Monday, December 26, 2016

Even I didn't like Cafe Society


I understand about Woody Allen doing that mini-series for Amazon, but it turns out Amazon bankrolled his movie, Cafe Society, too. It was supposed to cost $18 million. It went way over budget, cost $30 million.

Allen's first movie to be shot on digital video. He says something in the narration at the beginning about how things in Hollywood in the evening look like a Technicolor movie, and I suspect they were trying to make it look like Technicolor, but the lighting was wrong and it looked like crap to me.

The real Cafe Society was a New York nightclub in the 1930s that catered to a multi-racial clientele. It was reportedly the first integrated nightclub in the country (although I'm not aware of black-owned clubs excluding whites). Allen left that part out and made it all-white. He once said in an interview that he would cast black actors if there were a specific reason to. Well, here it was--he had a reason--and he still didn't do it, the Zionist swine.

It was one of his most realistically violent movies. Love and Death had a much higher death toll, of course,  and Bananas had a "funny" scene where a grenade explodes in his hand.

I saw video of a press conference in Cannes. An indignant lady reporter demanded to know if Allen was ever going to make a movie about a younger man with an older woman. Allen's hearing is bad so Jesse Eisenberg had to repeat the question. He toned it down. Allen said, sure, he might.

It was a strange question since the relationships in this movie seemed pretty much age-appropriate. I don't remember though. Who was Steve Carrell dating? I've seen movies about older women and younger men and they weren't exactly feminist screeds, but it sure wouldn't hurt to mix it up a little.

Free on Amazon Prime. Judge for yourself.

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