Annie Hall - The Live Blog

Annie Hall: 1997 Romantic Comedy written, starring and directed by Woody Allen. Also stars Diane Keaton.

Movie opens with Woody, in quintessential Nerd mode, on the screen telling a Catskills joke. Then repeats a well-worn Groucho Marx quote: "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member." Neither would anyone else.

Into the movie. The "Woody" character as a kid, with his mom, at the shrink. Later on the bumper cars at Cony Island with Pops. This is intentional foreshadowing, as we'll see later.

Now in school. He's the adult Woody sitting in a Grade 3 class talking about dreaming about girls. Yuck. Inadvertent foreshadowing.

On The Dick Cavett Show. Tells an incomprehensible joke about dodging the draft. Guaranteed his own unit woulda fragged him.

Here's his mom, scolding him.

Adult Woody talking to his buddy about being sensitive about anti-Jewish sentiment. Painful. Less than 5 minutes in and it's already self-parody.

Woody meets a Teamster-type on the Manhattan street. The guy has seen him on the Tonight Show. Woody drops a Godfather joke. Hilarious. I spit up gabagoo through my nose.

Out of a cab pops Diane Keaton. They're bickering. I'm already praying for the terrorists to advance their plans by 26 years.

Famous scene at movie theatre:


Droll.

Woody gets into bed with Keaton discussing the Gestapo. Woody wants some, but there are no under-aged Asians so Keaton will have to do.

Flashback to when he met his first wife, Carol Kane, backstage at a dinner where he does his routine. The film wants us to believe he's charming her with his nebbishness. I'm surprised she doesn't have the FBI kill him. He makes another joke that is so inside, only the rabbi at Temple Ben Gurion would understand it.

Now he's in bed with Kane discussing the Kennedy assassination. "The Magic Lugie" episode of Seinfeld with Keith Hernandez was funny. This, not funny. Woody drops a "child molester" reference. Again, spookily prescient. Woody repeats that stupid Groucho Marx joke.

Back to the present with Diane Keaton wearing a hairdo reminiscent of Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo.

Keaton flashes back to her youthful love life. Doesn't prove anything except that the cost of film must have been relatively cheap in 1975.

Back to the present, Woody with a woman who's uglier than The Nanny. Now he's hiding in a bedroom watching a Knicks game, which gives him a chance to riff on the superiority of physical talent over intellectual talent. It's not funny and totally unnecessary to the plot. The Nanny's ragging on him. Woody wants to make out with her. They end up on a futon together talking about the Manson Family while she reaches for Valium.

Woody with his buddy at the tennis club discussing anti-Semitism. Foreskin reference. It appears this is the first time he's met Diane Keaton. There have already been more time-shifts than in the entire run of The English Patient.

After the match, Diane's wearing a Charlie Chaplin getup. They nervously work out whether they should drive home together. This is the point where I bailed last time. It was either that or suffer the fatal aneurysm.

But I'm nothing if not dedicated to my craft.

Diane drops off Woody. Drops a "Cossacks raped my grandmother" joke. Start talking about seeing shrinks. Up in the apartment, he discovers Keaton's sylvia plath book of poems. The Iron Man breaks through the roof of the apartment and crushes them both*

*not really.

Keaton relates a story about her grandfather dying in The Great War because he suffered from narcolepsy during the Battle of The Somme. Not sure whether it was a WWI punchline or a narcolepsy punchline.

Up on the rooftop drinking wine or bottled water. Keaton's giggling a lot. She must have been pounding a lot of colourful pills.

They make small talk. Subtitles show what they're really thinking. I know what I'm thinking: Would someone please murder the other so this movie could end.

Keaton invites Woody to the nightclub where she's onstage singing. She worries she sucks. Woody reassures her she doesn't.

Afterward, at the coffee shop. She orders a meal so boring that Woody raises his eyebrows. We all get what he means. She's a gentile. What a side-splitter.

They hop into bed, make out and smoke dope. Cutting edge stuff.

At the bookshop. He's focused on death. Shoulda focused on comedy.

In Central Park. Another mafia joke.

Under the lights of the Tri-Borough Bridge. They're in love. A guy wearing concrete galoshes floats by*

*not really.

Some time later they're in Woody's apartment. He's nervous because she's moving in. They bicker.

Now out in the countryside. Pointless. Back to the apartment. She's thinking about taking a college course. Woody drops a Beowulf reference. Francis Bacon is laughing his ass off at that reference. Keaton wants to smoke dope. Woody offers to give her a shot of sodium pentathol. No mention of Absinthe.

They try to make out. Keaton has an out-of-body experience.

In an office, some unknown Catskills comedian is hoping to hire a writer. He's pantomiming a horrible French cliche of a joke and asking Woody to write him some jokes along that line.

Now Woody's on stage telling more egghead jokes in front of a large auditorium. Existentialism. Mah-Jong. Suicide. He hits all the funny notes.

Dinner with Keaton's parents. Grandma looks Woody up and down and sees Fiddler on the Roof. OK, that was funny.

Woody breaks the barrier again, talking to the audience and then flashing back to his own family. Oy vey.

Back at Keaton's parents' house. Christopher Walken is Keaton's brother. He shows Woody his room. Holy shit, is he the creepiest/funniest man in show business, or what.



Walken stole the movie right there.

Daytime scene. Keaton and Woody are bickering. Biblical reference.

Keaton's talking about dreaming about Sinatra. I'm hoping the dream ends with Sinatra's friends making Keaton an offer she can't refuse.

Back to the street scene. Keaton jumps angrily into a cab. Woody starts talking to people on the street about their sex lives. Old man drops vibrator reference. Good-looking couple admits to being happily shallow.

Cut to cartoon where Woody's making moves on the Evil Queen in Snow White.

Back to the past where he's met Shelly Duval. They're at a Maharishi Yogi concert at MSG. Duval drops a Dylan and Stones reference. God she's ugly.

In bed with Duval. She uses the word, "Kafkaesque." I used to work with a guy and our running joke was to find a "Kafkaesque" reference in the media. Credit was also earned for finding "Dickensian" and bonus points for "Dickensian in scope." Reviews of John Irving novels were gold mines.

Woody and Keaton bickering again. Something about spiders. Woody grabs a tennis racket to kill it. Here comes some physical comedy. Buster Keaton is rolling over in his grave. He goes back to the bedroom and she's bawling. They promise never to break up. Movie goers all across America promise to never go see another Woody Allen movie.

Back to Woody's family in 1944. Pointless.

Keaton's birthday. Woody gives her lingerie. She hates it. Then he gives her a watch. Pointless.

Nightclub. Keaton singing again. Musical interlude. Let's me catch up on my spell-checking.

Oh, look who's here: Paul Simon. What a shmoe. Simon tries to "discover" Keaton. He introduces a couple of leggy broads, perhaps trying to establish his heterosexuality. Enormous credibility gap.

Spliced-in Nazi propaganda film. I don't get it.

Split screen, like The Thomas Crowne Affair, showing Keaton and Allen at their respective shrinks. This must have rung true with the Valium-popping 1975 crowd.

At a dinner party talking about snorting coke. Their pal cuts it on the mirror. Woody sneezes. HI-LARIOUS!

They go to California and drive around Beverly Hills. Because, everybody does that. Woody drops a "wheat germ" joke. I don't get it.

In post-production for a sitcom where they're adding the laugh track. Woody is dismissive. Now he's sick. Back at the hotel, he's still sick. Gordon Jump is the doctor. Turns out, Woody's faking so he can avoid having to tape the TV show.

They go to a swinging Hollywood bash, S.O.B.-style. Woody tells an energy-crisis joke. Gags ripped straight from the headlines.

Paul Simon's at the party. Or maybe it's his party. Are we supposed to believe that chick is his girlfriend? Come on.

Jeff Goldbloom's a guest at the party, talking on the phone. His walk-on line is, "I forgot my mantra."



Seinfeld These Pretzels Are Makin Me Thirsty via Noolmusic.com


The flight home. They aren't talking, but the audience hears their voices.

Back at the apartment. They're splitting up their shit.

On the street. He's talking to street people again. Kissinger joke. Shoulda bombed Manhattan instead of Cambodia.

Scene at a holiday house. Woody's wrestling with a lobster. The chick he's with doesn't get his joke, which is actually the only funny one so far: "I'm not myself since I quit smoking." "When did you quit smoking?" "Fifteen years ago."

Woody flies to L.A. to get Keaton, who moved there to spark her recording career. Woody trying to drive a 34-foot Cadillac. They meet for lunch at a vegetarian cafe. Keaton hits the mother lode: "You're like this island unto yourself." Full marks to Woody for writing such a self-aware line.

Keaton refuses to get back together with Woody. It's Grammy night. Woody drops an Adolph Hitler joke. Tries driving away. Bumper-cars a bunch of parked vehicles. Fumbles his license trying to hand it off to Ponch of the California Highway Patrol. Tasering would have been good right there.

His pal picks him up. He was in bed with 16-year-old twins. Another flashing red light.

Pal takes Woody to a rehearsal. Or maybe it's Woody flashing back. I dunno.

Flash forward. Woody runs into Keaton back in Manhattan. Bunch of cut-together scenes of their life together. I think we're supposed to look at them fondly. Romantic-like.

Woody tells another Catskills joke to explain his approach to relationships.

The end.

Proof that Oscar Doesn't Know Shit: Won 4 Academy Awards, including Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film. By my count: 1 1/2 funny gags. That's either a 1 joke/hour rate, or 2.67 Oscars per funny gag. Considering some of the painfully unfunny lines, Mia Farrow should have used the script in her custody battle with Woody. I'm surprised he was ever allowed to make another film.

Politically Incorrect Movie Review: Too "New York Jewish intellectual" and self-indulgent to amuse anybody outside of Manhattan.

You want insecure Jewish comedian humour (I can't watch this clip enough):


Seinfeld Rips Larry King - The funniest movie is here. Find it

You want a movie gag where gentiles don't understand a word but it's funny anyway:



You want funny Nazi references: