Hey folks. Michael C. here. There are few constants in my pop culture life. Woody Allen is one of them. The last time a year passed without a Woody Allen movie was 1981 when I was one year old. Like The Simpsons or SNL, I don't pay nearly as much attention as I used to, but I take a great comfort in knowing they're always there and always will be. I'd be lost if they ever went away.
The past eight years of Woody. How many did you see? Enjoy?
So I'm on board no matter how many Jade Scorpions he compulsively cranks out from now until eternity. I'm already picking through the just released details of his 2013 film, Blue Jasmine, if only in the hopes that my annual pilgrimage will be a brilliant Crimes and Misdemeanors or at very least an entertaining Vicky Christina. At this point there is no more than a title, a cast list, and a brief synopsis, but I already spot some reasons to be optimistic that this might be Good Woody Allen or at least what passes for Good Woody ever since the 00's showed just how painful Bad Woody could get.
1. The synopsis released by Sony Pictures Classics reads...
the story of the final stages of an acute crisis and a life of a fashionable New York housewife.”
Hopefully this is a sign Woody is back writing terrific complex women and that the awful one-note shrew Rachel McAdams played in Midnight in Paris was a fluke and not the new rule. The main female cast members are Sally Hawkins and Cate Blanchett, and they are both deserving of a Hannah and Her Sisters level role.
2. The cast list does not include the director himself.
3. After three films abroad he's back home in New York City. Now you might say that the last time he followed up a European sojourn with a New York flick it was the horrendous Whatever Works, and that Woody can relate to present day Big Apple about as much as a time traveler just arrived from the Bronze Age, but guess what? I didn't hear you! I was too busy watching my Manhattan blu-ray with the volume turned all the way up.
4. Louis CK appears in the film, which is all I need to get me excited about a project these days. Not only is Louis currently in creative zone where he can do no wrong, but as the reigning NY based comedian-auteur he is the closest thing Woody has to a successor. It feels right that they should collaborate. The rest of the cast list: Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Peter Sarsgaard and Michael Stuhlbarg.
5. The last time Woody had a color and a plant in the title it was called Purple Rose of Cairo and it was a masterpiece.
So that's all we have to go on for now. In lieu of any production stills from this movie please enjoy this pic from the recent PBS Woody Allen documentary of a young Woody boxing a kangaroo
