Woody Allen Film Festival: HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992)

Woody Allen Extended Film Festival! (Remember, if there's one you particularly want us to watch, let me know!)

Husbands and Wives (1992). This is probably my favorite one. It has so many iconic scenes, and brilliant performances from at least six different actors. Mia Farrow is absolutely amazing in this movie at playing her psychotic self. Judy Davis's performance is legendary, nominated for an Oscar. Liam Neeson, Woody Allen, Juliette Lewis are all great, but the other legendary performance is Sydney Pollack. "So she's not Simone de Beauvoir, that's none of your business!" God this movie is great. Shot by Carlo di Palma, this movie is also interesting for its documentary feel; Allen really embraced the filmic zeitgeist of the time, almost exclusively handheld (compare that to Interiors where the camera does not move for minutes at a time!, natural lighting, and not only that, as far as I can tell this movie was the first to use the mockumentary sofa-interview with the characters that became very popular in the '90s and beyond).

Woody Allen is one of the greatest directors of all time. It's hard to overstate how great he is, emotionally deep, funny af of course, intellectual, and filmically creative. He made one or two movies EVERY YEAR from the seventies until recently, only slowing down in his eighties. I've chosen five to start us with, but we'll stick with him until we've seen all of them we want to.

The movies we'll be starting with, Manhattan (1979), Interiors (1978), Husband and Wives (1992), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and Blue Jasmine (2013), represent a good cross-section of Allen's output, the late '70s when he was creative output was on fire, the '80s/'90s when he was producing one consistently great movie after another, and then one much more recent one, when he has been less consistent but still sometimes great.

Most of these movies will be available on any streaming service, or as always you can find a (free) link here:

https://gregoryberry.net/woodyallen (Note: GoDaddy killed my website, so you're on your own until I rebuild it.)

We will meet on Friday, September 19, 2025, at 8PM, at LEANING TOWER OF PIZZA at 24th Street and Lyndale, same as always. See you there!