I rented one of my favorite Woody Allen movies last night. No, not Annie Hall<\/i> … but Manhattan Murder Mystery<\/i>. I don’t understand why this movie didn’t get more acclaim. It’s one of my absolute favorites of his films, and it makes me laugh OUT LOUD every time I see it.<\/p>\n
My friend Mitchell and I went to see it when it was out in the theatres, and completely were enraptured by it. It’s a rollicking ridiculous comedy, of the type they usually don’t make anymore.<\/p>\n
Here’s Berardinelli’s original review<\/a>. He opens with:<\/p>\n What happens when a bored wife thinks her kindly old neighbor commits a murder? Woody Allen attempts to answer the question in his latest cinematic endeavor, Manhattan Murder Mystery<\/i>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Diane Keaton (married to Woody Allen) becomes convinced that her mild-mannered smiling next-door neighbor murdered his wife in cold blood. Woody Allen, needless to say, tries to talk her out of her wild theories. But soon she is like a woman obsessed. She peers through the peephole any time she hears any noise out in the hallway, she wanders through her own apartment, theorizing outloud as Woody Allen rolls his eyes. At one point he pleads with her: “Save some craziness for menopause!” Alan Alda plays a mutual friend of Diane and Woody who gets caught up in her excitement. He is a kind of bitter recently divorced guy who holds a reaaalllly passive-aggressive torch for Diane Keaton. Anyway, he gets all fired up by Diane Keaton’s theories. Diane and Ted start to do stake-outs in front of random apartments that have to do with “the case”. Woody Allen thinks they are both loonytunes. His Upper West Side wife is on a stake-out. Diane and Alan Alda discuss “running checks” on this or that lead … but it’s all so funny because … uhm … “run a check”? You’re not a detective. How you gonna do that?<\/p>\n Other characters who join in the lunacy:<\/p>\n — Anjelica Huston plays an author whose book Woody Allen is editing. It is such a funny performance, what my friend Mitchell would call “sheer liquid bullshit”. She is self-absorbed, mildly hostile, aggressive, wears head-to-toe leather, and is kind of casually convinced<\/i> that she is the sexiest woman in the world. Such an amusing performance. She must have had so much fun.<\/p>\n — Joy Behar and Ron Rivkin play friends of Diane and Woody who somehow get caught up in “the case”. I love both of them.<\/p>\n Has anyone else seen this movie? It’s a comedy in the true Woody-Allen sense of the word. It’s ludicrous, it seems improvisational, but you know it’s not … People race around, hide under beds, behave in ridiculous ways …<\/p>\n But then at the very end, there’s somehow a deeper meaning to all of it. Also at the end there is a kick-ass scene in an old movie theatre, with broken mirrors, Lady From Shanghai<\/i> being projected behind the actors, everything reflected many many times over through the cracked discarded mirrors, a mirroring effect from the final standoff in the Orson Welles film.<\/p>\n What I really like about the movie (or one of the things) is that Woody Allen makes NO BONES about the fact that Diane Keaton is kind of mildly bored in her marriage, and “the case” is a way for her to keep her life exciting. You never get the sense she’s gonna cheat on Woody, nothing like that … but she has lines that literally go like this: “Are you still attracted to me?” Woody will say, “What are you talking about? Of course I am?” Diane Keaton sits, thinking about this, and then says, in a more excited way, “I wonder if Mrs. Haus knew that her husband was cheating on her!” Or whatever. Like – so obvious. Leaping from: “Are you bored wiht me?” to her obsession.<\/p>\n Diane Keaton is so funny. I’ve gone on and on about her before<\/a>, but one of the things I particularly love about her is that you never catch her acting<\/i>. Never. Her work is so alive that you can’t believe she’s saying words that were once on a page.<\/p>\n Her performances in Woody Allen movies (actually, most people’s performances in most Woody Allen movies) seem so spontaneous that people assume that most of it is improvised. Or that Woody will give a general idea of a scene (a la Christopher Guest in his movies) and then let the actors go to town making stuff up. But no – Woody Allen doesn’t use improvisation. All of that dialogue is written down. Which makes the spontanaeity of those movies even more remarkable.<\/p>\n Anyway. Manhattan Murder Mystery<\/i>. One of my favorites. If you haven’t seen it, and want a ridiculously fun and funny movie, I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n Just to see Anjelica Huston sashay around self-importantly in a black-leather suit, smoking and bragging casually about how she “put herself through school playing blackjack” … It’s not comedy of the “hahaha” kind, not obvious perhaps. But it’s the kind of comedy I love and respond to. Character-driven comedy. She is so hiLARious in this movie, even though she probably doesn’t have one overtly “funny” line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I rented one of my favorite Woody Allen movies last night. No, not Annie Hall … but Manhattan Murder Mystery. I don’t understand why this movie didn’t get more acclaim. It’s one of my absolute favorites of his films, and … Continue reading