Tuesday, April 04, 2017
Forgotten Movies: SLEEPER
Maybe Allen's funniest movie, certainly his most physical. Allen dies during surgery in 1973 and is frozen. Unfrozen 200 years later, he is on the run in a futuristic society. I had forgotten just how funny this one was and also how gorgeous Diane Keaton was. I would rank this one after Manhattan, Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Two Sisters. The two of them don't need much help to carry a movie.
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14 comments:
One of my favorites among Allen's movies.
My favorite line when we saw this, which I always thought was hilarious to us but incomprehensible outside New York City, was when he found the reason the world ended was "a man named Albert Shanker got hold of a nuclear warhead."
I love early Woody Allen--up to and including Annie Hall. I'm not enamored of Manhattan, but there have been a few since I've enjoyed. Those early movies just wonderfully capture the zeitgeist.
Deb
How about the accusations of child molestation from his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow? It is difficult for some to disentangle the art from the behavior of the artist.
Most people outside New York probably had no idea who Albert Shanker was...but Jeff Meyerson and I got the joke. Love the early "silly" Woody Allen movies: BANANAS and PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM.
There were several references like that which made us laugh even more.
We saw PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM on stage, in 1969, with Woody and Tony Roberts. The year before that we saw him in DON'T DRINK THE WATER. And once, when we were first dating, we saw him walk through a hotel lobby. At that time I doubt that many around us even knew who he was.
I loved BANANAS too. We watched it again fairly recently and laughed at the same silly stuff - going to the deli and getting dozens of individual lunch orders, bringing the cake to the dictator's palace, etc.
I haven't seen BANANAS in 30 years. Need to see that one again. And TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN.
"If i dont get at least 600 years i`m grouchy all day", another classic line. BTW Patti, TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (1969) has got some incredibly funny bits in it although admittedly it is essentially just a series of sketches.
Patti, just with regards to what the second anonymous commenter said, theres a line in BANANAS (when hes in the adult book store) that must be very embarrassing for him now although i`ve heard that some copies of the movie have been bleeped or altered so that the line doesn`t appear, try and find an unedited version of the film (as it originally appeared in movie houses in 1971) to understand what i`m refering to.
Patti, i think i`m finally beginning to understand people who genuinely believe that STARDUST MEMORIES (1980) is his best film, for years that movie simply didn`t register with me but i watched it again recently and now realise that it is his supreme masterwork.
Patti – Starting up the 200-year-old VW might need some explanation today, but it was a great send up of a 1970s TV commercial. SLEEPER is still hilarious. The other day I caught PLAY IT AGAIN SAM on cable, and it was much funnier than I remembered.
The above comment by "Gerald Saylor" was not me.
I stopped watching most Allen movies after the unsettling family situation and accusations of abuse came out. I still have a few queued up on streaming but never get to them.
BANANAS was a favorite. When I took my turn as President of the Rotary Club a few years ago I wanted to repeat this speech for my first meeting. Unfortunately, this clip was not available at the time. That very last joke in the clip has new meaning now considering Allen's history.
https://youtu.be/zYjlZVNFjiI
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