I Met a Tall Dark Stranger

Let's face it, Woody Allen hit his peak at least a decade ago. I think he peaked with Hannah and Her Sisters, but I could be wrong since I haven't viewed Allen huge film catalog. He still turns out some good ones once in a while (Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona). For the most part the 2000's will be remembered as the worst decade for Allen's movies.

Fortunately it's a new decade and Allen starts out with You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and for the most part I liked it. I enjoyed Allen's last film Whatever Works for than I should have and I was excited in seeing this film. I went to my local art house theater and discovered that I was the youngest person in the theater. My mom was the second youngest (at 50 yrs old). The theater was packed with senor citizens in their 70's and even early 80's. Plus my mom and I were the only minorities. I felt out of place, but still felt cool about it.

The film has an ensemble cast and filled with several sub plots. The film follows Alfie (Anthony Hopkins) who leaves his wife, Helena (Gemma Jones) after 40 years because he's feeling to old. He tries to reinvigorate himself and meets a call girl (Lucy Punch). Meanwhile Helena abandons all rationality and seeks the advice of a con artist fortune teller.

Then there's the subplot about Alfie and Helena's daughter, Sally and and her husband, Roy (Josh Brolin). Sally starts to fall in love with her new art gallery boss Greg (Antonio Banderas). In addition, Roy, who is a struggling author, awaits the response of his new novel. In the meantime he watches a mysterious woman (Freida Pito) from his window and develops feelings for her as well.

That's a lot of story lines and some of these plots are vaguely familiar like infidelity, death, depression, and other stuff. That's because there are numerous ideas recycled from other (and better) Woody Allen. There are plots points like "I want to leave my lover for another lover' or 'that I made a mistake and now I want to go back to my previous lover". You know, things like that.

The film is still amusing at some points and it did keep my interest. Although I was mad that some of the plot lines never wrapped up. Technically the average viewer should have been able how they ended up, but that is a minor complaint. I still think the underrated Whatever Works was funnier, but this film had better and well-written characters.

It's a minor entry into Allen's lenghty film career, but not a bad movie. I think Woody Allen fans would appreciate this more than the average viewer though. 7 out of 10.

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His Name is Machete.

This film is based off a fake trailer for Grindhouse. That trailer is also directed by Robert Rodriguez, and it was probably one of the best things about Grindhouse. Now we get the actual movie and it does what it sets out to do, but there are some noticable flaws.

First of all the film delivers on the action scenes. They're violent, bloody, and a whole lot of fun. Danny trejo finally gets his first starring role and he is the ultimate bad ass (not bad for a 66 year old man). The women are sexy, but that's to be expected when we have beautiful babes like Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, and Lindsay Lohan. Rodriguez knows how tyo film good action scenes and they are chaotic and throughly enjoyable.

The plot is the main problem with this film. I know that action movies like this don't need a plot, but in this situation the plot is so convoluted and is a mess. Plus Rodriguez uses this movie to shove his politcal views about open boarder policy down our throats. We don't need all of this stuff in a exploitation film like this.

In addition, some of the other big names in the film like DeNero, Johnson, and especially Segal don't do anything. I mean seagal probably has like 10 minutes of screen time. The movie is also too long as it clocks in at around 2 hours. The premise wear thin after a while and it gets redundent after that. Plus the final battle wasn't as momentus as I thought it would be. If about 30 minutes were cut out it would have been a great movie.

If you love action movies then you will get a kick out of it. However, the severAl flaws almost ruined for me. This better viewed at home as I got restless after a while. Now if they make a Thanksgiving movie thren I will be happy. P.S. there needs to be a grindhouse sequel, but it bombed so that's not happening. Maybe the blu-ray will sell really well and... oh who am I kidding there will be no sequel, but it's fun to imagine, isn't it? I give it 3.5/5.