Welcome to our epic list of the best romantic comedies of all time… 50 of them. 50. Moonrise Kingdom (2012) Most of Wes Anderson’s films could be described as romantic comedies, but his 2012 effort stands out, as its central story focuses on young love and the need to find acceptance. In Anderson’s world, while …
Hannah and Her Sisters may be Woody Allen’s best film. It’s warm, funny, and decidedly poignant in both its themes and its execution. The film is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, and in honor of that, it’s time to take a look back at it and its relationship with one of Allen’s favorite subjects: death. Death …
Casino Royale Directed by John Huston, Val Guest and co. Written by Wolf Mankowitz, John Law and co. U.S.A., 1967 With the mad success of the James Bond films as produced by partners Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli and (Canadian) Harry Saltzman, which had run from 1962’s Dr. No to 1965 Thunderball, it was only natural for …
Cinema’s obsession with the idea of a perfect murder is quite grotesque. The macabre fascination only cements what Francois Truffaut once said, “Film lovers are sick people.” Perfect murders are a form of intellectual freak show, and Irrational Man, Woody Allen’s newest feature, tackles on the visual and physical allure of taking a person’s life. …
Ant-man hits theaters on Friday, and with its release marks the end of Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Phase Three kicking-off next May. Depending on how big of a Marvel fan you are, this news will come as either exciting, or painfully boring. A surprise appearance by Agent Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in …
Well we know that someone isn’t losing sleep over what will happen to Don Draper and company during the series finale of Mad Men this week. In an interview on Thursday with Deadline, acclaimed writer/director Woody Allen opened up about his move from movies to television after he signed a deal with Amazon earlier this …
Disney has become well aware that even releasing just the tiniest hint of news about Star Wars is enough to send the blogs into a feeding frenzy. One of those bad habits is studios staking a claim on a calendar date far out in the future. And they’ve now revealed that the release date for …
Sure, there have been countless articles detailing the debonair men that portrayed the world’s most famous superspy in Ian Fleming’s creation of Agent 007 (a.k.a James Bond). And of course there have been many debates arguing who is considered the best Bond of them all (yes…I concur with the majority of the Sean Connery census …
Through a series of staged reenactments from his life and from the city’s past, juxtaposed with anecdotes and trivia of varying degrees of believability, Maddin creates a hilarious, haunting, and kaleidoscopic survey of 100 years of Winnipeg, and how he relates to it all.
The drumbeat of filmmakers making their way over to television continues with one of the truly great directors of all time making his first ever foray into television in his near 50 year career: Woody Allen. Allen has been tapped to direct an untitled series for Amazon Studios to be released exclusively to Amazon Prime …
The film is unfortunately not up to par with the quality of Allen’s Midnight in Paris, which was partially set around the same time, nor last year’s Blue Jasmine.
From the stage to the screen, the director’s chair to the writer’s room, real-life jack-of-all-trades John Turturro channels his versatility in his latest feature, Fading Gigolo. As Fioravante, a sensitive florist and handyman who turns to the world’s oldest profession to help out a cash-strapped friend, played by Woody Allen, Turturro puts a lighthearted spin …
Deconstructing Harry Written by Woody Allen Directed by Woody Allen USA, 1997 Like many Woody Allen protagonists, Harry Block is neurotic, damaged, and unhappy. Plagued with writer’s block and haunted by a string of failed relationships, Harry is searching for inspiration and meaning in his life. As he faces the fact that his ex-girlfriend is …
Woody Allen has made a name for himself in film by writing and directing quirky comedies, that center on the neurotic behavior of his protagonists. Often, Allen was the neurotic protagonist (most famously in the multi-Oscar winning Annie Hall), but in recent years he has either kept himself to supporting roles or just behind the camera. With Blue Jasmine, we see a whole new kind of neurosis in the character of Jasmine (Cate Blanchett), a performance that does not call for classic Allen quirk, but a sad and heartbreaking descent into deluded madness.
So I’d gone over to my cousin’s house to see his new puppy and, as he and I are often wont to do, we got to talking about movies and TV and the like. The conversation drifted around to movies we liked but our kids didn’t. “I have Blazing Saddles (1974),” he said, nodding at …
Riffing on Terek Puckett’s terrific list of director/actor collaborations, I wanted to look at some of those equally impressive leading ladies who served as muses for their directors. I strived to look for collaborations that may not have been as obviously canonical, but whose effects on cinema were no less compelling. Categorizing a film’s lead …
People are constantly creating problems for themselves, problems that have to be solved and even some that can’t be solved. I’m no stranger to this self-destructive behavior. I made a list of classic films that I had never seen – that I should have seen – a shame list, literally shaming myself for my shortcomings. Completing this list isn’t too hard a task but nonetheless gives me a good incentive to watch the classics that I’ve ignored for years. Ironically, Woody Allen’s Manhattan is one of the films on The Shame List, and this neurotic tendency to create problems is the very premise of the film. For the eccentric characters in Manhattan, creating unnecessary, distracting problems serves as a way to avoid dealing with the more terrifyingly unsolvable problems of the world.
By now, young people scratching and clawing their way towards adulthood is a quintessential, clichéd story. The wide-eyed dreamer trying to make it in the big city is one of the hoariest tricks in the book, but Frances Ha is a welcome new variation on this theme, a striking and beautiful ode to youth and its many flaws. Headlined by Great Gerwig, Frances Ha is nothing short of a triumph, an endearing, unforced, and honest story of failures and frustrations.
Woody Allen’s magical realist, romantic comedy, To Rome with Love, is getting a Blu-ray release this week and thanks to Sony Pictures we have a copy to give away, along with a poster of Midnight In Paris, signed by Woody Allen himself. In order to enter, you simply have to like us on facebook or …
Paris-Manhattan Written and directed by Sophie Lellouche France, 2012 Concerning a Woody Allen obsessive, Paris-Manhattan borrows a central conceit from one of the man’s most beloved writing and acting efforts, albeit not one he directed himself. Instead of the apparition of Humphrey Bogart appearing to deliver advice like in Play It Again, Sam, Allen himself, …
Safety Not Guaranteed Directed by Colin Trevorrow Written by Derek Connolly USA, 2012 In the classifieds of a local newspaper, one ad reads: “Wanted: someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once …
Dorfman Directed by Bradley Leong Written by Wendy Kout USA, 2011 After her mother dies, Deb Dorfman (Sara Rue), a timid accountant, has to live with her perpetually grumpy father (Elliot Gould) in the San Fernando Valley. A hopeless romantic, Deb is irreparably enraptured with Jay (Johann Urb), her brother’s war-zone reporter friend. When …
Throughout January, SOS writers will be biting the bullet and finally sitting down with a film they feel like bad film buffs for not having seen already. Manhattan Written and directed by Woody Allen 1977, USA When people think of Woody Allen, most people think of the 1977 romantic comedy Annie Hall. It has the …