Woody Allen's New Movie

I haven't seen Woody Allen's "Melinda/ Melinda" yet, but I have heard mixed reviews of the film. I am looking forward to it since I have been very interested in exporing the blurry line between comedy and drama in my own work as Allen does in "Melinda/ Melinda". However, I have been losing faith in Woody the past few years. He hasn't made a really good movie since "Sweet and Lowdown" was released in 1999. But it looks like my worries might be over.

If you love films and don't visit Roger Ebert's website then you are doing yourself a disservice. This week he is posting direct from the Cannes Film Festival, and today he saw Woody's new picture, "Match Point". This is what he had to say about it:

" Oh, it was sexy all right, and violent. It was also literate, hard-edged and seductive in its story of an Irish tennis pro who settles in London, marries the boss’s daughter, impregnates the former girlfriend of his new brother-in-law, and then grows desperate at the thought of losing his big job and chauffeured car and the weekends in the country."

Ebert goes on to say:

"For years it was said that a Woody Allen picture cost $3 million and grossed $9 million, and then he got to make another one. 'Some of my films have never played south of the Mason-Dixon line,' he once told me.

"'Match Point' has a good chance, I suspect, of being his biggest box office success since 'Annie Hall' and 'Hannah and Her Sisters.' It’s commercial, it will wrap audiences in its grip, and yet it’s a Woody Allen picture."

That is great news for Allen fans, filmgoers, and me. "Annie Hall" and "Hannah and Her Sisters" are two of my all-time favorites. I hope Ebert is right. Now, I just have to wait until the film's American release.

Posted by Paul Hina at May 12, 2005 10:12 PM