Annie Hall

*Talky romcom with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton is consistently amusing* A twice-divorced neurotic stand-up comedian in New York City (Woody Allen) details his perspective on life and his relationship with the scatterbrained Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The best movie I’ve seen by Woody Allen is the excellent “Match Point” (2005), but that was a crime drama/romance/thriller whereas a lot of his films are talky romantic dramedies, which is the case with “Annie Hall” (1977), winner of Best Picture and other awards at the AA. Was it worthy of all the accolades and does it hold up? Well, I laughed consistently if that tells you anything. The movie uses techniques that were probably innovative when it was released in 1977, like Annie’s immaterial essence doing something else why her body’s in bed with Alvy (Allen). The dialogue-driven approach is refreshing (today, that is) and the way Alvy sometimes breaks the fourth wall is amusing. I also enjoyed seeing the mid-70s period in the background, like “Messiah of Evil” (1973) on the marquee and a billboard featuring DESTROYER-era KISS. The film runs 1 hour, 33 minutes and was shot in New York City & Long Island and the Los Angeles area. GRADE: B

Stand-up comic "Alvy" (Woody Allen) has a lively history with the women in his life. His marriages - of which there have been two - have all ended rather suddenly, as has his latest dalliance with the eponymous singer (Diane Keaton) who won't have sex with him unless she gets high first! Now this latest failure perplexes him. He thinks that over the years he would have managed to iron out the frailties in his character and so, by now, be able to retain the affections of a woman. What keeps going wrong? Woody Allen did pretty much everything on this production so is able to well focus the self-deprecating Jewish humour that threads through the feature as well as using the retrospective nature of the story telling to quite amusingly but also entirely plausibly assess not just "Alvy" but what scenarios from his life, loves, upbringing and choices helped mould the man into that rather flawed creature we now see before us. At times it is a little wordy, and he does recourse to in-jokes once or twice too many, but for the most part this is a confidently pitched double-hander with two actors who have an unique sort of on/off on-screen chemistry that makes this an engaging and enjoyable ninety minutes that might well ring true in many a bedroom.