I remember seeing a clip a few years ago of Paul Newman, standing outside his dressing room trailer, angrily saying that he wasn’t offered roles anymore. A year or two later, he officially retired from acting. If the blue-eyed boy was cantankerous, what hope was there for the rest of us?
Newman was a movie star par excellence. If he was frustrated in his later years, it was because Eddie Felson, Brick Pollitt and Hud Bannon inevitably had aged. The world had changed.
Paul Newman’s characters were almost universally anti-establishment. Anti-establishment was a term that was prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s. I remember in the 1980s asking students who among them was anti-establishment. They looked at me blankly. No one was.
Newman’s characters fought established systems, Billy the Kid and Butch Cassidy against western establishment, Cool Hand Luke against prison establishment, Frank Galvin against court establishment, Eddie Felson against pool establishment, Brick and Hud against family establishment and on and on.
Newman was a glib, cool lime sherbet presence. At times he was a moral man playing amoral characters, such as Hud and Buffalo Bill. Sometimes, as with Hud, their anti-establishment attitude was amoral and destructive, but most of the time Newman’s character was simply a flawed individual fighting and resisting the established system. Behind the broad grin and mesmerizing blue eyes, there was a reservoir of latent anger.
Newman’s characters often had a dark side. The fact that his son committed suicide, which he found out about when he was a visiting prof in the theater department at Kenyon College in Ohio, certainly added to the dark waters in his persona.
Newman seemed anti-establishment and lived in Connecticut. He won only one Oscar, but received nine nominations. It wasn’t until he teamed up with director Martin Scorsese, at the time another non-Oscar-winning easterner, that he achieved an Academy Award for Best Performance for his reprisal of the role of Eddie Felson in “The Color of Money” (1986).
It’s a solid performance, but not nearly as resonant and outstanding as his performance four years earlier in “The Verdict.” Eddie Felson was flash; Frank Galvin in “The Verdict” was slow burn. A great irony is that Elizabeth Taylor, who starred with Newman in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958), did not win an Oscar for her portrayal of Maggie, but won for a lesser performance in “Butterfield 8” (1960). Taylor should have won for Cat; Newman should have won for “The Verdict.”
The one performance by Newman that is almost always overlooked may be his best. It certainly is his most daring. Newman and iconoclastic director Bob Altman got together to make “Buffalo Bill and the Indians” (1976), a movie trashing image. Especially Newman’s own. Audiences couldn’t accept it.
“Buffalo Bill and the Indians” was inspired by the ee cummings poem in which the final line is, “How do you like your blue-eyed boy, Mister Death?”
Newman portrayed William Cody as a fraud. His performance is a brilliant dissection of image.
I never interviewed Newman, but I went to the press conference in New York City for “Buffalo Bil and the Indians.” The woman whom I brought to the press conference went ga-ga over Newman. Somehow, throughout the conference, he had sunglasses dangling from his ear. “That’s so cool,” she gushed. And it was.
Later Altman phoned me privately to talk about the press conference. I had gotten up and asked him a question about the unity of the movie which seemed problematic, and Altman at the press conference had said there would be no
changes. But later he called me and said he was changing the film and putting the scene I had questioned at the end of the movie. It changed the movie entirely, and gave Newman’s performance new emphasis and a power it hadn’t had. It may have been the best lesson I ever had about the importance of editing.
As a would-be iconoclast, I always appreciated Newman’s courage in exposing image. It was like a politician telling the truth. But, as usual, the truth was overrated. The audiences rejected it.
Paul Newman was an actor who had a movie star’s image, but he was also an actor who bravely told human truth no matter what.

Please send Get Well cards to the Coen Brothers. After last year’s “No Country for Old Men,” for which they won the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year, Joel and Ethan Coen have had a relapse.
Their new offering “Burn After Reading” is reminiscent of “The Ladykillers” the Coen Brothers’ bomb with Tom Hanks in 2004. “Burn After Reading” is “The Ladykillers, Part 2.” It has star power, but it fizzles.
It’s hard to understand how the collaborative duo that made such a dynamic, impressive film as “No Country for Old Men” could squander their next opportunity so abjectly. Two or three chuckles do not make a comedy. “Burn After Reading” is a shallow diversion.
“Burn After Reading” is a fitful, lurching would-be comedy about espionage. Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) gets demoted from his position at the CIA and decides to write his memoirs. Linda Litske (Frances McDormand) desires four different cosmetic surgeries. Is McDormand’s  husband Joel Coen trying to tell her something? But Linda’s HMO won’t pay for the treatments. So when she and Chad (Brad Pitt), a co-worker at a fitness center, get hold of a CD with Cox’s info on it, they decide to sell it back to him, to the Russians, or maybe to the dopey Alaskans. This is no Ninotchka. It’s more Nincompoops.
Chaos ensues. Not funny chaos, just chaos. At times the Coens seem to suffer from arrested development. They love to be quirky, but many of their quirks seem to be dated. They have characters continually lob f-bombs. But after a while George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand and John Malkovich exhaust profanity, and it becomes a weak gimmick.
I realize there is something enticing about casting actors in roles that are not their usual images, but talented actors should be given good material, no matter what their roles. The Coen Brothers sell them short.
“Burn After Reading” has a great cast, but they are blunted by mediocre material.
The only part that has any range is Osbourne Cox, and Malkovich nails it as usual. How far Frances McDormand has fallen. She won an Oscar in her husband’s “Fargo,” but as Linda she is given little with which to work; she was given much more by other writers and another director in this year’s “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.”
Brad Pitt has zestful fun as Chad, the not-very-bright personal trainer who jives to music on his head phones. But it’s a role that could be played by Rob Schneider or Pauly Shore.
As always George Clooney is good-natured in the skimpy role as Harry, a man who loves sex. Clooney’s goodnaturedness is wearing thin. These days he often coasts. He has a lot of mediocre movies in his wake. The Clooney role could be cut from the film without any loss at all.
In “Burn After Reading” the Coens have become toneless. Joel co-directs and co-writes with brother Ethan. They edit the movie under the pseudonym of Roderick Jaynes. Their best movies, “No Country for Old Men” (2007), “Fargo” (1996), “Raising Arizona” (1987), and “Barton Fink” (1991) all have a strong sense of place and people. The very popular slacker-comedy “The Big Leibowski” (1997) has a strong performance that holds it together.
But at their worst the Coens are skitterish and even bland. Bland quirkiness, such as in “Burn After Reading,” is not worth much.
Seeing “Burn After Reading” I felt like I was invited to a party on screen where all the other guests already had a buzz on. It made them think they were much funnier than they were. They thought they were a f–king riot. Maybe they should hand out bongs with your tickets.

This has been the summer of my cinema discontent. I’ve felt like Sarah Palin killing caribou on a bridge to nowhere. There are carcasses all over the place.
But every once in a while an offbeat movie comes along that is a surprise. Last week it was “Bottle Shock.” This week it is  “Transsiberian.”
I went to see “Bottle Shock” primarily because one of my favorite actors, Alan Rickman, is in it. I went to see “Transsiberian” primarily because one of my favorite actresses, Emily Mortimer, is in it. Both movies prevail beyond the performances of their respective leads.
“Transsiberian,” like 2007’s “The Lookout,” is one of those films that stay with you. Maybe it’s the snow.
In an age of cookie-blaster CGI, the feeling of “Transsiberian” is unique and palpable. Photographed by Xavi Gimenez on location in Lithuania, Spain, and China, the frigid terrain is a character. So too is the old Transsiberian train that slowly and relentlessly crosses the frozen tundra on its seven-day journey from Beijing to Moscow.
As the USSR deteriorated, so did the legendary train. It’s now cramped with stolid peasants, loud and boisterous men who love their vodka and backpackers who travel in tight quarters and have to eat bad food. The train is old and worn, but it’s still a prime vehicle for mystery.
On the train going from China to Moscow are a married couple from the United States. The husband Roy (Woody Harrelson morphing occasionally into Dagwood) and his wife Jessie (Emily Mortimer) are returning from a church-sponsored activity, teaching children in China.
Roy is earnest and gregarious; he owns a hardware store in Iowa and has a train set in his basement. Jessie – who had a wild youth — is a gifted amateur photographer who continually takes pictures on their trip. She’s still restless. Roy wants children, but she seems reluctant.
Joining Roy and Jessie in their small four-berth cabin on the train are two backpackers, Spaniard Carlos (Eduardo Noreiga) and his younger American girlfriend Abby (Kate Mara), an enigmatic vagabond from Seattle.
Joining the train in mid-transit is Grinko (Ben Kingsley), a fatalistic, Russian narcotics cop. The  travelers and the cop get involved in a plot of intrigue
and treachery.
Director/co-writer Brad Anderson, who studied Russian in Russia and took the famous train in the 1980s, creates a mood that is dark and evocative. Some of the photography is unnecessarily dark, but perhaps this contributes to the moral myopia.
Unfortunately the character of Roy is not as motivated as he may have seemed on paper, so the moral dichotomy and motivation are not as exact as they should be. Roy is more silly than moral, and his decision to lie does not have the effect it should have.
But Anderson creates moments that are riveting, although at times he veers into the unbelievable. When Jessie snatches her camera away from the cop just in the knick of time, it strains credibility. But as Hitchcock once told me, “Logic is dull.”
Anyone with an imagination should guess most of the twists, but there still are a few surprises. And Anderson has learned suspense from the  master, Sir Alfred. Anderson also utilizes many of Hitch’s themes: fear of the police, voyeurism, lack of communication, and someone on the run. He uses them to potent advantage.
Mortimer simmers, smolders, and crackles as the restless woman who becomes desperate. She gives one of the best performances of the year.
Kingsley adds world-weary gravitas as the Russian cop. Harrelson is serviceable in an incomplete role. The train outacts him.
“Transsiberan” takes us on a journey into moral wilderness. I think Hitch would buy a ticket to this grueling and haunting ride.

Tough Grapes
Finding the bedrock of humanity among California wines
Movie ads in the newspapers are a great barometer of … nothing. Except perhaps gullibility.
Studios often get pseudo-reviewers who are their lackeys to trumpet praise over the least deserving of movies. These dupers get their names in the papers, and the studio gets easy pub. These “reviewers” are a squad of foot soldiers who leap blindly into Twentieth-Century Foxholes or MGM holes. They scream, “It’s the best movie I saw today!”
This summer a reviewer acquaintance of mine was asked by a studio to put his name on their quote, “It’s the best movie of the summer.” A lot of times he goes along, but to his credit this time he said no. So they got someone else.
When I see Pete Hammond, Earl Dittmann, Shawn Edwards, Larry King or Rex Reed quoted in the ads, I think, Uh, oh, that movie’s a loser. They couldn’t enlist any of the real reviewers.
Every once in a while there’s an aberration, and the swined and dined “reviewers” throw themselves on a film that’s not a dud.  Even a blind squirrelly “reviewer” occasionally finds a nut.
All this came to mind when I saw the ad for “Bottle Shock,” in which Hammond and sexy Rexy were ecstatic. I thought their hyperbolic recommendations probably meant the movie was awful. The fact that on Rottentomatoes.com, “Bottle Shock” received only 46 percent favorable rating also seemed a harbinger of doom.
But Alan Rickman is one of my favorite actors, and I wanted to see “Bottle Shock” if only for his performance. Rickman’s performance is great as usual, and “Bottle Shock,” despite some contrivance, is a very entertaining movie.
Based on actual events in 1976, “Bottle Shock” is the story of how a California winery struggles to survive, in a world where viniculture is dominated by the French, and banks foreclose.
Rickman plays Steven Spurrier, an Englishman who runs a faltering, small wine store in France. He decides to travel to California to study wines there and bring some back for a wine tasting in France, which will allow France and England to dominate America on the 200th anniversary of American independence.
In California Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) is the owner of a winery that is on its last dregs. He is overextended with bank loans, but he is still stubborn and destructively prideful. His son Bo (Chris Pine) is a hippie who has a spirited relationship with his unyielding dad. Also working in the winery are wine-wizard Gustavo (Freddy Rodriguez) and fetching intern Sam (Rachael Taylor).
The best part of the film is the performance by Alan Rickman. He was and is in seven Harry Potter movies, including the upcoming two, as Severus Snape, and he played the judge in “Sweeney Todd” (2007) and the Sheriff of Nottingham in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” (1991). He was terrific in the underrated “Blow Dry” (2000).
As the wine snob in Bottle Shock he acts as though he constantly has acrid lemon juice in his mouth. He is droll,ascerbic, slightly prissy, arch and vulnerable.
Rickman always seems to find the bedrock humanity in his characters. Some of the moments when he tastes California wine are priceless. He’s cautious, wary, surprised, pleased and baffled. Rickman drinks the gamut.
Bill Pullman is solid as the annoyingly-certain winery owner. Chris Pine, as Bo, takes a little while to get used to, but he grows in the role. (Pine is playing Kirk in the 2009 movie Star Trek.) Dennis Farina has a very good time in the role of an expatriate from Milwaukee who is Steven’s friend.
Freddy Rodriguez (TV’s “Six Feet Under”) and Miguel Sandoval (the D.A. in TV’s “Medium”) are appealing as two Mexicans who believe in the land and that wine is an art.
Australian Rachael Taylor and Eliza Dushku (20 episodes as Faith in TVs “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) are fine as two strong, independent young women.
Director Randall Miller makes a few missteps, such as the overlong introduction of the wine judges, but he creates a journey that has charm and emotion.
The screenplay is credited to three writers. The dialogue is at times is too writerly, but it generally works.
Basically “Bottle Shock” is an uplifting, feel-good movie. It translates the pleasure of wine tasting into the sensual pleasure of moviegoing.
I’ll drink to that.

The following is a list of 10 movies I appreciated, whose DVDs were released within the last two years. There should be something for everyone.

THREE HIDDEN TREASURES
1. Hot Fuzz. This is a wacky spoof of action cop movies. Hot Fuzz does successfully what Tropic Thunder is trying not-so-successfully to do. It is over-the-top, but it’s not coarse and shallow like Tropic Thunder.
Hot Fuzz, a British comedy/drama, is bloody good in both senses of the word. But the graphic blood is more chocolate syrup than true gore. It has some subtlety, in the throwaway lines particularly an old man’s comment about a female cop. And it is stylish.
It has a superior cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, and even Timothy Dalton who once played James Bond. Thank goodness, Hot Fuzz has Simon Pegg rather than Ben Stiller.
Pegg plays a cop reassigned to a small, rural village, who finds more crime and intrigue than there it appears on the surface. Hot Fuzz is co-writer Pegg’s and co-writer/director Edgar Wright’s follow-up to the very popular Shaun of the Dead (2004) a comic send-up of zombie movies. It may take a little time to get on their wavelength, but if you can, Hot Fuzz is a treat.
2. The Lookout. Of all the offbeat movies I’ve recommended in the last two years, this is the most surefire. People really like it.
Terrific young actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a survivor of a car accident who is mentally-damaged. He is duped into participating in a bank robbery, with ironic results. Jeff Daniels renders a wonderful performance as his blind mentor.
The Lookout, written and directed by Scott Frank, is a worthy achievement.
3. Brideshead Revisited (The 25th Anniversary Edition DVD, released October 2006).Avoid the remake which presently is in theaters; it’s lame and fatuous.
The original, 11-hour film version was on British television; it then appeared on the USA TV on Masterpiece Theater. It may well be my favorite TV shows of all-time.
The TV miniseries, based on the 1945 novel written by Evelyn Waugh (male), stars Jeremey Irons, Diana Quick, Anthony Andrews, Claire Bloom, John Gielgud, and Laurence Olivier. That’s one remarkable cast.
Brideshead Revisited is human and brilliant. It not only is classic TV; it is classic art. Now, if you have 11 hours to spare…

TWO MOVIES THAT I LIKED MORE THAN MOST REVIEWERS
1. Street Kings. This is a slam-bang cop saga. It’s directed by David Ayers and based on material written by James Ellroy (who wrote L.A. Confidential). Keanu Reeves gives a solid performance.
2. What Happens in Vegas. I enjoyed the spirited, comic byplay between Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, two likable actors. It’s a pleasant romp.

BLEAK BUT WORTHY FOR THE PERFORMANCES
1. Starting Out in the Evening. You have to decide if you think a stellar performance by Frank Langella as an aging New York author is worth seeing. I thought it was. But few others did. Starting Out in the Evening only made a paltry $.6 million at the box office. What Happens in Vegas made 80.1 million.
The Savages. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Linney and Tony-winner Philip Bosco struggle in this drama of a dysfunctional familial trio. Tamara Jenkins wrote and directed. If you can last until the end, The Savages has one of the best endings in years.

TWO OSCAR-WINNING FEMALE PERFORMANCES YOU DEFINITELY SHOULD HAVE SEEN
1. The Queen. If you somehow missed this, what are you waiting for? Helen Mirren with subtle range captures the many layers of the monarch when faced with Princess Di’s death. The symbolism is a bit arch, but Stephen Frears directs with panache and Michael Sheen adds quality as the young Prime Minister Tony Blair.
2. La Vie en Rose. Marion Cotillard portrays the anguished French songbird Edith Piaf. You don’t even have to read the subtitles.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST
1. The Bank Job. If you don’t want to see Jason Statham as a race dummy in Death Race presently at the theaters, you can watch him give a real performance in The Bank Job. It’s based on an actual robbery in Britain and Stratham portrays a man caught in the middle. The man actually can act. Saffron Burrows adds nice spice and that’s the perfect way to end a holiday weekend.

Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder is one humongous vanity project for Ben Stiller. His initials aren’t BS for nothing. If you can’t get enough of bouncing Ben, Tropic Thunder is the movie for you. Ben Stiller acted in, co-wrote, produced, and directed Tropic Thunder.

Ben’s acting is patented startled smugness, his writing is sloppy, and his direction is disjointed. And one thing for certain — Ben has never seen a close-up of himself that he didn’t love. Incoherence may be the major quality of Ben Stiller. Stiller also had the promising idea of surrounding himself with a cast of big-name star power — Robert Downey, Jr., Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, and even Tom Cruise. But all the talented actors are like first-rate ingredients, and instead of a chef, you get Stiller. He turns out an overcooked stew. And then he spills it all over the place.
The basic plot of Tropic Thunder has potential. The script idea is a good one, but you’d have to jettison the omnipresent Stiller to make a good movie. He’s everywhere muckin it up. Tropic Thunder is about a quintet of egotistical, neurotic actors who are making a war movie based on a book by a veteran of the Vietnam conflict. When the movie bogs down, the consulting writer (Nick Nolte) convinces the director (Steve Coogan) to take the five actors and drop them off in the jungle to shoot the movie guerrilla style. Stiller fails to show us how the pampered actors blithely agree to go out on location — they just suddenly are sitting docilely on an airborne heliocopter. In the jungle they don’t realize they are under attack by the contemporary army of drug lord; they think it is part of the Vietnam movie experience. Stiller, et al. poke fun at the mores and cliches of Hollywood. But any one who calls Tropic Thunder biting satire doesn’t understand satire. It’s mostly softball parody with a smirk. It doesn’t sting at all.
There is one clever conversation about actors playing retarded characters — “never go fully retarded” — that has offended some viewers. It’s also by far the best written dialogue in the entire film. But much of the dialogue is crass, self-indulgent, and improvised. Improvisation always runs the danger of clunky crudeness, and Tropic Thunder is a prime example. The haphazard script is credited to Stiller (of course), and Justin Theroux, a tv actor turned scribbler. Tv writer Etan Cohen also scribbled.
The actors give uneven perfomances as they try to fill out their parodied characters. Robert Downey, Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus, a Russell Crowe-type, an Australian actor who throws himself completely into his roles. For the war movie, he has undergone pigmentation change and speaks Ebonics as one of the two African-American members of the group. Brandon T. Jackson the other African-American plays Alpa Chino (I don’t think it’s worth asking you to pronounce it). Alpa keeps complaining about Lazarus’s role-playing.
Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy, an Eddie Murphy-type actor, who plays many flatulent characters. Don’t worry,
there’s plenty of flatulence, urination, puking, to satisfy any fan of those particular talents. When Jay Baruchel who plays the novice actor seems like the rational one, you probably have trouble. Where’s Judd Apatow when you need him? Matthew McConaughey is pleasant as an agent. Tom Cruise plays the foul-mouthed studio head, who likes to rap and dance, in an extended routine that goes beyond its time. The Cruise gimmick would be more daring if he hadn’t already appeared in an offbeat role in Magnolia (1999).
But all actors great and small have to step aside for Ben Stiller, who plays Tugg Speedman, a Sylvester
Stallone-type — and for a bit becomes a Marlon Brando-type in Apocalypse Now. Stiller as Brando — that’s not a stretch, that’s nuts.
In a sense Stiller is for comedy what Stallone is for Rambo. But how can you parody parody? Stiller tries his
lamest. Ben Stiller is a cut above Paulie Shore and Rob Schneider, but he’s a cut below Adam Sandler. And well below Will Ferrell.
Tropic Thunder was shot in Hawaii and cost more than $90 million. It’s one of those films that seem like the cast enjoyed themselves more than some in the audience. Maybe you had to be there.
Night at the Museum 2 is Ben Stiller’s next movie. After that how about doing a movie about an actor/director who is trying to make a satire, but doesn’t know how to? Now that could be a satire.
What is most distressing is to think of what all the talented independent filmmakers could have done with the money Stiller squandered.

By the end of Tropic Thunder you may wish that Ann Meara and Jerry Stiller had never met.

Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is a really good movie.
For more than a decade, Woody has been coasting, making mediocrities such as “Scoop” (2006) and “Cassandra Dreaming” (2007). Other movies, such as “Melinda and Melinda” (2004) and “Match Point” (2005), had insight, but they had little substance or heft.
It seemed that Woody’s long run as a major auteur was over. His career seemed to be set for a rocking chair. But “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” which Allen wrote and directed but did not act in, is Woody at the top of his game.
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is a romantic comedy about some of the choices love offers us, but it’s also about the bleak side of romantic comedy. It’s profound about the choices we face, seize or try to avoid. Does one pursue love even though that pursuit may be reckless? It’s probably a question many of us have faced. Do you settle or not?
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is very much about the human condition, not just of provincial New Yorkers, but of all of us. That’s why reviewers who call Woody’s new movie ‘a trifle,’ probably never have been in love.
Also, many reviewers who have carped about the narration of Christopher Evan Welch in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” do not realize that Allen is using the late Francois Truffaut’s “Jules and Jim” (1962) as a major source. It too had a narrator who seemed as though he was the detached voice of Fate.
Going back to Truffaut’s classic has reenergized Woody Allen’s sensibility, style, and vision. From “Jules and Jim,” Allen has culled the menage a trois, lyrical settings, the folly in communication, and the fortuitous nature of life and love.
In 1978 in creating the stark “Interiors,” Woody accessed Ingmar Bergman. Now he’s accessed another international master filmmaker: Francois Truffaut.
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is the story of two young women from New York who visit Barcelona, Spain, for the summer. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) who is engaged to be married, wants to do research for a thesis on Catalan culture. Her friend Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is recovering from a romantic break-up and is looking for new experiences. In Barcelona, the intrepid duo meets Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a pleasure-seeking painter, and the fun and fury flourish and flounder.
Woody is blessed with a wonderful cast. Hall is the daughter of British theater and film director Peter Hall. Although a Brit, Hall is quite believable as a New Yorker. She is logical, composed, and sure of herself. At least she thinks she is.
Johansson fulfills a difficult role as Cristina, who is sometimes callow but also independent.
Penelope Cruz as Maria Elena, the former wife of Juan Antonio, is moody and fiery, in a performance that may garner her an Oscar nomination.
Bardem, warm and bemused, cool and collected, portrays the man who affects the natures of the three women. He’s a pleasure seeker, but he’s also decent and tries to keep relationships on an even keel. Silly man.
Chris Messina plays Doug, Vicky’s New York-based fiance, who is very genial and confidently shallow. Patricia Clarkson shines as Vicky’s relative in Barcelona, who tries to live vicariously through Vicky.
All the roles are multi-dimensional. Love is not simple. One of the most potent characters is Barcelona itself. Gaudi architectural designs, the Miro Museum, winding ways, the provincial town of Oviedo, and picturesque countryside all make for an evocative natural tapestry.
The cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe and the local music by Giulia y Los Tellarini intoxicate the senses. But most of all, the wizardry of Woody Allen creates a world that is provocative and human.
Welcome back. Senor Woody.
It’s been way too long.