Cafe Society [Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD]

Cafe Society(Written by my husband with my endorsement)Ah, the pain of remembering a love that might have been, one we were too callow to fight for. And oh, the pain of sitting through Woody Allen’s latest, one we are old enough and jaded enough to complain about. Jaded in part by the director’s artistic decline since “Midnight in Paris.” But this film has a great pedigree. Students should dissect to discover what went wrong and learn from its mistakes.“Cafe Society” travels thematically and geographically over the same ground as the extremely disappointing and deeply flawed La La Land (the subject of a future review). It shares the classic tale of “Boy Meets Girl in Filmland,” but it takes place not in current times, but 90 years ago. By the early 30’s the studios had ditched silent films and fully embraced the “talkies.” The film bosses understood that the masses would pay their quarters and flock the turnstiles to see themes of hope splashed across the silver screen. No despair, just respite with a final emotional lift. So, they gave them comedy, song, satire. Something to transport them for a few hours, far from the maddening, demoralizing, devastating effects of the Great Depression.History has now repeated itself with a twist. Less than a century later, following the double whammy of 911 and the Crash of 2008, filmmakers again sensed a renewed longing for escapism and redemption through stories of hope.Yet, La La Land and Cafe Society begrudgingly comply with that need. They succumb instead to the temptation of film as a moral vehicle, turning that initially hopeful story of “boy meets girl” upside down, into a parental “I told you so,” abandoning us by the road with a heartbreaking sense of love lost. About a girl, a boy, the movies, the world. It’s a seductive wake up call, first setting us up with love and song, next scrubbing the innocence off our faces, then rubbing in the notion that hope is absurd.I think that this harsher rendition of reality reflects our nation’s consensus about the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us, and how material acquisition can stain our pursuit of happiness. They warn us not to sit so complacent. Some of us will be left behind, lonely and loveless. Even if these films make their point, they don’t always see their irony. The film-making machine has been historically responsible for creating a necessarily inspiring and often healthy societal illusion that struggle can lead to “happily ever after.” In the meanwhile enough of filmdom’s upper crusties and their hanger-ons continue to stroll down the red carpet, endlessly celebrate each other’s awards, pay accountants to game the tax system, and carouse and debauch as if there was no trouble in paradise.The prototype for this unintentional irony hits its peak in Baz Lurmann’s overblown version of “The Great Gatsby.” We don’t care what happens to any of the characters by the end, because the director’s signature style allows no distance between it’s indulgent “let’s have a party” hedonism and the hedonism it portrays. Everyone but the audience seems to be having way too fun in front of and behind the camera. This artistic sloppiness tramples on, then flattens, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s main point. That Daisy and Tom are reckless, careless people, whose presumptions of wealth and position can’t help but destroy others. Including the “little man, but especially creative and ambitious, rags to riches romantics and dreamers. Luhrmann’s wrongheaded tone-deaf gaudy version instead leaves us ceaselessly rowing our boats against the current.Now this ironic, complex, promising but potentially dangerous dynamic could make for a great movie. Cafe Society manages, however, to flub it and then flop. And with such talent, the unpredictably brilliant chameleon Steve Carell and the pleasantly maturing yet still quirky Jesse Eisenberg. They fit their parts well. Even Kristen Stewart looks lovely, shedding her characteristically dour demeanor. Ah, but there’s the rub, because Woody Allen’s script forgets a simple truth to help his actors find their way. In a scene, set up a conflict to ignite the humor, then use humor to accelerate the conflict. This movie’s script and its direction instead forces its lovers into reciting monologues side by side. They are ought to be knocking heads and leaving us rolling in the aisles. The jokes show up at the wrong time, or don’t show up when they could liven the conflict. The few times they do show up in a climactic scene, they feel half-baked and forced, trying more to pump up the scene instead of fueling the story.It should be obvious the effect that deft direction and a well-written script have on an actor or actress’ performance. Take Diane Keaton’s performance in Allen’s masterpiece “Annie Hall.” Yes, the award-winning script was charming, laugh aloud funny, deep and poignant without resorting to sentimentality. Thanks must also go to casting Ms. Keaton as Annie Hall. She nailed her character’s comedic predicament by playing to what motivated the conflict of a scene. Annie was unaware that her neurotic uncertainty during intimate moments with men made her both funny and sexy. Miss Keaton's willingness to be vulnerable by embodying this personality quirk made her performance damned funny. Her dress, her inflections, her reactions, her gait. She never played to the audience. She played her neurosis. She didn’t need to rely just on the script to spell it out, to service her comedic angst. That is the indefinable element of great acting. As a result, she inspired the sure hand of her director Woody Allen. She also inspired his performance as Annie’s boyfriend Alvie. His hapless griping and alienated one-liners had more depth because they bounced off Annie’s infectious, lovable, off-putting “la-di-da’s.”Compare that to luckless Kristen Stewart’s performance in “Cafe Society.” As the ingenue Vonnie, she simply sticks to the surface melancholy of her character. She doesn’t project humor in her predicament, because either the script didn’t provide it, the director didn’t help her bring it out, or she sadly didn’t have the acting chops to find it. I don’t doubt her honesty as a serious actress, but her performance doesn’t serve the potential comedy of the material. It also brings down the performance of Mr. Eisenberg, her energetic, bumbling love interest Bobby. We want to witness their neuroses bouncing off each other, the essence of Woody Allen at his best. In every scene, the couple instead seems to act out a first run-through of something resembling a Woody Allen comedy without the comedy.And it gets more painful, as the plot moves on. First, there’s nothing in Vonnie’s makeup to convince us why from her perspective she must marry her boss Phil, as played by Steve Carell. Get this—Phil also happens to be both Bobby’s rival and his uncle. This has the makings of a laugh fest. Once again, Mr. Allen lets the actor Steve Carell down. Blame it the script, the direction, or both, Carell overweighs his being torn between his wife and his mistress Vonnie with too much gravitas and not enough humor.The minor cast members do seem to get “it,” that is, the comedy. Take the impeccably timed performances of Jeannie Berlin and Ken Stott, as Bobby’s parents. And most prominently, the amazing Corey Stoll, who’s as funny as hell playing the family’s cold-blooded mobster. Add this bravura performance to his triumph as Ernest Hemingway in Allen’s Midnight in Paris. At least, this is very rewarding to an audience but unnerving to this reviewer. It’s not fair to put a performer like Ms. Stewart in a vulnerable position, acting in something over her head.Alas, this film aims to be both funny and sad, but what it becomes is all very sad. That one missing element, the utter lack of humor in romantic conflict, diminishes the film’s seductively lush production values, its sets, costumes, and camera work. This gap between the script and the production is too hard to stomach. It’s like an unpolished, thin-toned young songstress who gets her rich parents to front a vanity video to promote her budding career. Daddy and mommy hire a professional orchestra to back her up. It’s showtime. The intro to Rodgers and Hart’s charming “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” (part of the film’s soundtrack) puts us in the right mood. We’re anticipating an exquisite marriage of material and musicianship. Then she steps up to the mike. Frogs croak better than what she can squeeze out of her vocal cords. Ah, what could have been. The set up’s all wrong, the artistic choices annoyingly careless. This gap between the song and the performance is too wide. We squirm in our $12 seats, feeling disappointed and angry as hell, wanting our time and money back.

As I've said before , you have to be a Woody Allen fan to enjoy his movies. You have to flip a switch in your brain to enter his world, because it's not the real world. In the real world, people don't talk the way his characters do, which is well. Allen writes some masterful dialogue. He has a great command of the English language. I really enjoy that his characters speak so intelligently and succinctly and express themselves so well. That was certainly true of Kristin Stewart's character Veronica, and she stole the show. She was the ultimate siren that no man could resist, including this uncle and nephew. The establishing of that love triangle pulls you in right away. But, besides being beautiful, she expressed herself exquisitely, and dialogue that good is not easy on an actor because it doesn't roll off the tongue like common parlance. I was also impressed with the writing for the lead character Bobby and for Uncle Philip played by Steve Carrell. Allen created a much more interesting character for him than the guy he plays on The Office who is very one-dimensional.So, the situation between the uncle, the nephew, and the breathtaking siren really grabs you, and it builds to quite a peak. Then, the story almost seems to start over. Pairing Jesse Eisenberg and Blake Lively seemed a bit strained, maybe because he's only 5'7" and she's 5'10" although they tried to mitigate that in the film. She does look taller than him but not 3 inches taller. Her character is also named Veronica. The second act delves into the zany characters of Bobby's family, his parents, gangster brother, and sister, and I mean Woody Allen zany.The third act begins when Kristin Stewart's Veronica re-enters Bobby's life. But, the story never peaks again. It has no ending like the one in A Rainy Day in New York. There's no big epiphany.The story is set in the 1930s, and WA used the great jazz standards as scoring, and beautiful renditions too. I really enjoyed the music.So, the story has great acting, great dialogue, great music, and an intriguing plot. But, it peaks at the end of the first act. I'm not sure where it needed to go, but it needed to go somewhere.

Excellent! Thank you

Brill

Excellent cast, with whole movie narrated by Woody Allen, Kind of a high-society type of movie with really interesting and complex characters and feelings. Steve Carell is superb as Phil Stern, a hollywood Legend wheeler- dealer agent. Jessie Eisenberg shines as Bobby Dorfman, Phol's nephew, who comes to hollywood to work for his uncle Phil. It then goes full-speed as a love story, intertwined with humorous bits featuring Ben, Bobby's brother, who is a gangster. Lovely music throughout, and the two people who were meant to end up with each other, don't quite make it. Many funny comments about religion, politics, and of course, love. This is one of his better ones as he captures the 30's era perfectly Kristen Stewart as Vonnie, is excellent throughout ( love the bow in her hair) and is the perfect love interest for both Phil and Bobbie. Very memorable and interedting, with lots of good quotes.

Il est bien vrai que , revoyant actuellement tous les Allen , principalement en blu ray , j'avais le sentiment un peu triste que les films vraiment réussis et aboutis du Maître étaient devenus quand même rares depuis Match Point , déjà lointain ... ( 2005 ! )Mais ce film prouve qu'Allen n' a rien perdu de sa suffocante maitrise , de son flair pour choisir des acteurs encore jeunes , au fort rayonnement et à la forte personnalité : ici , Eisenberg , très à l'aise et dont la palette expressive est large , et Stewart , renversante de glamour , avec son regard extraordinaire et sa voix si belle et sombre ( honte aux malheureux qui s'obstinent à regarder ces films en version française et ne semblent pas se rendre compte de ce qu'ils perdent ! ) .Ces deux acteurs se complètent et s'équilibrent merveilleusement , donnant au film sa pleine charge de tension sexuelle ( très judicieusement , Allen , en vrai Classique , refuse de filmer des scènes d'amour " explicites " , que la quasi totalité de ses collègues tentent et loupent ! ) , de mélancolie et d'émotion , retenue mais poignante .Le reste de la distribution est d'ailleurs excellent , aussi .L'histoire qui est racontée est simple et elle ne revendique pas d'originalité particulière : l'histoire d'une passion amoureuse inaboutie , brisée , dans une large mesure , par les appétits sociaux et l'attrait de la " grande vie " ...Mais le récit se déploie avec une souplesse et une limpidité remarquable .C'est ce grand " fini " qui me semble placer Allen très haut .Les reconstitutions d'une atmosphère d'époque sont impeccables .La bande son comblera tout amateur de jazz " ancien " .Le montage , qui rythme et unifie le film , est celui des Grands : quelle merveilleuse concision dans les meilleurs films d'Allen : une heure trente à peu près lui suffit , le plus souvent !Quel contraste avec certains de nos cinéastes contemporains , à la logorrhée prétentieuse ...!Vers la fin , beau dialogue des parents juifs autour du silence de Dieu , de la peur de la mort , Allen nous donnant ici une nouvelle variation , saisissante , de ce qui rôde depuis longtemps dans ses films : son angoisse , proprement métaphysique .La fin est à tordre les mouchoirs avec ces plans sublimes du réveillon du Nouvel An, si gai-si triste , où les deux amoureux séparés expriment sans paroles , par leurs visages et leurs regards perdus , rêveurs , qu'ils sont passés à côté de quelque chose de capital , que les choix raisonnables n'étaient pas nécessairement les bons et qu'ils devront vivre avec ce regret .L 'édition blu ray est la seule concevable , en 2018 : en effet , elle en met " plein les mirettes " et restitue à la perfection la plénitude et l'éclat des couleurs , dans un véritable feu d'artifice .Pas de bonus mais on s'en fout !

Just loved this movie - I am a big fan of Woody Allen's films, and this to me is one of his best. The Cinematography is breathtaking, and the performances first-rate. Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg have amazing chemistry together. as was also evidenced in "Adventureland" and " American Ultra". This role seems a bit of a departure for Kristen Stewart, but she carried it off beautifully - excellent actress! Jesse is the Allen "surrogate", and he is also very good. Supporting cast was wonderful, especially Jeannie Berlin as Rose. To sum up, I would recommend this movie whether you are an Allen fan or not