Screening Log
This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.
May 2006 activity
Total Log Entries: 54
- Adam (7)
- Andrew (0)
- Chet (0)
- Chiranjit (1)
- David (0)
- Eva (0)
- Evan (0)
- Ian (7)
- Jenny (2)
- Katherine (0)
- Leo (5)
- Megan (0)
- Rumsey (9)
- Teddy (0)
- Thomas (4)
- Timothy (0)
- Victoria (0)
Total Comments: 16
- Iraq in Fragments (0)
- The Running Man (0)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (7)
- Possession (0)
- The Late Shift (0)
- The Long Goodbye (0)
- Landscape After Battle (0)
- A double tour (0)
- The Damned (1)
- Good Night, And Good Luck. (0)
- Powder (0)
- Three Times (0)
- The Da Vinci Code (1)
- Time Walker (0)
- Days of Heaven (0)
- The Dark Corner (0)
- Mission: Impossible III (0)
- They Live! (0)
- One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing (0)
- High Fidelity (0)
- Tirez Sur La Pianiste (0)
- X- Men (0)
- Deconstructing Harry (0)
- In the Realms of the Unreal (0)
- Down in the Valley (0)
- Breaking the Waves (0)
- Hoosiers (1)
- Birth (0)
- The Curse of the Werewolf (0)
- Versus (0)
- Evil Dead II (0)
- The Best of Youth (0)
- The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (0)
- A Prairie Home Companion (0)
- The Asphalt Jungle (0)
- The Maltese Falcon (0)
- Mission: Impossible III (0)
- Repulsion (0)
- Trouble Every Day (3)
- Bambi (0)
- Mission: Impossible 3 (0)
- The Village (0)
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (0)
- Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (1)
- Overnight (0)
- Dig! (1)
- Gates of Heaven (0)
- The Outsiders (0)
- Mystery Men (1)
- Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (0)
- C.R.A.Z.Y. (0)
- The Empire in Africa (0)
- My Grandmother’s House (0)
- Psycho (0)
Full Archive
Advertisements
Deconstructing Harry / USA / 1998
Watching this and Annie Hall within a few days of one another, I was struck by the similarities- both use a combination of flashback and fantasy to tell a semiautobiographical story of Woody’s varied experiences with women, both raise questions of religion, love and death. It’s been said before that all of Allen’s films deal with essentially identical issues, but here the formal similarities add weight to the textual ones.
There is one key difference, and that is tone. Annie Hall is essentially a light film, airy and good natured despite the angst of its central character. Deconstructing Harry, on the other hand, is perhaps the most savage attack of self- hatred in American cinema. I remember contemporary interviews in which Woody desperately attempted to convince critics that this was just a story, a character, but we’re past that now. Made in the wake of his disastrous break up with Mia, in the full spotlight of media attention (the subject of his next film, Celebrity), this is a film about a man who recognises the horror his life has become, but refuses to lift a finger to change it. It’s a film about creative selfishness, petty obsession and nihilistic self absorption. Even the language is debased- hearing Woody Allen not only use but repeat the word ‘cunt’ is a deeply unsettling experience. The fantasy sequences are an excuse to show off the casting director’s undoubted skills, but celebrity cameos are incidental to this masterpiece of grand, epic savagery.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
15 May 2006 12:35 PM | Submit Comment