Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

I don`t know what`s wrong with me - how come I watched another Woody Allen movie? I had already promised myself more than once not to give this absolute freak one more chance to seduce my mind with his very monotonous kind of filmmaking. But so I thought - maybe back in 1969, when he was still quite young, Woody hadn`t learned to play the same old shtick over and over again yet? Well, I was a bit wrong, but I can`t say that the film was an utter dissapointment. First, this was almost the debut for Woody as a director - he had done "What`s Up, Tiger Lily?" before that but that wasn`t really a film of his. For the Tiger Lily film Woody just bought the rights for a Japanese spy movie and changed the story by adding a new soundtrack. That`s it. But sadly back in 1969 he already was able to play the foolish and not particulary successful cretin that he has impersonated for quite a while now (like I learned from a review of this film, he had already been a known stand-up comedian in the States for years at the time, and I`m sure that even in the clubs he already had come up with his character). Anyhow, Virgil Starkwell is a wannabe criminal that hasn`t yet performed a successful job, but he`s perfectly able of getting behind the bars. And you know what - he falls in love with a beautiful woman that also falls in love with him! Man, do I hate all those beautiful women embracing that stupid little freak who`s so whiny and wimpy that he drives me crazy. The character itself would have been pretty good - the way he says that crime pays and that it`s an interesting career with lots of travelling, that`s cool but the film isn`t really a film but much more of a one man`s show in a club disguised as a film directed by Woody Allen. And he once again (or, to be precise, for the first time) uses the classical Woody Allen aproach to film making - where everything is done in some form of a documentary, with actors speaking in the camera and not behind the camera, with some stupid interviews with people that knew Virgil Starkwell etc. I say, it would have been a very decent film, had Allen not repeated this shtick many times over and over. I can`t understand how come people call him inventive, for he`s about as diverse as AC/DC, only he doesn`t rock so hard.