Veronica Radburn 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)
- 1968
Staten Island's Andy Milligan, notorious for 16-millimeter backyard horror projects -- often incorporating thrift-shop period costumes and plentiful fake-looking gore -- applies his signature brand of awfulness to the Ten Little Indians scenario with this amateurish whodunit. The plot requires six potential heirs to spend the night in their late patriarch's allegedly-haunted estate, after which the survivors (if any) will claim his inheritance. Before long, the guests are being murdered in a variety of messy (and unconvincing) ways, including impalement, decapitation, burning alive and bisection with a two-handed saw. The usual Milligan touches abound, from dead bodies seen breathing or blinking their eyes to four-tined pitchforks which somehow become three-tined when plunging through a victim's body. The entire scenario -- including the pleasant seaside setting -- was handled far more deftly in Mario Bava's excellent thriller Bay of Blood in 1971. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
- 1944
Shown as part of the Soviet Retro series at the 2000 Locarno Film Festival, Boris Barnet's 1945 film traces the fortunes of Varia (Irina Radchenko), a young girl who has lost her family to German bombs. Taking shelter with an elderly couple who are soon murdered by the Germans, she becomes a servant to the enemy, who are lead by the commander Balz (director Barnet). With three wounded airmen as her only friends, Varia struggles to survive and eventually helps the airmen to escape. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
- Starring:
- Irina Radchenko, Boris Andreyev, (more)
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