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- Sat, 18:02: Just watched "the Echelon Conspiracy" a good thriller
- Sat, 21:21: Another film watched, "Fair Game" based on the true exposure of a covert CIA agent by the Bush administration circa the WMD fiasco
- Sat, 22:07: Writer's Block: One Captain to Rule Them all http://t.co/WFh3Oem7
- Sun, 06:39: Watched the DVD of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" last night. Probably why i missed all the tweets from the evening
- Sun, 06:42: Page 3 girls as a Titian painting http://t.co/pC9ROYG9
- Sun, 06:43: Getting back to walking our cities http://t.co/4qivA11D
- Sun, 06:45: Record wallets http://t.co/UeKRqda1
- Sun, 06:46: Japanese folkpsych http://t.co/Odgtb9Lp
- Sun, 06:48: Lost Can tapes found with Malcolm Mooney http://t.co/7oeAD1Bq
Apr. 1st, 2012
Phantoms and Romance
Apr. 1st, 2012 08:47 pmLast night I watched the DVD of Woody Allen's “Manhattan” , one of his most enduring films from the whole oeuvre.
On the heels of Annie Hall, the Oscar-winning romantic comedy that rocketed Woody Allen to the front ranks of American film-makers, Manhattan continued Allen's romantic obsessions in a slightly darker, more pessimistic vein.
Allen stars as Isaac Davis, a TV comedy writer sick of the pap he is forced to churn out and harbouring dreams of being the great American novelist. His love life is in barbed-wire territory: he is tormented by his second ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep), a lesbian who has written a tell-all book about their marriage, and he is dating teenager Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), to whom he refuses to commit, and keeps hinting that a breakup may be imminent.
Isaac's disillusioned (and married) best friend Yale (Michael Murphy) has begun an affair with the cerebral writer Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton). While Isaac makes a last minute, sink-or-swim decision to quit his job and devote all of his time to book writing, and neurotically moans about what the lack of a full time job will do to him ("My parents won't have as good of a seat in the synagogue," he moans. "They'll be far away from God... away from the action") Yale is crippled by his lack of resolve, as indicated by his inability to leave his wife Emily (Anne Byrne). Meanwhile, Isaac and Mary begin to fall for one another. Tracy then tells Isaac the basic truth that none of his hung-up friends and past lovers fully realizes: "You have to have a little more faith in people." Manhattan is both a seriocomic dissection of perpetually dissatisfied New Yorkers and an ode to the city itself, filmed in glorious black-and-white by ace cinematographer Gordon Willis, and set to a score of rhapsodic George Gershwin music.
It was so good I watched it twice.
Today has been a day of reading the newspaper, doing a mix CD and reading more of the Montaigne book.
On the heels of Annie Hall, the Oscar-winning romantic comedy that rocketed Woody Allen to the front ranks of American film-makers, Manhattan continued Allen's romantic obsessions in a slightly darker, more pessimistic vein.
Allen stars as Isaac Davis, a TV comedy writer sick of the pap he is forced to churn out and harbouring dreams of being the great American novelist. His love life is in barbed-wire territory: he is tormented by his second ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep), a lesbian who has written a tell-all book about their marriage, and he is dating teenager Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), to whom he refuses to commit, and keeps hinting that a breakup may be imminent.
Isaac's disillusioned (and married) best friend Yale (Michael Murphy) has begun an affair with the cerebral writer Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton). While Isaac makes a last minute, sink-or-swim decision to quit his job and devote all of his time to book writing, and neurotically moans about what the lack of a full time job will do to him ("My parents won't have as good of a seat in the synagogue," he moans. "They'll be far away from God... away from the action") Yale is crippled by his lack of resolve, as indicated by his inability to leave his wife Emily (Anne Byrne). Meanwhile, Isaac and Mary begin to fall for one another. Tracy then tells Isaac the basic truth that none of his hung-up friends and past lovers fully realizes: "You have to have a little more faith in people." Manhattan is both a seriocomic dissection of perpetually dissatisfied New Yorkers and an ode to the city itself, filmed in glorious black-and-white by ace cinematographer Gordon Willis, and set to a score of rhapsodic George Gershwin music.
It was so good I watched it twice.
Today has been a day of reading the newspaper, doing a mix CD and reading more of the Montaigne book.
I have also been reading some of the Phantom Of The Opera book my brother sent me. The story was written back in 1911 and inspired the famous silent film starring Lon Chaney .
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