By The Butcher
You love ’em, he hates ’em! The Butcher carves up your favourite films, and this week, he applies his sharpened cleaver to Woody Allen’s iconic, multi-Oscar winning 1977 comedy Annie Hall, starring Woody himself, alongside the late Diane Lane, Tony Roberts, Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall and Carol Kane.
Woody fucking Allen. The Woodster. The Woodman. Allan Stewart Konigsberg. If ever there was an untalented, irritating, self-satisfied pain in the arse, it’s this bloke. Now, The Butcher is not necessarily a big fan of all this “cancellation” bullshit, but in the case of Woody Allen – now on the nose for a bunch of stuff, mainly around being an old lech – we’ll gladly take it.
The 90-year-old Woodster might now be retired (we hope so, but he hasn’t actually made it official…come on, dude, just hang that shit up, huh?), and most in the film biz would likely be thankful…principally because it would stop reminding them of how much they used to suck up to this guy. Everyone loved Woody, and everyone wanted to work with him. Yes, everyone…including some of the most sanctimonious pests in the entertainment industry.
Cate, Jodie, Scarlett, Hugh, Kate, Jude, Greta, Timothee…even fucking Madonna! They all lined up, even while The Woodman was shacking it with his stepdaughter and making movies about old blokes hooking up with youngsters. Now they’ve all publicly announced their “regret” blah blah blah, but they worked with Woody because working with Woody was once good for their cache, and now that he’s not, they’ve dropped him like a hot potato. Hollywood is full of phonies, and the crooked swirl around The Woodman has never made it more obvious.
The Butcher, however, has always hated Woody Allen…always…even when everyone else loved him. Take this following quote for grist on why this bloke blows. “When I finish a film, there are about a half dozen people that I do want to see the movie,” The Woodman once said. “I will invite Diane Keaton here [to watch it], for instance. Once they’ve seen the picture, I don’t much care anymore. That’s the fun that I get: to sit in here with Keaton, or my friends, and amuse or delight them with it. That gives me a kick. After that, it doesn’t matter to me.”
How full of yourself would you have to be to take millions of dollars from a movie studio (okay, they deserve to be robbed, so this argument immediately loses some of its pep, but The Butcher will plough on) with the intention of amusing just half a dozen people? If that’s the case, why doesn’t Woody just make vids on his phone? Or do stand-up routines in his living room? In short, Woody Allen is full of shit, and he always has been. And if he thinks that the late Diane Keaton and his sycophantic pals are genuinely “amused and delighted” by his shit films like Scoop, Hollywood Ending, Whatever Works, A Rainy Day In New York or Coup De Chance, then Mr. Konigsberg is absolutely kidding himself.
Most of Woody’s insufferable, intellectual fans like to gush about his 1977 romantic comedy Annie Hall as his best film. Well, unfortunately, this is just as crap as everything else that he’s done. In a display of Woody’s distinct lack of vision, the film was written as a murder mystery with a romantic subplot, but in the editing room, the New York writer/director/actor realised that it worked better as a romantic comedy, and he summarily cut out the murder mystery elements. Look out, genius at work!
Annie Hall is filled with all of the bullshit that has made Woody unjustly famous: painstakingly written “witty” dialogue absurdly passed off as “natural”; boring, self-obsessed characters who whine about stuff that doesn’t matter; back-slapping intellectual in-jokes (“Let’s get Marshall McLuhan in for a cameo! How smart am I?”); and lightweight philosophising. Woody Allen is totally off-tap now, but even back in 1977, he was essentially meaningless…
