Whatever Works, 2009

Slimey regurgitated comedy-like substance from the bowels of Woody Allen about an old genius who marries a much younger girl who was once his Asian stepdaughter named Soon-Yi Previn. Err.. sorry.. strike that. This is about a slimey old Woody Allen genius who marries a young hillbilly girl he finds on his doorstep swaddled in a bassinet, cooing.. ahh..no, wait, that's not right either. There's NO bassinet. That's just silly, so stop it. She's old enough for marriage, okay? I'm pretty sure. Let's see.. according to IMDb, Evan Rachel Wood was in the movie "Thirteen" at least 5 years ago making her..ahh, carry the one...making her over the legal age by.. mmm... by months. SEVERAL months, okay? So let's settle down, stop the insinuations - it's beneath you, really - and get on with the review: The acting is uniformily horrible, right down to the extras and unseen characters, but I'm not sure the source material they're reading COULD be acted well. In Act One the characters loudly announce their stereotypes, in Act Two they announce their abrupt life changes into totally different stereotypes, then in Act Three they announce that life's a crapshoot, the universe is an uncaring void, but the joys of the Marx Brothers makes life worth living so support your comic moviemakers. The End. Drive safely. Is this the same Woody Allen that made "Annie Hall"? It can't be the same guy, can it? Maybe I'm mixed up and it's a Woody Woodpecker picture. It's loud and annoying like a woodpecker. I'll have to check IMDb on that one. Anyway, I stuck with the whole mess because Larry David is funny in his improvisational show "Curb Your Enthusiasm". But with written lines he seems to just..what's the word?.. "exclaim" everything. It's not acting really, it's more like acting out. In any case, this movie gives off a strange vibe. The dialog is so stagey, and weird, that it seems like it must have been made that way on purpose. But why would a woodpecker do that? Terrible movie.

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When we walked into the theater, we had planned on seeing something else, but couldn't get in, so we took this as second choice, knowing almost nothing about it. We figured Woody Allen was more often worth it than not. This, even though my intelligent friend did not even know who Larry David was, and I have only seen about a dozen episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." To keep this one short, I will just say say that it is funny. Very funny. A fairly ridiculous New York comedy that had us frequently laughing out loud the first hour, then happily chuckling most of the last thirty minutes. The set-up is close to farcical: unlikely, exaggerated, even a bit cartoony, but it all has a realistic look, and the whole thing is about how even sour people like the cranky, perpetually-unsatisfied hero need love. (I said I was keeping it simple, hence the reductive analysis and generous-feeling high rating). And it offers pleasant, bright comic relief, although some people outside the urbancentric viewpoint may be slightly offended---but I saw this in a way-across-the-Hudson college town, and the full house all seemed to enjoy it. Four-plus stars, nearly five just for the fun of it. 7.09

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I'm looking forward to this! Larry David and Woody Allen!? This is quite possibly my most anticipated comedy film of all time! I hope they share writing cred as well...

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