THE FIRST WIVES CLUB

THE FIRST WIVES CLUB (1995). Director: Hugh Wilson.

"Don't get mad -- get everything!" -- Ivana Trump.

Cynthia (Stockard Channing), who was dumped by her husband for a young bimbo, throws herself off of a roof. At her funeral, three old college friends reunite: housewife Brenda (Bette Midler); another housewife, Annie (Diane Keaton of Annie Hall); and actress Elise (Goldie Hawn, outfitted with huge fake collagen lips). The three women each discover that they have been left by their husbands for other women, and are in much worse circumstances than they were before. They decide to team up to get justice and essentially blackmail their ex-spouses, whose activities have not exactly been on the up and up, into giving them more money and so on. But they also have a broader, more feminist goal in mind. You can certainly find dozens of things to quibble about when it comes to First Wives Club so it's best to just take it as an amusing and farcical look at the ugliness of divorce. It's pointless to accuse the film of being one-sided, as its premise looks at wives who have been discarded for younger replacements after many years of marriage and find themselves all at sea -- it is not the husbands' story. However, the soundtrack may have ladies warbling "sistahs are doin' it for thermselves" but in this picture Brenda and her pals get help from her Uncle and his mafia cronies! I question the wisdom of any of these three gals wanting to get back with their errant ex-spouses, and while a big bitch-fight sequence when the three friends go off on each other has funny dialogue, it comes off as contrived and silly. However, the main point of the film is its three sharp and funny lead performances. The spouses are played by Victor Garber [Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows], Stephen Collins, and Dan Hedaya, who seems capable of playing one and only one characterization no matter what movie he's in. Eileen Heckart as Annie's mother offers one of her rare mediocre performances. There's an interesting, if awkward, sequence in a lesbian bar -- Annie's daughter (Jennifer Dundas) is openly gay -- and Ivana Trump has an amusing cameo.

Verdict: Fun, essentially amiable movie despite some really stupid aspects. ***.

ANNIE HALL

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen

ANNIE HALL (1977). Director: Woody Allen. Screenplay by Allen and Marshall Brickman.

:There's too much emphasis on orgasms to make up for the emptiness in life.: -- Alvy.

"Who said that?" -- Annie.

"Leopold and Loeb." -- Alvy.

Comedian Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) tells us of his relationship with, and ultimate bittersweet breakup from, girlfriend Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) in a tale that looks at how people can love one another but may not be right as lifelong partners. Annie Hall is one of Allen's most likable and entertaining movies, a frequently inventive comedy-drama (with emphasis on comedy) in which Allen/Singer talks directly to the audience, and he and other characters observe and comment as they look back at their younger selves with earlier lovers, and so on. Allen [Shadows and Fog] and Keaton [Shoot the Moon] both offer winning performances and there are small roles/cameos from Colleen Dewhurst [You Can't Take It With You], Christopher Walken, Carol Kane, Shelley Duvall, Janet Margolin, and larger roles for Tony Roberts (whose character of a sitcom actor never seems remotely real) and Paul Simon as a wealthy record producer (he's fine). An odd scene has Annie talking about a tragic, shell-shocked uncle without having any real understanding of what the poor man must have gone through and laughing at it until she realizes "I guess it's not funny." Duh! The film has a sub-text of the differences between a New York and Hollywood lifestyle, not to mention the differences between Manhattan and L.A. You can't say that either Alvy or Annie are people you might actually want to hang out with, but they make an engaging sort of couple for the movie if nothing else. Allen won Oscars for writing (along with Marshall Brickman) and directing and was nominated for his performance; Keaton won the Best Actress Oscar, and the movie won Best Picture.

Verdict: Not really a masterpiece as such, but lots of airy charm and creative fun in this. ***.

MANHATTAN

Allen, Keaton, Murphy, Hoffman

MANHATTAN  (1979 ). Director: Woody Allen.Written by Allen and Marshall Brickman.

"I think people should mate for life, like pigeons or Catholics."

"My first wife was a kindergarten teacher. She got into drugs, moved to L.A. became a moonie. Now she's a William Morris agent."

41-year-old Isaac (Woody Allen), whose wife, Jill (Meryl Streep), left him for another woman, Connie (Karen Ludwig), is now dating an adoring 17-year-old named Tracy (Mariel Hemingway). Isaac's buddy, Yale (Michael Murphy), who is married to Emily (Anne Byrne Hoffman), is having an affair with Mary (Diane Keaton), but Isaac and Mary find themselves drawn to each other, especially as Yale shows no signs of leaving his wife, and Isaac is all too aware of the age difference between him and Tracy. As Manhattan begins, it seems to be a love valentine to New York City, but as the movie proceeds it becomes clear that it is just another Woody Allen Movie with the same fake, self-serving Woody Allen-type characters.you see in most of his movies. This "Manhattan" is strictly for and about rich white upper eastsiders -- you won't see a Black, Latino or Asian face throughout the movie (although there is a gay couple, as mentioned)! 

As expected, there's some good dialogue, and the acting is mostly on target, although Keaton tries to be amusing and generally fails. A built-in problem with Allen's movies is that, while the real Allen probably has no problem getting dates because he's rich and famous, having all these women throwing themselves at a less successful fellow who looks like Allen is highly improbable. Given what we now know of Allen's private life, it's easy to see why the plot goes in certain directions. Bella Abzug has a cameo and the repulsive Wallace Shawn, even less attractive than Allen, shows up very briefly as Keaton's ex-husband. Back in the seventies, Allen's films were seen as sharp and sophisticated and altogether wonderful, dealing frankly with adult subject matter, or what passes for same, but many of them don't really hold up and are due for reevaluation. Manhattan does its best to avoid the real dramatic scenes, especially in the depiction of Yale's discarded wife. The ending to the film makes Isaac seem even yuckier.

Verdict: Allen has made some good movies, but this isn't one of them. This should have been called A Nerd's Fantasy Life. **.

MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY

Woody Allen

MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY (1993). Director: Woody Allen. Screenplay by Allen and Marshall Brickman.

Carol Lipton (Diane Keaton) is convinced that an older neighbor, Paul House (Jerry Adler), murdered his wife, who supposedly died of a heart attack. Carol's husband, Larry (Woody Allen), thinks she's nuts, but their divorced friend, Ted (Alan Alda of Same Time, Next Year), thinks she may be on to something. When Carol and Ted team up to track down House's possible girlfriend, Larry is afraid something may be developing between the two. A book editor, Larry convinces one of his authors, Marcia Fox (Anjelica Huston), to go on a date with Ted, but then Carol gets jealous when Marcia gets involved in solving the mystery ... Manhattan Murder Mystery is obviously a homage to those comedy-mystery films of the forties with the plucky heroine determined to get to the bottom of a case, and it's an entertaining, well-acted picture, even if Allen and Keaton aren't exactly William Powell and Myrna Loy. Leisurely-paced, and longer than some of his dramas, the movie keeps introducing enough perplexing elements to keep the viewer in suspense. I do wish the picture didn't ape the final sequence of the far superior The Lady from Shanghai, which is playing in a theater where the climax takes place. Carol and Larry make a likable couple with a basically warm relationship. Melanie Norris, Lynn Cohen, Marge Redmond, Joy Behar, and Ron Rifkin have smaller roles and are fine. The credit music is Cole Porter's marvelous "I Happen to Like New York," sung by Bobby Short.

Verdict: I liked this a lot more than the more "serious" Manhattan. ***.

SHOOT THE MOON

Peter Weller and Diane Keaton

SHOOT THE MOON (1982). Director: Alan Parker.

Faith Dunlap (Diane Keaton), a housewife with four young daughters, is married to an acclaimed author named George (Albert Finney), who is having an affair with Sandy (Karen Allen). Faith learns of the affair and divorce papers are filed, and the children try to cope with the painful disintegration of their parents' marriage and their own worries for the future. The oldest daughter, Sherry (Dana Hill) is particularly anguished, and at first wants no relationship with the father whose love she craves. Then a contractor named Frank (Peter Weller) enters the picture and begins his own relationship with Faith, and George's jealousy and paranoia threaten to demolish everything ... Shoot the Moon was a talked-about movie in its day, although it's pretty much forgotten now, and one can see why. While the film is quite good at delineating the emotional upheaval affecting the oldest daughter, and there are some good, near-powerful sequences, the characters are a little too unsympathetic to make us fully root for them. Spouses do tend to have conflicted feelings during divorces, and the film spells that out but never fully engages us. The constant presence of the four daughters, however adorable, sometimes makes this resemble a dark Disney film. The deck is sort of stacked against George because he is a self-absorbed asshole, which the film never quite addresses until the ending; while George had a girlfriend on the side, it is not clear if he actually wanted a divorce. Keaton [Interiors] gives an excellent performance, nearly matched by Finney [Tom Jones], and there is superlative work from the young Dana Hill as their daughter, Sherry  -- one of the best scenes is between Finney and Hill as they have a long talk on a dock. Weller [Star Trek Into Darkness] doesn't get much of a chance to be more than the likable, swaggering hunk with a penchant for his own violence. A scene when Faith and George have a fight in a restaurant is pure sitcom and out of sync with the rest of the movie. George Murdock scores in a brief scene as Faith's dying father. Michael Seresin's cinematography is superb.

Verdict: Something's missing ... **1/2.

MAD MONEY

MAD MONEY (2008). Director: Callie Khouri.

Bridget Cardigan (Diane Keaton) and her husband Don (Ted Danson) are in financial jeopardy after Don loses his job, so Bridget goes to work on the cleaning crew at the Federal reserve in Kansas City. Bridget importunes Nina (Queen Latifah), whose job is to destroy currency that has been taken out of circulation, to join her in a scheme to steal some of this money with the aid of another employee, the somewhat ditsy Jackie (Katie Holmes). To Bridget's way of thinking, they aren't really stealing anything as the money would just have been burned up. Mad Money has winning performances from the three leading ladies -- Keaton is especially delightful throughout -- Danson, and other cast members and is gleefully immoral as a kind of reaction to the recession, an "easy money" fantasy run amok. Roger Cross is fine as Barry, a co-worker who figures out what the ladies are up to. Entertaining picture with some amusing sequences.

Verdict: Fun if you're not in a demanding mood. ***.

INTERIORS

INTERIORS (1978). Director/writer: Woody Allen.

63-year-old Arthur (E. G. Marshall) tells his wife and three daughters that he wants to move out and be by himself for awhile. His wife Eve (Geraldine Page) foolishly imagines that he'll come back to her, and in this is humored by one of her daughters while another tries to make her see reality. Renata, a poetess (Diane Keaton), is married to a novelist (Richard Jordan) whose work fails to impress the critics. Her sister Flynn (Kristin Griffith) is an actress with an undistinguished career, and the third daughter, Joey (Marybeth Hurt), is still struggling to find herself. Renata says of Joey: "She has all the anguish and anxiety of the artistic personality without any of the talent." The situation leads inexorably to tragedy after Arthur gets a new woman, Pearl (Maureen Stapleton), in his life. Interiors is interesting and well-acted, but while Allen may not have wanted to just spell everything out, the film still needs more detail and character development. Dramatic things happen but the film doesn't always give us a chance to see the characters reacting to them. Interiors is Allen working in an Ingmar Bergman mode, although the film is not as deliberately-paced as anything by Bergman. Well-photographed by Gordon Willis. Sam Waterston has a small role as Joey's better half.

Verdict: Good enough to make you wish it were better. ***.