Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Director: Woody Allen
Writer: Woody Allen
Cast: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Katy Bates,Nina Arianda
Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Romance

Premise (spoiler free): A disillusioned Hollywood writer dreams of living in Paris in the 1920s, writing a great novel and meeting his literary heroes. At midnight he goes back in time and does just that.

Review: The film starts off with a black screen and a voice, it's Owen Wilson's voice and I think to myself, 'ugh...not the guy from Zoolander.'...I prepare to endure the film....But within 10 minutes I'm liking it! Midnight in Paris is a nice little fun film with a neat premise... what if you could go back to the past to visit your 'golden age', would you?

The golden age is a dream of nostalgia for some distant time in the past. For Gil (Owen Wilson), it's Paris 1920's among the 'lost generation' of American expatriates, writers and other artist. At midnight each night, a 1920's touring car rolls up and whisk Gil away to the Paris of 1920's. There he meets: F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Dalí and more. But most notably Gil meets Picasso's girlfriend and falls head over heels for her.

Woody Allen does fantasy well in the film. He focuses on the people and the moments. He doesn't waste film on trying to explain the 'what ifs' of time travel, as it's unimportant to the story.

It's a great premise too. I liked seeing all the famous artist and 1920's Paris. Owen Wilson makes a great Woody Allen and shines in the role. Yes once again Woody inserts himself into the movie via the character of Gil, but this time I don't object, as Owen makes a good young Woody facsimile.

Production Stuff: The 1920's Paris sets and costumes are nicely done, very believable and great to look at it. The scene lengths, the composition, the direction, everything is very nice...except the damn yellow tint. At times Gil's blonde fiancee (Rachel McAdams) actually had yellow hair. Still this film made me smile and I do recommend it.

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I'm glad you enjoyed the film, it also has a great message. The fact that everyone seems to want to live in a golden age, no matter what time you live in. You have to accept that the present is the only golden age you can live in.

But I'm happy you liked it! It isn't a masterpiece by any means, but its a film that puts a smile on your face like you said.

Midnight in Paris is my first (and still favorite) Woody Allen film. It's just the right combination of intelligent and quirky to be more than a mere romantic novelty (something that I think that Annie Hall tried, but ultimately failed, to pull off).

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Arcanis' 100 Favorite Films: 2015 Edition

Glad you finally liked one Citizen. I think if you liked this you should also give Purple Rose Of Cairo a try. Its great and definitely playing in the same sandbox as Midnight.

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Glad you enjoyed it, but Owen Wilson is NOT in Blades of Glory.

Ahhh....you're right he's not in that one....thanks

Arcanis, I'll probably check out Annie Hall one of these days. I have 2 more of his movies to watch in the next couple weeks.

Sean, I will add Purple Rose Of Cairo to my watch list. I'm not sure when I'll get to it. I want to explore a different film maker for awhile. Maybe Jim Jarmusch, I seen one of his films last night. I'll review it latter.

It's good, but not as good as its reputation suggests, and generally more awkward than insightful. Allen the director strikes me as being better than Allen the writer.

So far in the Woody Allen films I've seen...I'd say he's an excellent director but not such a great writer. I never feel like I'm part of the story. I never feel like his characters are fully fleshed out. So far the best characters were in Midnight in Paris, (though I haven't seen all of his films)

Woody Allen has 16 Oscar nominations for best screenplay and has won three of those. He has seven Oscar nominations and one win as director too.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

That's a pretty impressive win record. Do you know which films he was nominated for? and won? So far I have not liked his writing much in the few films I've seen.

Woody Allen Awards

Thanks

I'd liked to thank dadgumblah for suggesting the next movie that I'll review.

I'm going to make it a real short review. I'm not sure how many people are reading my reviews.
If anyone has any questions about any of the movies in my reviews, ask me...I will be happy to elaborate

What movie is up next?

Night on Earth (1991)

Director: Jim Jarmusch
Writer: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Winona Ryder, Gena Rowlands, Lisanne Falk, Rosy Perez
Length: 129 min
Production: Indie
Genre: Drama-Comedy

Premise: (spoiler free) An anthology film telling the story of five different cab drivers in five different cities, all on the same night.

Review: An interesting little indie film by Jim Jarmusch. Night On Earth tells five different stories, mini-movies, of five different cab drivers and the unique passengers they pick up. This was shot semi-documentary style and on location in the five cities:
Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, Helsinki.

As with other Jarmusch films, the director takes care to shows us real life slices of urban decay as the cabbies travel down the actual streets of the towns that are being portrayed in the film. Even if you don't care about the movie you will see interesting sights from places you might never visit.

But the five different anthology stories are worth watching! Each is very different, but all take place in a cab. Most of the actors used for the Paris, Heliski and Rome sequences are natives to those cities, which adds to the authenticity of the movie. Those sequences are in French, Italian and Finish, with English sub titles. Indeed it feels more like an exotic cab ride, than a movie. That's a good thing.

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The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Director: Orson Welles (uncredited)
Writers: Sherwood King (novel), Orson Welles (screenplay)
Cast: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders
Length: 87 minutes
Production Co: Columbia Pictures
Genre: Film Noir

Premise (spoiler free): Michael O'Hara (Orson Welles) is an Irish seaman who has a chance encounter with Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth). Elsa is the beautiful wife of a powerful and dangerous lawyer, Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane). O'Hara is hired as a crewman aboard the lawyer's yacht. They sail from New York through the Caribbean to Mexico. But Michael O'Hara has a duel job as a would be assistant to Mrs. Bannister, or so he thinks.

Review: When Lady From Shanghai first came out in 1947 it was a flop. The audiences didn't like it, neither did the critics and it didn't make money either. The film was then mostly forgotten. Some years later Truman Capote wrote that he admired the film....At that point Lady From Shanghai began to move from flop to classic.

What might have been?...if only Orson Welles' vision for the movie had been released. Orson's rough cut of the film was 155 minutes. At 2 1/2 hours, Columbia Picture executives considered the film too long and ordered it cut to 90 minutes. Welles' then sent detailed instructions to the film editor on how and where to edit the film. Sadly his wishes were ignored.

What we get today is a choppy film with an hour missing from it. If one watches the film closely you can see where some of the scenes were shortened. At two different times there's a sloppy splice. One is a close up of George Grisby (Glenn Anders) towards the beginning of the film, he's in a car with Orson, if you watch closely the film jumps where the splice is. Latter in the film it happens again. Orson was too much of an artist and perfectionist to have allowed this to happen, so the blame isn't his.

In several places, most notably on the yacht, the scenes are choppy with quick edits, the scenes feel unfinished. Once again the editing was out of Orson's hands. The most famous cut to the film is the fun house mirror scene. We can only guess at the symbolic, cinematic achievements Orson made here, what we can see of the fun house scene is potent.

Much of Orson's trademark cinematography is apparent in the film. The spy glass triple diffuse to Rita Hayworth via a closeup of Glenn Anders is amazing!

I'd give Orson a 5/5 for the material he shot, BUT I have to review the film I seen, the cut and chopped version.

Orson deserved better than the treatment he received in Hollywood. After The Lady from Shanghai he retreated to Europe. He would make only one more major Hollywood film, Touch of Evil.

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I wish we could have seen Welles' version of The Lady from Shanghai. The movie has a great story with so much potential. I just wish he hadn't used that annoying Irish accent.

This was the second time I seen it. The first time his accent really bugged me. This time after about 15 minutes I forgot about it.

I've never read the reason why Orson choose an Irish accent but I think I know why he did...His character is a somewhat naive, 'take life as it comes' guy. Orson has one of the most distinct voices. By using a higher pitched Irish accent he hoped to de-Orson the character so that the audience would see Michale O'Hara and not Orson Welles.

"When I start out to make a fool of myself there's very little can stop me." That quote is the heart of Michale O'Hara but the antitheses of Orson Welles.

Yeah, it makes his character sound like he's not the brightest crayon in the box. He can't be the smartest person anyway to sign a false confession, but the accent just makes him sound worse.

I'm sure there were other ways to not sound like Orson Welles that would have been less annoying than that Irish accent.