Woody Allen just keeps churning them out. A year or two ago I was very worried about this, about how perhaps the great man was tarnishing his reputation with a series of sub-par pictures at the end of his career. Then I saw Vicky Christina Barcelona, which is just a good movie, and doesn’t require the usual excuse gymnastics I have to make for liking late period Woody. In fact, if the film had been rated R I might have thought it was flat-out great.
So the quality of that film combined with the general genius of Woody’s new star, Larry David, fills me with great hope for the next movie, which just wrapped (see, he churns them out). That film finally has a title, Whatever Works, and the Woodman talked a little bit about it with a Milwaukee paper. Whatever Works, Woody says, is “a slightly different one for me. It’s a blackish comedy.”
Which makes sense with Larry David in the lead. “He’s got a great thing of his own. He’s got a great, what would you
call it, sarcastic, sour or vitriolic, wonderful, wonderful, no
nonsense sense of humor.”
“I think I’m more illusory than him. Hes a stronger personality. I’m
more of a schlemiel, a dope. I would be the guy they would plant the
microfilm on and I would never know it, and I would be out there
wondering why people are shooting at me. Larry has a different quality.”