Another rainy day. I've bought groceries, and plan to stay in the rest of the day, hoping for better weather tomorrow. Yesterday my daughter, her boyfriend and I went to see Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris". I'm such a Stein devotee that I wanted to see Kathy Bates playing her, and she was delightful. The ringers for the famous artists and writers are mostly dead on and it's great to see them. It's a fluff of a movie, with Owen Wilson as the Woody stand-in, and he mumbles convincingly. Of course, Woody/Owen is a genius (even Gertrude Stein reads his manuscript and approves - what a writer's fantasy!) who has many beautiful women vying for his attention. But the cinematography is gorgeous - it's a love song to Paris. One odd thing: Woody/Owen ends up with a French woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mia Farrow, and she is in the last frame of the movie. What's that about?
Woody wears all his obsessions on his chest for everyone to see. The plot is his usual male fantasy of beautiful women, the younger the better, who appear ridiculous but willing to do anything for a mumbler. Right.
The most fun is watching male reviewers justifying their identification with Woody. Allen has not grown, though he is shrewd, and casts superbly. This time, at least, he is playful enough to attract an audience that is beyond his usual. A lot of people will have fun guessing who the ringers are and laughing at the parodies.
My husband won't see one of his movies, because Allens private life is so perverted. But occasionally I see a film of his or Polanski, though of the two, Polanski really has something to say, even though his vision is dark and corrupt. But I'm not comfortable doing it. We used to know a family that had their daughter in a private girl's school in Manhattan. Allen was a fixture there at the end of the day, ooggling the girls. I'm not sure what the difference is between him and a peeping Tom. Pathetic, and creepy.
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