Navigate to News section

Woody Allen’s Rarified Palate

Leaves the director clueless about a lot

by
Sara Ivry
June 29, 2009
Woody Allen attends the premiere of Whatever Works at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22, 2009(Getty Images)
Woody Allen attends the premiere of Whatever Works at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22, 2009(Getty Images)

As Woody Allen’s Whatever Works quietly leaves the big screen with the din of pans echoing behind it, the A.V. Club offers a list of a dozen things the director consistently “doesn’t get.” Included in the tally are rehearsed gripes (his sliver-thin depictions of New York City largely exclude blacks and, for that matter, non-Jewish minorities of any sort) as well as some fairly new complaints—he mishandles violence, portraying it “with the lightest touch this side of Agatha Christie”; has the cojones to mock no less an icon than Bob Dylan via Shelley Duvall’s character in Annie Hall (though arguably he’s also mocking female fandom, something Allen’s felt ebb drastically); and has beefs with Los Angeles, forcing him to secure project funding from, the A.V. Club guesses, “a mysterious cabal of Europeans, well-heeled New York comedy buffs, and clarinet aficionados.”

Sara Ivry is the host of Vox Tablet, Tablet Magazine’s weekly podcast. Follow her on Twitter@saraivry.