stands as one of the best uses of the technology I have ever seen. It sustains a story that polarizes, but feels right given the the dazzling, brilliantly-colored images on display. Here's to hoping he shoots his next movie this way again. 3D and Godard go hand in hand. Who knew?
12) Sully (Clint Eastwood, 86)
Clint Eastwood is still making vital and relevant films in the twilight of his career. Case in point these two gems: "American Sniper" and "Sully." Both have the classicism of old-school Hollywood directing, and yet, they feel vital and current. The resonant theme that binds both is the cost of hero worship. Both films have male characters who feel isolated and flawed, despite being deemed heroes by those around them. In a career that spans more than 50 years in the director's chair, Eastwood proves yet again that he is a master at the game, honing his craft and, as Time's late great Richard Corliss would say, he makes it seem "as if the story is telling itself." Who else can pull that off these days?
15 Great Modern-Day Movies Shot in Black & White
Since the 1960s, movies shot in black and white have practically become extinct. The number of films shot in black and white has decreased every successive decade since then. And yet, sometimes a movie demands to be shot without color to capture a certain kind of mood or tone that color would otherwise fail to get. In the case of the following list, "modern-day" means anything produced after 1970, which is when the decline really started happening. The following 15 examples are further proof that black and white will never die, as long as there are directors and DP's out there willing to value and acknowledge its importance.
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