Wednesday, January 07, 2004
(9:33 PM) | Anonymous:
What I Wouldn't Give for a Large Sock with Horse Manure in it
So, I was going to write this wonderful theological post, but the pizza man came and ruined all sense of the divine with his musty smell and dusty look. Also, the fact that Oklahoma always charges for "Delivery Fees" meaning they tell you 9 something on the phone, and charge you 12 something, plus tip at the door since the delivered it, rather sucks. I really don't remember that happening in Illinois, where I ordered a down-right hateful number of pizzas, or Flint, though Flint could be attributed to it usually being my parent's money. Am I making things up?
Anyway, this, I must admit, is simply a post to get back in the habit of posting regularly. I hate to do it to you, but I'll never post anything worth reading if I don't sludge through these times where my mind is on standby. So, consider it sort of like Anthony's post where he talked about doing the Nietzche series: basically, if I wanted to avoid all this typing I could just type "This is a post to let you know I'll be making a post previewing an upcoming post tomorrow". This is not a shot at Anthony, at least he has a plan, a Road Map to succesful blogging.
Anyway, I wanted to speak a little about Annie Hall. I've always avoided Woody Allen movies for some reason. Fans of the movies seem to carry the same stigma as Trekkies and X-Philes. However, as someone who's been to both Star Trek and X-Files conventions, that alone shouldn't have turned me off. Maybe it's just that I pretty much know what's gonna happen - man, this guy sure is nervous, wow, funny one-liners..boy he sure hates LA, wow he sure loves New York, he sure has trouble with women....etc.
But, I saw Sweet And Lowdown on IFC a while ago, and really loved it. Any movie that can reference that Gypsy-Jazz king Django Reinhardt so much automatically wins my heart. So, when it came time to make my Netflix Queue, many Woody films made the cut under the 500 movie limit. Annie Hall was the first to actually be sent to me though.
It's basically about everything I said I was wary about Woody Allen movies for, but, it's great. It's titled a Romantic Comedy, but, I'm pretty sure my mom would hate it, and not just for the drug use.
But, really, beyond a basic review, there were a couple scenes that really stuck out to me, so I think I'd just like to briefly mention them and then be done.
Okay, first, there's this one scene where Woody's character Alvy is walking down the street asking random couples about how they are happy, which leads to this:
Alvy Singer: Here, you look like a very happy couple, um, are you?
Female street stranger: Yeah.
Alvy Singer: Yeah? So, so, how do you account for it?
Female street stranger: Uh, I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say.
Male street stranger: And I'm exactly the same way.
Alvy Singer: I see! Wow! That's very interesting. So you've managed to work out something?
Seriously, is this the only way it can work? I was a lot more shallow in high school, as far as I couldn't give a piddle for philosophy or theology or really anything that didn't involve sports, video games, or some how having an opportunity to make a fool of myself. I mean, I simply didn't think terribly much, and yet, I was, seemingly a lot happier, definitely had a lot more fun, and as far as I can tell was more attractive to The Other Gender. Maybe the old Jars of Clay line is right, "Blessed are the shallow, for depth they'll never find." Why the heck does everything that seems to actually mean something have to make me terribly dull, anal, and generally a jerk?
Secondly:
There's this great part the whole time Alvy and Annie Hall are waiting in a movie line. Seriously, I've never wanted something to be more real in my life. There's a pseudo-intellectual trying to impress a girl on an (assumed) first date, going on and on about the most high brow poser-fied crap..the kind of guy we've all overheard behind us somewhere - an art museum, a movie, a classroom - I sincerely trust you know the type.
In the end, Woody approaches the screen and, to us, asks "What do you do when you get stuck with a guy like this in the movie line behind you?" The moron then also approaches the screen to defend himself by stating that he teaches courses at Columbia, and thus his insights into the work of Marshall Mcluhan should be heard and appreciated by all. Woody then says "oh really?" and proceeds to produce Marshall McLuhan himself from the side, and Marshall berates the pontificator by saying something akin to "You really have no insight into my work, your shallow sketchings miss the entire point of everything I have ever said, and how you came to be a teacher of anything is really pretty amazing.."
If only real life were like that...
Seriously folks, it's an older movie, and the romantic comedy tag might make you think it's totally cheesy, but..come on, we still listen to The Wall even though it has a song entitled "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives", don't we?
