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Woody Allen,
Kirstie Alley,
Bob Balaban,
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Woody Allen
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: New Line Home Video
: Comedies
: 96 min.
: English, French
: English, Spanish, French
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Woody Allen wrote, directed, and stars in this very dark comedy about a novelist, Harry Block, who says with admirable honesty, "I'm a guy who can't function well in life, but I can in art." So far, Harry has made his way through six psychiatrists and three marriages (one, conveniently enough, with one of his psychiatrists), and he has precious few friends whom he hasn't alienated or betrayed. Harry uses the chaos of his life as fodder for his writing, angering his friends, lovers, and family, who find thinly veiled (and rarely flattering) portraits of themselves in his work. Drowning his growing misery in pills and sex, Harry finds himself invited to receive an award at a college in upstate New York which he attended, but never graduated from. However, he has a hard time finding anyone who will attend the weekend-long symposium with him: his girlfriend Fay (Elisabeth Shue) has just left him to marry his friend Larry (Billy Crystal); his best friend Richard (Bob Balaban) is afraid he's about to have a heart attack; his former wife/analyst Joan (Kirstie Alley) refuses to let him take their son, and his one-time sister-in-law Lucy (Judy Davis) is literally ready to kill him. Undaunted, Harry hires a hooker, Cookie (Hazelle Goodman), kidnaps his son, forces Richard to come along, and heads upstate, where disaster awaits. A stellar cast appears in small roles and episodes from Harry's stories, including Robin Williams, Demi Moore, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eric Bogosian, Amy Irving, Richard Benjamin, Mariel Hemingway, and Julie Kavner. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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| The Artist in Hell
by RJones3
November 12, 2008 - 10:29 AM PST
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1 out of 1 members found this review helpful
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| For those who love Woody Allen this movie will not displease. It has all of the elements that have made him a cinematic icon. If you doubt his artistic maturity, think back on movies like Bananas or Take the Money and Run, forgettable concoctions played mostly for laughs. Allen has clearly come a long way. Still, his movies virtually cry out for criticism, and there have been plenty of critics willing to weigh in. Roger Ebert, though generally admiring of this movie, offers the adjectives "vulgar, smutty, profane, self-hating, self-justifying, self-involved, tasteless, bankrupt and desperate." In truth, the artist in his eagerness for creative experiment has been known to try things that just don't work. Personally, I have never understood Allen's fascination with Ingmar Bergman. To me Bergman was insufferably self-indulgent, and without Allen's one saving grace--an unfailing sense of humor. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.84)
176 Votes
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