Why I Stopped Going to Woody Allen Movies

My reasoning has fuck all to do with his private life. Serious.

Last night The Amazing Bob and I popped Hannah and Her Sisters into the movieola. We hadn’t seen it since it first came out back in 1986. I’d forgotten that the flick really prickled me back then.

It opens on a big Thanksgiving dinner in a palatial Upper East Side pre-war style home.

Jesus, the opulence! Hannah’s (played by the execrable Mia Farrow) struggling actress sister Holly, (Dianne Wiest, who I love) has started her own catering biz to float her until she gets her big Hollywood/Broadway break. Holly’s hitting Hannah up for another wee loan of a couple grand. Asking makes her feel bad but Hannah’s rolling in it, feelin’ no financial pain whatsoever—she’s Holly’s safety net.

Must be nice to be able to start your own catering company while waiting for artistic dreams to be realized. Who needs to waitress or be a singer of birthday telegrams when you’ve got a rich family to spot you the stray wad of dead presidents?

By the by, those 1986 two Gs would be close to $4,000 today. Must be way more than just nice to have wealthy and generous relations, eh?

Also, that Upper East Side  apartment?

From a 1984 New York Times write up:

The standard three- bedroom apartment in such a building contains, besides the bedrooms and their adjoining baths, a drawing room, a dining room, an entrance gallery, a big kitchen, a pantry, two small maids' rooms and a maids' bath. Some also have a library and a servants' hall. In fact, they are the equivalents of spacious houses stacked one on another in 12- to 15-story buildings. 

In today's overheated co-op market, most such apartments sell for $1 million or more. The maintenance charges range upward from $18,000 a year.
...snip...
The few rentals that remain are hard to find and cost a minimum of $3,500 a month.

That $3,500 1984 rental would be $6,700 or so today. Each month! That's your rent, due on the first of each and every month!

You wanna own, not rent? The million dollar baby co-op/condo of 1984 might run, bare minimum, $2 mil in 2014 cabbage.

Check out this lovely modern crib at 40 E 80th Street—1,952 square feet, three bedrooms and baths. Def not a closet and available for a paltry //snort// $2,100,000.

One of the older, Park Avenue type joints, ya know, with the mega important servants quarters? Well, mon ami, that'll put you in the mega Benjamin zone.

This five bedroom/five bath old school posh set up at 960 Park Avenue is on the market for $18 mil.

So yeah, I couldn’t relate in any way, on any level to his characters. They live in an utterly alien world. Their struggles romantic, familial, existential and financial will never be mine. Their conflicts seem, to me anyway, to be the sort folks with no troubles make for themselves.

Other reasons for eschewing his movies?

• I can’t stand Mia Farrow. Dunno why really. I’ve just never ever liked her acting, her style or looks. She's always seemed famous much more for her parents (John Farrow and Maureen O'Sullivan) and who she married (Frank Sinatra, André Previn ) than for any innate talent. Diane Keaton had talent—Farrow had tics.

• I could never, EVER, buy Allen as a romantic figure. He was nebbish incarnate. Skinny, homely, always portrayed as a pro level worrier—yes, he was intelligent but engaging characters have to be built on more than smarts. Maybe that's just me.

• And finally, I stopped finding his films terribly funny. I guess that’s what it came down to. I agree with the Martian in Stardust Memories, who said “I liked your early, funny films.”

No, no, that’s not true. I enjoyed Husbands and Wives, Crimes and Misdemeanors and Shadows and Fog. Still, I preferred the comedies, the ones which focused on more than just the trials of the über wealthy.

Bullets Over Broadway is the last film of his that I watched. I remember it being amusing but I was done. Woody Allen was over for me.