Blog Archives

DVD: John and Mary (1969)

DVD: John and Mary (1969)

March 8, 2017 | By

This flawed but intriguing little film has been maligned a bit over the years as a forgotten dud, made about a year after three of the principles – stars Dustin Hoffman, Mia Farrow, and director Peter Yates – had achieved major box office stardom in The Graduate (1967), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), andBullitt (1968), respectively…

Read More

BR: Zelig (1983)

BR: Zelig (1983)

January 12, 2017 | By

Woody Allen’s Zelig drew plenty of attention for its bravura visual effects in which fictional Leonard Zelig (Allen, of course) and others were seamlessly blended with real newsreel and archival film footage, creative a perfect mockumentary that feels like some previously lost, one-time, feature-length Fox Movietone production that was initially aborted and later completed decades after the footage was discovered in some dank vault holding RKO oddities…

Read More

BR: Shadows and Fog (1991)

BR: Shadows and Fog (1991)

November 26, 2015 | By

Drawing from his one-act comedy play “Death,” Woody Allen expanded his Franz Kafka riff into an overt homage to German Expressionism, that moody film style characterized by shadowy B&W cinematography where daylight is barely seen,..

Read More

BR: Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, A (1982)

BR: Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, A (1982)

October 1, 2015 | By

From William Shakespeare’s classic play A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream of fairy dusted lovers true and accidental, errors in judgment, and wacky hijinks between various couples, to Ingmar Bergman’s variation Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) in which said hijinks are isolated to one extended night, we have another extrapolation from Woody Allen…

Read More

BR: Purple Rose of Cairo, The (1985)

BR: Purple Rose of Cairo, The (1985)

March 10, 2015 | By

Woody Allen’s gem of a fantasy is drenched in nostalgia for the era – Depression Era 1930s, the elegance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, warm woody tones, tweed outfits and caps, and the cacophony of street diners – but it’s probably most beloved for exploring the secret fantasy of many movie lovers: What would happen if a character you adored in a movie came to life?

Read More