Will Justin Bring Sexy Back to Woody Allen Movies?
Friday, July 8, 2016 at 9:30PM 
Eric on strange casting news. Justin Timberlake will be joining the cast of Woody Allen’s upcoming 2017 film (as yet untitled). He'll join Kate Winslet, Jim Belushi, and Juno Temple. If that isn’t one of the weirdest casts for any movie, let alone a Woody movie, I don’t know what is. It’s funny imagining those four people in the same room together, let alone the same film.
Woody has had the most unpredictable decade, delivering some of his best (Blue Jasmine, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris, Match Point) and some of his worst (Irrational Man and Magic in the Moonlight), and you just never know what you’re going to get...
As Woody has gotten older, his movies seem to work best when he traps a few characters in a hermetically-sealed universe where “real life” doesn’t exist outside of what we’re seeing. Irrational Man was particularly painful when 80-year-old Woody tried to present a believable present-day college campus environment, complete with dialogue nobody would actually speak. I pray we will one day get a Woody movie where someone doesn’t use the phrase “make love” because what creepy person says THAT?
There’s no log line for Woody’s upcoming film at this point (simply “a drama set in New York City in the late 1950s”), so we can only fantasize about what those four actors might be doing in the same movie city. It’s thrilling that Winslet will finally get to work with Woody (she was set to play the Scarlett Johansson role in Match Point before she pulled out), especially since we have her back in Great Actress mode after her killer performance in Steve Jobs. The best we can hope for is that Woody has written her a gigantic role like Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine, where she'll scale huge heights. Dear Mr. Allen: it would be a mega-bummer to finally get Winslet and not give her center stage to climb some walls.
As for Timberlake, there's talent and genuine star charisma but not much performance-wise that exists beyond"showman". His performance in The Social Network worked so skillfully because we wondered how far Sean Parker was from the actual Justin Timberlake: the seductive flash of both is merciless. His other work, in films like Inside Llewyn Davis and Bad Teacher, but will anyone ask him to do some deep-digging.
Will next year's Woody Allen be a Jasmine or an Irrational? What do you make of the casting?
Reader Comments (12)
Irrational Man worked for me until the ending. You think making love is creepy I guess to you fuck is sweet. I suspect this will be pure ensemble without the anchor of a lead role.
With these four? I hope it's just a remake of "God of Carnage". Particularly since that would mean someone other than Allen wrote it.
I hope Winslet gets a nice meaty role, but I can't help pointing out that this is another all white cast from Woody Allen. Lives in New York his whole life and somehow didn't notice the city is multi-cultural and multi-racial.
Allen said he does not hire black actors unless the role calls for it. He also said he only hires the right actors for the part regardless of race. I suspect he's scared of black people. Both black men and women have horrible stereotypes about them being temperamental. And the white supremacist gaze sees black rage as the most horrifying above all other racial groups.
With Cafe Society having good (Albeit not great) reviews, this project can be great or be a full bust (Most likely that, considering the line of Allen's films).
It's the strangest cast I have seen in a while.
Timberlake is not that sexy anymore. If he were a woman there would be dozen articles about it.
When acting in movies, Timberlake is a dead weight. He is unaware of anyone outside himself, and doesn't give the other actors anything to work with. He doesn't add anything original to his parts.
And I don't think he's ever been "sexy". Eeww.
Adri, totally agree.
Even on SNL, where even non-Timberlake fans give him props, he is always just a bit too "on" and self-lovin' for my tastes...
I would still hop on it. But Woody is so erratic and Kate will have to be an indispensable lead.
I find him so unappealing.
I've heard several people use the phrase "make love" whats the alternative? fuck? bang? slide it in? Why is it that Woody Allen can molest and marry his own adopted daughter and continue to make movie after movie and Bill Cosby is being burned at the stake, in my opinion, Woody's filmography isnt filled with enough "hits" like Blue Jasmine, Husbands & Wives, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Manhattan. Too many shit movies.
With these four? I hope it's just a remake of "God of Carnage". Particularly since that would mean someone other than Allen wrote it.