Words and Pictures

Rating: 8/10 (30 April 2013)

Love and Death. The two title words announces the often muses of Sir Woody and this Movie is of two minds. The Intellectual, Philosophical head banging that are always amusing coming from the befuddled bean and prolific pondering of the Writer/Director/Star and the slapstick shtick that the bumbling Auteur so loved.
This is as much Marx Brothers and Bob Hope as Tolstoy, Dovetsky, and Bergman. Woody has read War and Peace and is still angry for putting himself through it. But this spoof layers it on so thick that it is a juicy joy to behold. It is deliriously deep as well as silly and ridiculous.
It is more fun than it ought to be considering that most of the literary references will go unnoticed. It is a hilariously profound and prickly Picture. The Genius here is that there literally is no time to contemplate the contemplations.
An overlooked aspect of the Film is just how good it looks. Woody Allen is never mentioned as a great Director of Cinematography because, frankly, it matters little in most of his work. But here it is quite impressive. It has a visual style worthy of the best stylist. Just another feather in the cap that rests on the head of the most heady Comedic Filmmaker of his Generation.