Two remembered scenes

Rating: 5/10 (5 September 2016)

One is when Marshall McLuhan makes a personal appearance. No memory of what he said. I saw this film several years ago, but could only remember this scene, and when Woody turns into a Rabbi at the Hall family dinner table. The jokes come thick and fast, but they are not really very funny. American one-liners. They don't travel well; and some are quite old and re-cycled anyway.
It's highly self-referential. Embarrassingly self-pitying, I fear. There isn't a lot different between this Woody, and the unfunny comic he makes fun of. He used to write jokes for other comedians, and I suppose that episode reminded him of the tedious, unrewarding business. What he's doing here is putting us, the audience, in the place of the psychotherapist, and then stretching out on a cinematic couch and telling us all his problems. In fact, that's what he says in the opening scene, when he addresses the viewer directly. But are his problems of more than passing interest to the world ? Reminds me of Two-Way Blacktop, where the hitch-hiker says he doesn't want to know about GTO's history.
Still, I did watch it all the way through. Perhaps I was waiting for it to improve. But it didn't. Critics have called it dated, although I don't associate it with any particular date. Other Woody Allen films that I've seen are streaks better. The Purple Rose of Cairo is a very good, inventive, moving example.