Every Wednesday, FM writers Simon Columb and Brogan Morris write two short reviews on Woody Allen films … in the hope of watching all his films over the course of roughly 49 weeks. If you have been watching Woody’s films and want to join in, feel free to comment with short reviews yourself! Next up is Celebrity and Radio Days…
Simon Columb on Celebrity…
Celebrity is powerful. Leonardo DiCaprio, in 1998, was every teenage girl’s fantasy after Titanic and appearing in a Woody Allen film titled Celebrity was an inspired choice. It wasn’t a huge success, earning $5m in the US alone, but Woody took a step back and placed Kenneth Branagh in the ‘Woody’ role instead. Branagh is Lee, a novel-writer and journalist, divorcing his wife, Robin (Judy Davies) of 16 years. Running parallel to Lee’s midlife crisis is Robin’s post-divorce romance with Tony (Joe Mantegna) as we see their relationship slowly blossom. Comic turns and celebrity-cameos a-plenty (including actors from The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire and The Simpsons) but something is unbalanced. Allen said, with Manhattan, he shot it in monotone to romanticise the city. The monotone choice, with great cinematography from Sven Nykvist, seems at odds with the unromantic celebrity world. An intriguing and engaging context but standard romance.
Brogan Morris on Radio Days…
Radio Days, Woody Allen’s tribute to urban myths and the age of radio is, owing to its vignette structure, predictably hit and miss. It’d be an erroneous claim to say it’s greatly memorable, but it still features a couple of Woody’s better sketches (the romantic suitor taking the young narrator’s aunt out on a date, then losing his nerve when Orson Welles’s infamous 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast comes on the car radio, is a fine moment of Allen intermingling the fictional with the factual). There’s a sense, however, that Allen, drawing from memory (you can certainly feel the warmth of the nostalgia), expects us to relate more than we can; there’s some Perspex wall there, between you and the story, giving an impression you’re watching a re-enactment. Still, when it works, it works – keep an eye out for Larry David, Woody’s natural successor, in a small role as ‘Communist Neighbour’.
Brogan Morris – Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the young princes. Follow Brogan on Twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion.
Originally published October 30, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
