Page 8
Tuesday, March 11, 1986
Daily Nebraskan
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By Charles Lieurance
Senior Reporter
Considering Woody Allen's popular
ity, it's amazing he's been able to keep
his filmmaking territory all to himself.
After all, his neurotic, paranoid New
Yorker persona isn't registered at the
patent office. Any bright college philo
sophy major with a keen wit has the
ability to turn the texts of Nietzsche,
Wittgenstein, Hegel and Schopenauer
inside-out by applying them to the real
world. The average person's concern
with greater metaphysical questions
end when they become accountants or
piano tuners, for sanity's sake.
Allen lias applied his deceptively
formulaic approach to any number of
genres since 19G!); science fiction
("Sleeper"), the Neil Simon-type
comedy ("Play it again, Sam"), film
noir ("Broadway Danny Rose"), fantasy
("The Purple Rose of Cairo") and most
recently, the domestic melodrama,
"Hannah and Her Sisters."
Movie Review
Allen does more than just parodies,
which saves him from being an overly
sentimental version of Mel Brooks.
Allen knows too much to slide over the
surface of a genre and he's too cynical
to take even his romantic nihilism too
seriously. For awhile it was "hip" to be
like Woody Allen, to be an intellectual,
vulnerable male with all your salary
invested in psychoanalysis.
Now, in the age of Rambo, Allen has
taken the emphasis off himself in his
films. "Interiors" and "The Purple
Rose of Cairo" excluded him entirely
and "Hannah and Her sisters" casts
him as an interesting bit player, like a
Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, provid
ing comic relief from the family melo
drama and setting the philosophical,
moral tone.
Allen casts few surprises in "Han
nah." His ensemble is familiar (Mia
Farrow as Hannah, Tony Roberts) and
when it isn't familiar, it's predictable.
Allen has the same eye for interesting
faces that Fellini has, finding seduc
tive beauty in the most eccentric of
facial features. The only real surprise
in casting is Michael Caine as Han
nah's husband, Elliot. Caine is such a
casual, matter-of-fact actor that it
seems the intricacies of a Woody Allen
film would bore him.
But everyone is picture perfect. The
plot of the film involves so many peo-
Olivia Newton-John and mom in my
Vegetable dreams: the fear of the fresh
1 don't go grocery shopping very
often. Usually I vait until my mom is in
town so she will go with me and volun
teer to buy for me all those things I
can't afford . . . like red meat and
brand-name toilet paper.
Actually, budget concerns aren't my
main reason for avoiding grocery stores.
Mainly it's fear. I'm scared of major
supermarkets.
Last night I awoke from a deep sleep
and a dream about a desert island and
a giant Macy's department store. I went
into the kitchen for a drink of water.
Olivia Newton-John was sitting at
the kitchen table putting her toes in
her mouth and a woman was sauteeing
mushrooms at the stove.
The woman at the stove kept saying
"Fresh vegetables, fresh vegetables . . .
mmm . . . They're so good for you."
She locked a lot like my mother.
Since I started college I mostly tat
fast food, like burgers and fries, pizza
or any of the downtown cloister of res
taurant offerings.
f,
Farrow, Hershey
pie, scurrying in and out of each others
lives, that one glitch in the emotional
machinery would have been disasterous.
The plot of the film is engagingly
simple, elaborate only because of the
quantity of characters it incorporates.
Hannah is the domineering, successful
older sister, forced into nurturing her
two sisters and enough guilt to power
the average American family.
In and out of this walk husbands,
ex-husbands, lovers, artists, senile
parents (show people of course, from
the old school), business partners,
children, secretaries, theatrical direc
tors, rock bands and enough stylistic
devices to raise "Hannah and Her Sis
ters" from melodrama to art.
Woody Allen is always conscious of
If I ever do go to the store, it's merely
to load up on Ramen Pride noodles,
frozen pizzas, and the ever popular TV
dinner.
Of course, the liquor stores are a
different matter.
G) Bill
Jp L AHen
A Miller beer distributor came into
the office the other day to pick up a
copy of the paper so he could check
Miller's advertisement. It's always been
a personal policy of mine to make
friends with any person connected in
any way with the brewing, distribution
cr serving of beer.
So I looked ur from my desk and
z-M, "Y-u know, I prcbibiy drink -a'-.u
Miller Iter than itr-ycs-:! die .:.v. (.'.:.:.,
campus."
.J
and Wiest portray the sisters In
creating art, of being artistic, of being
auteur and maverick and successful all
at once. Allen could do sitcoms and
they'd come off like Renoir, Cukor, Fel
lini and Douglas Sirk all rolled into
one. What's occasionally irritating is
Allen's knowledge of this fact. Some
times his philosophical asides are irri
tatingly predictable, but only in the
context of Woody Allen. If this were a
Spielberg film, all life in the film would
stop dead for the off-hand comments on
Nietzsche, life, death, Catholicism,
Judaism and Krishna that litter this
film.
But in "Hannah and Her Sisters," the
audience can just relax and know
exactly where Woody Allen is taking
them and how he'll get there. Sure,
kitchen
"Really," he said, walking over.
"Yeah, but then, I probably drink
more of every other brand, too."
We talked beer for hours, then went
and had a few.
Anyway, I walked over to the kitchen
sink, poured a glass of water and drank
it.
My mother asked me what time I'd
gotten home. I said I didn't know. I
asked her why she was sauteeing mush
rooms at 3:30 in the morning. She
smiled and turned back to the stove.
Olivia Newton-John asked me if I
had a drinking problem. I said no, it's
the only thing I do well.
I'm really funny like that in my
dreams. I have a hundred one-iiners.
. Then it struck me that Olivia
Newton-John probably wouldn't be sit
ting in my kitchen at 3:30 a.m.
"Mom, what's Olivia Newton-John
doing in my kitchen."
"I always saute? mrhrooms this
time cf the morning," :,h ?aid, "If you
ever caine pome, j?
i wild knew."
'AM
i-.-r.
Woody Allen's new film, 'Hannah
death is an imposing wraith, but life is
what happens to you while you wait.
Sure, maybe Nietzsche and Kierke
gaard are right, but sex is more fun.
Sure, love is fragile and tenuous, but
death would be a lot harder to take
without some good solid blows from
Eros and Cupid.
For Woody Allen fans none of this is
news is hot as the next alien birth on
the cover of the Weekly World News,
but his arguments are always more
convincing and more sublime, more
mature and filled with conviction.
If it seems as though I've missed
some of the beauties the film has to
offer in this review, I'll try to sum up
here. The filmwork is immaculate and
it's in color (always a surprise lately in
you read to see if you're an alcoholic," I
said, turning to Olivia,
"Yes," she said.
"I added two more to it."
"Really, what did you add?"
"Have you ever woke up in another
state wearing clothing of the opposite
sex?"
Olivia laughed. She has a nice laugh.
She never asked me about the second
question I added.
I walked to the refrigerator and
opened the door. Suddenly a giant auto
air bag exploded and slammed me
against the far wall.
I woke up fast, sitting in the front
seat of my car, on a railroad track. I had
crashed into the red flashing light pole.
The air bag was puffed up into my face.
I had obviously fallen asleep at the
wheel.
I neard a train whistle and saw a
single bright light blaring down the
tracks. I screamed and struggled
against the iirbag, but I was stuck. My
dcK, Spittle, slept peacefully beside me
us tr, 8 car r.ei.
Finally, Tilth the train only yaids
Courtesy of Orion Pictures
and Her Sisters.'
Woody Allen films). The scene in which
Allen's character, faced with the chasm
of eternity, opts for Catholicism, is
funnier than anything he's written in a
long while.
At the end of Allen's "Annie Hall"
the main character tells a story about a
man who walks into his analyst's office
to complain of an unsatisfactory love
affair with a woman who thinks she's a
chicken.
"Why do you keep going back to
her?" The analyst asks the man.
"Because I need the eggs." The man
replies.
Why do we keep going back to Woody
Allen films, if they are in many ways
predictable?
We need the eggs.
away, its brakes squealing, I tore loose
from the air bag, grabbed Spittle and
leaped as far as 1 could away from the
car.
I landed on my dresser, clear across
the room from my bed. Spittle yelped
and bit me.
I blame the whole incident on bulk
foods and fresh vegetables.
I was in a major supermarket the
other day and on a wild impulse decided
to load up on fresh vegetables. A guy in
a white apron told me I had to put each
vegetable in a separate plastic bag
because they have different prices.
"The same for the bulk pastas," he
said.
I walked out of the store with what
seemed like hundreds cf plastic bags,
each with barely one item green
pepper, onion, brocolli, mushrooms,
beansprouts, water chestnuts, maca
roni, noodles, oranges, apples and sev
eral kinds of fresh greens.
They sit in the refrigerator now.
Maybe 111 cook. them someday or eat
them ra'.v, Mother always said bay fresh
vegetables. So i did.