Word: allene
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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WRITERS: WOODY ALLEN AND MARSHALL BRICKMAN...
...feminist might argue that this proves the male is inherently less intuitive than the female. Or, more radically, that exploited womankind has better reason to be on guard than guys do. Woody Allen might argue that it is just plain funnier if supposedly ditsy Carol Lipton (Diane Keaton) insists there's something odd about the death of a neighbor while her husband Larry (Allen) patronizes her misgivings...
Though this is the least ambitious movie Allen has made in decades -- for better or worse the return to "pure" comedy his critics have urged on him -- he seems to have a little more on his mind than updating The Thin Man. For one thing, Double Indemnity, which he quotes directly and indirectly. For another, the classic New Yorker's ambivalence about neighbors; the Liptons lament not knowing the folks they see on the elevator, but they live in fear of being drawn into boring, alien lives...
...inspired passage. Allen and Marshall Brickman, the co-writer who worked with him so brilliantly in the past (Annie Hall, Manhattan), have concocted a steady stream of badinage that buoys the whole movie along. But these exchanges evaporate, and the movie is surprisingly flat visually. There comes a moment when you realize how wrong just being funny is for Allen. Ambition is an essential goad to his sensibility. It pushes him toward the rueful resonances of those previous Brickman collaborations and toward the magical transformations of reality in The Purple Rose of Cairo and Radio Days...
CINEMA Woody Allen returns to pure comedy in Manhattan Murder Mystery, but he seems distracted. King of the Hill takes a tough-minded look at boyhood during the Depression. MUSIC Clint Black sings radio-ready country pop that has a splash of introspection. From Britain's Gavin Bryars comes a minimalist milestone. THEATER That spunky orphan is back, but in Annie Warbucks, her appeal is much scaled down. BOOKS Showdown at Opal Creek is a clear, sensitive account of the timber wars in Oregon and the fate of the last old- growth stands...