Rashel Novikoff Movies
Woody Allen's romantic comedy of the Me Decade follows the up and down relationship of two mismatched New York neurotics. Jewish comedy writer Alvy Singer (Allen) ponders the modern quest for love and his past romance with tightly-wound WASP singer Annie Hall (Diane Keaton, née Diane Hall). The twice-divorced Alvy knows that it's not easy to find a mate when the options include pretentious New York intellectuals and lifestyle-obsessed Rolling Stone writers, but la-di-dah-ing Annie seems different. Along the rocky road of their coupling, Allen/Alvy weigh in on such topics as endless therapy, movies vs. TV, the absurdity of dating rituals, anti-Semitism, drugs, and, in one of the best set pieces, repressed Midwestern WASP insanity vs. crazy Brooklyn Jewish boisterousness. Annie wants to move to Los Angeles to find that fame that finally does in the relationship -- but not before Alvy gets in a few digs at vacuous, mantra-fixated California. Originally entitled Anhedonia (the inability to enjoy oneself), Annie Hall blended the slapstick and fantasy from such earlier Allen films as Sleeper (1973) and Bananas (1971) with the more autobiographical musings of his stand-up and written comedy, using an array of such movie techniques as talking heads, splitscreens, and subtitles. Within these gleeful formal experiments and sight gags, Allen and co-writer Marshall Brickman skewered 1970s solipsism, reversing the happy marriage of opposites found in classic screwball comedies. Hailed as Allen's most mature and personal film, Annie Hall beat out Star Wars for Best Picture and also won Oscars for Allen as director and writer and for Keaton as Best Actress; audiences enthusiastically responded to Allen's take on contemporary love and turned Keaton's rumpled menswear into a fashion trend. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
- Starring:
- Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, (more)
An aspiring actor leaves his home in Brooklyn for adulthood in Manhattan in Paul Mazursky's loosely autobiographical comedy-drama. In 1953, would-be thesp Larry Lapinsky (Lenny Baker) flees his hysterically clinging mother (Shelley Winters) for a $25-a-month (!!) apartment in bohemian Greenwich Village. Between Method-like acting classes, a movie audition (where he meets a posturing actor played by Jeff Goldblum), and work at a juice bar, Larry hangs out with a circle of archetypal Village eccentrics, including suicidal Anita (Lois Smith), womanizing poet Robert (Christopher Walken), and flamboyantly un-closeted homosexual Bernstein (Antonio Fargas), as he negotiates the pitfalls of love and sex with liberated girlfriend Sarah (Ellen Greene). The fallout over the group's ill-fated love affairs, and the Lapinskys' inopportune surprise visits, finally lead Larry to make peace with his past as he contemplates his future in Hollywood. Mazursky looks back to the 1950s as in such other 1970s films as American Graffiti, Grease, and TV's Happy Days, but his Greenwich Village life is less a time of lost pre-'60s innocence than a precursor of things to come. Sex, Larry jokes, may be serious, but it is also an omnipresent fact of life rather than something to be feared or repressed; love is the real problem. Even as Larry's friends strike various poses, they are all out to do their own thing as best they can. Critical response to Mazursky's nostalgia trip was mixed when the film was released, but the performances, particularly Winters, were admired. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lenny Baker, Shelley Winters, (more)
In this 1975 adaptation of Neil Simon's stage play, director Herbert Ross presents the story of two old-time Vaudvillians played by Walter Matthau and George Burns in his first starring role since 1939's Honolulu. After decades apart, the cantankerous duo is persuaded to reunite for a television special despite the fact that they hate each other. Richard Benjamin co-stars as Matthau's nephew, who has the responsibility of making sure the comedians go through with the show and don't kill each other in the process. Nominated for four Academy Awards, Burns took home the statue for Best Supporting Actor. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Walter Matthau, George Burns, (more)
Adapted by Julian Barry from his own Broadway play, Lenny manages to be both brutally frank and highly romanticized in detailing the short life and career of influential, controversial stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce. The chronology hops, skips and jumps between Lenny (Dustin Hoffman) in his prime and the burned-out, strung-out performer who, in the twilight of his life, used his nightclub act to pour out his personal frustrations at great, boring length. We watch as up-and-coming comic Bruce courts his "Shiksa goddess," a stripper named Honey (Valerie Perrine). With family responsibilities, Lenny is encouraged to do a "safe," conformist act, but he can't do it. Constantly in trouble for flouting obscenity laws, Lenny develops a near-messianic complex, which fuels both his comedy genius and his talent for self-destruction. Worn out by a lifetime of tilting at Establishment windmills, Lenny Bruce died of a drug overdose in 1966. Director Bob Fosse chose to film Lenny in black-and-white, giving the film the texture of a documentary. Though a film as verbally graphic as Lenny could not have been made when the real Lenny Bruce was alive, audiences in 1974 responded, to the tune of an $11 million gross. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dustin Hoffman, Valerie Perrine, (more)
In Paul Mazursky's rueful character drama, 57-year-old Art Carney plays Harry, a 70-plus Manhattan widower who loses his tiny apartment to the wrecking ball. Accompanied by his pet, an aged cat named Tonto, Harry sets out on an odyssey to Los Angeles. During his journey, he finds a kindred spirit in a youthful hitchhiker (Melanie Mayron), who eventually finds happiness with Harry's grandson (Joshua Mostel). Harry makes stops at the homes of his grown children (Philip Bruns, Ellen Burstyn, and Larry Hagman), but each visit is more disappointing than the last; he also touches base with an old flame (Geraldine Fitzgerald), who has slipped into senility. By the time he arrives in L.A., Harry has become dispirited by his desultory visits with friends and family, but he eventually realizes that each new day can be a beginning rather than an end. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Art Carney, Ellen Burstyn, (more)
