Tag: Mark Evanier

Woody Allen is 75

Last month, TV writer Ken Levine wrote an open letter to Woody Allen, which suggested that Woody:
Take a break.

I have noted more than once that Annie Hall is my all-time favorite movie; moreover, it was commercially successful and critically acclaimed. Nominated for five Academy Awards for the 1977 season, it won four – Best Picture, Best Actress (Diane Keaton), Best Director (Woody Allen), Best Original Screenplay (Allen and Marshall Brickman), losing only Best Actor (Allen).

Yet, when making a list of his six best movies – ZELIG, PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, HUSBANDS AND WIVES, VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, BULLETS OVER BROADWAY, MATCH POINT – Annie Hall was not among them. Is it unreasonable to suggest that a director is mistaken about his own films?

I saw all the movies mentioned except Match Point; I can say that Vicki Christina Barcelona clearly does NOT belong on this list. I’d be hard-pressed to actually come up with my other five on a list – Hannah and Her Sisters, and Zelig, for sure, maybe Bananas, Broadway Danny Rose, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio Days, or even Manhattan if the parallel with his actual life didn’t creep me out so much.

Slate takes a crack at Copy-Editing the Culture: The Rise and Fall of Woody Allen, as Experienced Through His Punctuation.

Last month, TV writer Ken Levine wrote an open letter to Woody Allen, which suggested that Woody:
Take a break.
Stop making movies.
At least for now.
Please.
It’s time.
It really really is.
An interesting discussion ensued.

Read some interviews, some recent, some historic, that delve into Woody’s mind. Also, on May 6, 1971, Johnny Carson’s guest host on The Tonight Show was Woody Allen, whose guests included Bob Hope and James Coco.

Happy birthday, Woody. No matter how much I think you’re off your game, you provided me with great cinematic pleasure for many years.

John C. Reilly Would Really Understand Me

The Muppet Rowlf was a regular on the Jimmy Dean Show, sometime during its 1963-1966 run on ABC-TV


I’m watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart recently, miraculously only a couple days after the show aired. John C. Reilly, who I know best from the movie Chicago, was on, ostensibly to plug his new movie, Cyrus. But it is what he said about music, at about 4:20 of this clip, that really struck me. Seems that when he was a kid, when his mom or dad would say a word or a phrase, he would come up with a song to go along with it. I did/do the same damn thing!

And while we both realized it could be really annoying, it was not done for that purpose. It happened because that’s the way we connect the dots in the world. I was reading a cereal box recently, FCOL, and the first sentence was “Life is complicated.” IMMEDIATELY, I thought, “Why is life SO COM-pli-cated?” That’s a line from which uses the Stevie Wonder-penned song, because I haven’t yet SEEN that yet.
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I wanted to write about the singer Jimmy Dean, but needed an angle, and didn’t find one until I read this article. Of COURSE! The Muppet Rowlf was a regular on the Jimmy Dean Show, sometime during its 1963-1966 run on ABC-TV, which I would occasionally watch. So Dean hired Jim Henson early on. Here’s a dated bit between country singer and dog, a Rowlf ad for the Dean show, and an ad for a Rowlf doll; note the early version of Kermit the Frog.

The other thing about Jimmy Dean is his big hit, Big Bad John, and how near the end, when the line reads, “At the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man.” Yet I always hear something coarser, such as “a helluva man.”

If I ever had his sausage, I have no recollection.
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Crispian St. Peters died, best known for song called Pied Piper. But he also had a minor hit with Evanier gives details of the great artist’s life.

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