#28. Apocalypse Now (1979)

By the time “Apocalypse Now” came up on this list I had already watched “Platoon,” “The Deer Hunter” and “Forrest Gump” While I enjoyed all these movies, I firmly believe that nobody really watches that many movies about Vietnam unless they are really passionate about the subject matter, and I am just not one of those people who knows everything about World War II. I am definitely not one of those people whose Mason/Dick-son (see what I did there?) line moves North at the mention of a Civil War reenactment. However, for me to say that “Apocalypse Now” is just another Vietnam movie would be like saying that “Pet Sounds” is just another pop album.

Considering the darkness of the subject matter it is only appropriate that the opening imagery reflect the tone of the film. The central character, Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) is in an almost catatonic state as he wastes away in a skuzzy motel room. Despite the fact that there is no dialogue, text or any other way of presenting hard information we are able to deduce a lot of things just off the power of implication. Willard’s dog-tags make it obvious that he is a soldier, the images of army helicopters, napalm strikes and the Vietnamese jungle suggest that he was in the war and the state of duress both he and the room are in make it evident that he is suffering from some serious PTSD. The disturbing sights are superimposed over close-ups of dead-eyed Capt. Willard so that it appears the fire is inside Willard’s head. All the stereotypes are there; the bottle of liquor, the gun on the pillow and what seems to be the obligatory breakup letter from the girl back home.

When the narration finally kicks in, Willard explains that he has one more mission left in him; leaving plenty of room for interpretation as to whether or not he means he thinks this one will be the one that kills him or that he is going to walk away from the military or any other number of scenarios. When he is brought before a small group of fellow officers (including an unmistakable Harrison Ford hiding behind a pair of goofy glasses) Willard gets very hush-hush orders to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who is described as a charismatic and militarily ingenious turncoat. He is protected by a band of Cambodian loyalists who he has a deity-like command over. A nonsensical, rambling audio recording of Kurtz is played for Willard and a primary theme of the film is uncovered. Willard is being sent on the mission because of his complete expendability, disregard for his own well-being and a very implied extension of the cliché of using a psycho to catch a psycho.

Willard is given a small crew of younger misfit troops who accompany him to a rendezvous point where they are supposed to link up with an escort, Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall) who turns out to be yet another mentally disturbed individual, I haven’t decided if Francis Ford Coppola is trying to say that Vietnam messed everyone up, everyone who went was a psycho to begin with or if he just wanted all the characters to be eccentric.

Kilgore is the stereotypical “gung-ho” solider who overkills Vietnamese civilians, leaves calling cards on corpses so that the NVG troops will know it was his handiwork and has a bizarre fascination with surfing. When he discovers that one of the men in Willard’s squad is a renowned surfer Kilgore gushes over him like a starstruck kid, even though Kilgore himself is much older and higher in the chain of command. Kilgore’s surfer-groupie mentality is also the deciding factor in his willingness to transport Willard’s team to a beach where they can access the river that leads to Kurtz’s creepy compound, because it apparently has excellent surfing.

The sequence of events leading up to the storming of the beach is now historically significant to cinema. The ominous strains of “Ride of the Valkryies” as they “bomb it (the village) to the stone-age,” the ensuing declaration by Kilgore of his love for the “smell of napalm in the morning” and the disturbing contradictory visuals of the gorgeous treeline and sunrise over the beach transposed over the horrific images of the burning village. In order to eliminate any doubt that Kilgore is slaughtering innocents, the primary focus of the attacks are small children in school uniforms, all the while Kilgore cheers his men on, offering them rewards for excessive destruction.

“We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write ‘fuck’ on their airplanes because it’s obscene.” (Col. Walter Kurtz, “Apocalypse Now”)

Scenes depicting Willard’s perception of events begin to take on a psychedelic effect and he begins to express an almost obsession with Kurtz. As he internally attempts to draw a separation between himself and Kurtz it becomes more and more obvious that the two are going to be more alike than we think. The closer Willard and his team get to Kurtz, the more deeply he digs into Kurtz’s personal life via his file and begins to respect his target; almost to the point of being one of his disciples.

After many deaths in his squad Willard finally reaches Kurtz’s hideout and it is even creepier than the narrative implies it might be. The place is strewn with slaughtered human remains and skulls and resembles a crude Buddhist temple. Kurtz’s “mouthpiece” is a fried-out American hippie who discusses Kurtz the same way a cult member discusses their leader. The temple is guarded by an army of guerrillas and adorned with graffiti proclaiming the film’s title “Apocalypse Now,” of course suggesting an impending end of days.

Willard is finally granted entry to the temple where he meets Kurtz face to face. The dramatic half lighting and shadowing effects building up to the climactic revelation of the bloated, shaved-headed Kurtz is the first major flaw of the film. While this scene needs drama, it needs the perfect amount of drama, which these shots exceed to an obscene amount. Of course, Brando plays Brando; mumbly, brooding and self-indulgent but as a cult-leader it is appropriate as it gives Kurtz’s character the proper amount of mystique. Though he does imprison him, Kurtz takes a liking to Willard and almost makes him a sort of personal valet.

Kurtz begins to espouse his beliefs on the war to Willard and elaborates on his reasons for desertion and seemingly leading something of a rebellion. Oddly, this is the first time he or any other character actually starts to make any sense. Willard wrestles with his conscience, his newfound respect for Kurtz, his sympathy for his far-gone state and his sense of duty before finally carrying out his orders. He brutally hacks Kurtz apart with a machete- jump cutting back and forth to scenes of the villagers ritualistically doing the same to a buffalo. This is also symbolic as it harkens back to Kurtz’s unshown beheading of one of Willard’s men, and many others given the abundance of hacked up skulls. As Willard strolls through the sea of Kurtz disciples fearlessly, they all silently step aside for him; suggesting a mental weakness on their part, being lost without a leader, or silently grateful to have had their trance broken.

As the boat speeds away from the temple a rainstorm breaks out, which seems to imply the exact opposite of the typical connotation of rain- rather than doom and gloom, it seems more like a washing away; of sins, of blood on our moral hands and even washing away the fog around Willard’s mind. This open-ended implication is left completely unexplained as the screen simply cuts to black and ends abruptly. In all honesty it is the only way this movie could have ended without cheapening the whole rest of the film. It NEEDS to be left to the individual to decide how things turned out after that and, to be true to the title of the film, the abrupt and incomplete ending is essentially apocalyptic.

The content of the film is great, the cinematography is better than anyone could ever ask for and the length never feels like an issue except for some of the scenes in Kurtz’s temple seemingly dragging a little too long. Like I said before, “Apocalypse Now” is NOT just another Vietnam movie and, even though the plot is, for the most part, pretty absurd, I do mean that in a very complimentary way.

#29. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

For years all I heard from major music publications and people older than me was “Bon Jovi puts on the best show in rock and roll!” I didn’t get into Bon Jovi until about 1995, after the trend had died down. They were relatively dormant as far as extensive touring goes for most of that time. I finally got the chance to see them in 2003 and I was SO excited. I psyched myself up by watching “Bon Jovi Live in London” and listening to the “One Wild Night” cd. Then the day finally came. They played just about every song I could want to hear, I was at the show with two of my best friends and it. was. terrible.

Jon Bon Jovi’s voice was shot, the huge props were distracting and obstructed the view and the only thing more visible than the teleprompter was the screen that showed all of Jon’s choreographed spots (ala “Dance Dance Revolution.”) Needless to say my Bon Jovi concert-going experience was about as anti-climactic as your paid-for time with the escort expiring before you are finished. I got the same unfulfilled feeling from Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” What should be a “stand-up-and-cheer-‘Hell-Yeah-“moment” for getting to see a regular person like you or I stick it to those fat-cats in Washington ends up occurring under such ludicrous and unrealistic circumstances that I was deflated instead of elated.

Following the death of a prominent Senator, an inept Governor and his crooked advisor are scrambling to appoint a replacement. Ultimately they decide on Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) who is a stereotypical “local hero” after having recently made the news for his role in putting out a park fire but is also politically naïve. The decision is made primarily because of the good P.R. that would accompany a man like Smith, but also because his lack of experience will make him the perfect fall-guy when it comes time to throw someone under the bus for political leverage.

Of course it is no accident that the protagonist’s name is a mash-up of Thomas Jefferson and James Smith. Evoking the names of founding fathers is an easy way to clearly establish a character as an unfettered good guy. However, it is also something of a cheap tactic in the sense that it allows Capra to bypass any significant depth or expansion of Smith’s character; and by giving him such a common last name it gives the impression that Jefferson Smith could be the “everyman” since we all know a Mr. Smith. While I understand the relevance of Smith being a Washington DC outsider on the impact of the story, my bigger complaint is with the unrealistic Ned Flanders-like goodness of Smith’s character. For God’s sake he is a Scoutmaster (or Head of the Boy Rangers in this case, I am assuming because they didn’t want to pay royalties to a big corporation like the Boy Scouts of America).

Upon Smith’s arrival in DC (because he takes the position without question) he is immediately branded as an outsider and essentially a dumb hick by pretty much every media outlet in town. At first this seems merciless and unnecessarily cruel, but as we will discover later, it is all part of the political machine of Washington DC, where the media is largely controlled by influential political figures.

A montage of Smith’s tour of Washington D.C. goes to great pains to interject as much Americana Iconography as possible, including an eagle, flags and George Washington. Since the camera constantly flashes back to Smith’s emotional reactions to all the sights it is kind of understood that this is the way Smith still sees America, however this whole sequence really feels more like damage control- as if Capra was worried a film that touches on political corruption would be at risk of being considered super-unpatriotic and all the syrupy imagery would somehow absolve it from such scrutiny.

For all the cookie-cutter good and cartoonishly evil characters in this film, the closest to a multi-dimensional one would be Senator Paine (Claude Raines) who is generally a bad guy but has his moments of moral conflict when it comes to using Smith as a patsy, primarily due to the fact that Smith’s father was once Paine’s best friend. He initiates the plans to get Smith recalled by setting him up to solicit donations from the Boy Rangers to buy up some land for a National Boys Camp that is in fact already being purchased as part of a greater land works bill, thus making it look like Smith was trying to pocket the donation money (because there is nothing more immoral than duping children). However he clearly feels uneasy about his part in the scheme and even refuses to carry out the plan until he is muscled into playing ball by his political puppet-master.

“You fight for the lost causes harder than for any others. Yes, you even die for them.” (Jefferson Smith, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”)

With all the excitement and backstabbing going on, it’s amazing (and by amazing I mean ridiculous) that there is still able to be a love interest subplot. Though Smith initially seems to have a thing for Paine’s daughter, he eventually develops a better rapport with his appointed aide Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur) who is a longtime Washington insider whose faith in people is restored by the genuine goodness of her new boss. This storyline is convenient for two reasons: 1) Smith can use Saunders’ expertise to his advantage to take down the man and 2) having her fall in love with Smith helps advance the early 20th Century cinematic agenda that any woman who appears to be independent on the outside is actually emotionally dependant and can’t even be in the workplace with a man without falling in love with him.

Armed with Saunders’ coaching, Smith launches a one-man filibuster effort on the floor of the Senate so that he can delay the passage of the Works Bill and his impending expulsion. What ensues is the longest, most drawn out climax committed to celluloid this side of “World’s Biggest Gang Bang Part 2.” Though the concept of a single senator holding up the parliamentary process for 23-plus-hours is completely absurd, another montage unfolds during this sequence which is constructed far better and less hokey than the sightseeing montage earlier in the film. This time it is an unnerving, reign of terror sort of vibe. Goons working for the corrupt politicians circulate negatively spun newspapers and radio broadcasts on Smith’s “cowardly” efforts to block the passage of the Works Bill and at one point they even purposely assault a small band of children loyal to Smith with a car.

Exhausted and nearly defeated, Smith collapses in the Senate Chambers. This scene is symbolic not only as a testament to Smith’s grit, but it also reveals the true character of many of the principal characters all at once; Saunders’ shriek of concern when he hits the floor, the final straw for Paine whose conscience finally gets the best of him and he confesses all his misdeeds in front of the entire assembly and of course Smith’s unwavering determination to redeem himself. Then, that’s it. Movie ends. Paine confesses, gallery cheers… then nothing. Sure, there isn’t much else you can do in terms of an epilogue, but that doesn’t mean to simply do nothing at all.

It is corny, unrealistic, propagandistic/borderline jingoistic and with largely one-dimensional characters but “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” does have its finer points. The subject matter is courageous and the notion of exposing the corruption of DC is a fairly universal concept we can all get behind. Unfortunately, in execution, this film ends up more like the horrific Disney-like scenario Matt Damon ranted about when he expressed concerns about Sarah Palin being in any kind of position of power. The folksy, simple bumpkin takes the lessons they learned doing silly, pedestrian things and applies them to a cause greater than themselves.

Maybe I’m just too jaded, but I ain’t buyin’ it.

#30. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

I have to believe that some of the films on this list were only selected for one primary reason: “Forrest Gump” because of how much a part of popular culture it has become, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” for its special effects and “The Jazz Singer” because it was the first “talkie.” However, I think it is WAY generous to let a movie on the list simply because of one line; in this case “Badges? We don’t got to show you no stinkin’ badges!” Not that “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” is a bad movie, it’s fine; it’s what really annoying people refer to as “meh.” But other than this famous line and some exceptional on-location cinematography, it isn’t anything special.

In fact, the concept of a pack of societal dregs-turned-prospectors smacks of a sort of hybrid of “The Gold Rush” and “Stagecoach.” However, what “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” lacks in substance it makes up for in sheer suspense and depth of characters. The scary transition that all the protagonists undergo serves as a very realistic and unsanitized plunge into the psyche.

Humphrey Bogart portrays the lead character Fred Dobbs in such a way that he cannot be mistaken for a good man who falls on hard times. He is an American who basically just bums around in post-revolution Mexico. On three separate occasions he is seen asking the same well-to-do-looking fellow American for money with which to buy a meal. Though the benefactor seems incredulous every time Dobbs hits him up and never actually speaks to him, the far greater insult to basic decency is the fact that Dobbs never bothers to remember the man’s face well enough to realize it is the same person over and over. Though he passes this off by implying that it is because he is ashamed and can’t look the man in the eye, it is pretty evident when he is seen spending his handout money on drinks, shaves and lottery tickets that he may not be so much unfortunate as he is unprincipled.

To Dobb’s credit though, when he is offered the chance to work on an oil rig for a handsome (at the time) sum, he readily accepts. Unfortunately, the unscrupulous owner cheats Dobbs and the other workers out of their pay. While hanging out at a sort of flophouse/hostel with Curtin (Tim Holt) another worker from the screwed crew, they meet Howard, a haggard, half-nuts old prospector rambling on about a mountain of gold a short train ride away. Despite the fact that Howard stresses the madness and greed that he has seen miners succumb to in the past, Dobbs and Curtin are only focused on the prospect of fast and easy riches.

One of the key elements at play in this sequence is the mixture of foreshadowing and irony. The trio are able to buy the mining equipment they need thanks largely to the money Dobbs wins with the lottery ticket he bought earlier in the film- though the numbers eerily add up to 13. Also, when Howard warns that successful gold hunters are never happy with the haul they get Dobbs adamantly insists he only wants a modest take. Lastly, and as it turns out, most grimly, Dobbs pledges his loyalty to his newfound brethren, in what is a suspect and uncharacteristic move on his part.

The action then leaves the dingy cantinas of Tampico and takes a turn for the John Ford-esque with vast expanses of desert opening up the scenery as if it blasted the walls off the cramped studio sets. Of course, the extreme conditions of the Mexican desert also serve to amplify everyone’s personalities to an almost ludicrous extent. Oddly, though probably thankfully, there isn’t a tedious “looking fruitlessly for gold” period in the film; instead they discover their mine almost instantly, which frees the narrative up for more substance than just a lot of mysterious pursuit. The first seeds of dissention are sown when Dobbs insists the men all keep separate claims rather than keeping all their gold together and dividing up their earnings once they return to civilization and cash out. Howard and Curtin don’t understand why their efforts can’t be more cooperative and trusting, Dobbs seems to adopt an “every man for himself” attitude.

“As long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last- but when the piles of gold begin to grow... that's when the trouble starts.” (Howard, “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”)

The differences between the men become more stark when they discuss what they plan to do with their fortunes. Howard and Curtin have practical and responsible plans; opening a general store and starting a fruit ranch respectively. Dobbs however, talks about how he is going to blow his claim on drinking and whores. This scene, when combined with the panhandling montage in the beginning of the film, goes above and beyond in terms of giving the viewer an accurate picture of what Dobbs is like.

Things kind of start to go downhill for our heroes from there. Cleverly filmed close-ups show the men trying to sleep but the distrust is evident on their faces and in their body language. The additional effect of filming these scenes near a campfire so their faces (particularly Dobbs’) are shadowed and poorly lit helps create horror movie-like imagery- the irony of course being that Dobbs is the least trustworthy of the group and subsequently the most suspicious of his partners. The very intense feelings of distrust and internal plans of betrayal are conveyed extremely well here, but the technique is nothing I haven’t seen before in the films of James Whale or F.W. Murnau.

Other moral conflicts arise (Curtin has a chance to let Dobbs die in a cave-in but rescues him instead, and a fourth team member named Cody joins the fray and the original three plan to kill him) as well as obstacles including run-ins with a roving gang of Mexican bandits who pretend to be Federal Agents which yield the famous “stinkin’ badges” quote. However, all of the physical and natural conflicts that arise are all downplayed in order to focus on Howard’s self-fulfilling prophecy of madness and greed taking hold, so much so that Howard’s repeated and characteristic insane laugh is actually adopted by Dobbs in several scenes. The belabored motif of distrust finally culminates in Dobbs shooting Curtin (behind a wagon, and off camera so that the viewer is never 100% sure what happened) and leaving him for dead.

The preachy moral of the story falls solely in the fate of Dobbs, who encounters the bandits yet again, but now that he has betrayed his friends and let greed get in the way, there is nobody to help him when the bandits brutally murder him. They loot his supplies and dump all his bags of “sand” which is actually all the unrefined gold he, Curtin and Howard extracted from the mountain. The wind symbolically carries all the gold away and it, like Dobb’s soul, is lost in the desert. The final reminder that Dobbs is a bad guy and that Curtin and Howard are good guys comes at their reactions to the loss of the treasure. Howard’s annoying cackle-laugh is finally genuine rather than insane ranting as he and Curtin almost seem to revel in the fact that their adventure ends so ironically. In a way, they are almost liberated by the loss of the gold as it represents a sort of lifting of the greed-imposed curse.

As I said before, there is nothing really “wrong” with “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” there is just nothing I found to be particularly special about it. The suspense is very noir-ish without any of the actual benefits of noir, I can easily compare the daytime cinematography to that of Fred Zimmerman, the nighttime cinematography to Tod Browning and morality play to any number of films before and since. There were actually several times I wanted to fast forward through Howard’s maddening laugh, which, while unique in its own right in terms of establishing a clear roadmap of his mental state, is still not necessarily unique in a good way. Basically, if I wanted to be preached to in a sleight of hand way I would watch “Joan of Arcadia.”

#31. Annie Hall (1977)

The most book-smart guy I know is a very dear friend of mine named Karl.

Karl can explain anything involving politics, history and current events in a way that makes it easy for anyone to understand. I know many people who have gone into the teaching profession and this guy is by far the smartest. Not that the others are dumb by any means, but Karl is encyclopedic in his knowledge. However, Karl also walks around large unfamiliar cities carrying an unfolded map in a way that just screams “tourist; please rob.” One time in San Francisco he was counting a large wad of cash in plain sight while walking through an economically disadvantaged section of town. What I am getting at is this; just because something is smart does not necessarily make it intelligent. Which brings us to Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.”

“Annie Hall” is a very non-traditional romantic comedy in the sense that it is not a screwball comedy. The humor is much more refined and high brow than your average chick-flick. There is a heavy reliance on deadpan delivery and self-deprecation, and to be perfectly honest I don’t think the average moviegoer would get every joke in the movie, in fact it’s entirely possible that a few went over my head. Unfortunately the jokes just aren’t that funny. The meat and potatoes of “Annie Hall” actually ends up being the development of Diane Keaton’s title character, which is still not enough to carry this picture.

The film begins with almost a sort of cold opening with Woody Allen’s character Alvy speaking into the camera like some sort of video confessional, but it seems like he is just trying to break the 4th wall to be unconventional and innovative. He tells a couple of hokey old vaudevillian jokes, using them as a metaphor for his life. In reality they could also represent the film as a whole; by which I mean outdated unfunny. Suddenly he refers to his breakup with Annie as if we are supposed to know exactly what he is talking about, and it is clear that this breakup has affected him deeply. He goes on to explain that he always had a hard time discerning fact from fiction, which sets up the likelihood that the events as they are presented to us aren’t necessarily hard facts as they are presented via his narration.

What this opening also does is let the viewer know right away that the film’s flow and structure will be very non-linear and unorthodox. So much so that one of the more creative tools employed is the unique depiction of flashbacks and back-referencing. When explaining events in his past Alvy is able to transport the other characters as well as himself back to those particular flashbacks, for example, when he tells Annie a story about his youth, they are both transported back to that specific incident and watch it as invisible spectators. However, when this technique is combined with the constant flashbacking and time lapses it is just too nonlinear to enjoy- like Tarantino bad.

Despite the fact that Alvy is dorky, socially awkward and obsessive/compulsive, he feels a sense of superiority over pretty much everyone he comes into contact with, which sort of becomes the focal point of the film. His problems with interpersonal relationships and confrontations with others all stem from his neurosis which forces him to judge other people more harshly than himself. Eventually this will all build up to a major realization that the characters in the film are not in fact the people he initially perceives them to be and subsequently reveals a very human level of character development in Alvy. The problem is that in setting this breakthrough up, we see far too much of pre-enlightened Alvy and his character is absolutely intolerable. Despite the artistic merit of how this metamorphosis is achieved, the fact remains that the character himself is literally the most annoying man ever committed to film. He is like George Costanza to the 100th power and by the end I found myself just not able to give a damn about anything but being put out of my misery.

”Don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love!” (Alvy Singer “Annie Hall”)

As the story progresses we see snippets of Alvy and Annie’s relationship, then a jump to a different relationship in Alvy’s life, typically post-Annie. One of the first indicators that Annie has much more depth than Alvy gives her credit for is a scene that takes place in her apartment between the two of them. Despite the fact that there are several indicators in Annie’s décor that imply she is intelligent and artistic (a Sylvia Plath book, an acoustic guitar and what appear to be some self-made photography projects) the focus is her ditzy telling of a story about her narcoleptic uncle.

Another scene that gives insight into Alvy’s personality is a documentation of one of him and Annie’s dates. The two sit on a park bench while Alvy criticizes every passerby in a way that seems more spiteful than playful but Annie seems amused. Later when the two are walking in the darkness (implying that they have spent the whole day together since the park scene was in broad daylight) he finds himself being unable to pay her any kind of compliments other than praising her physical attractiveness. Not only does this establish Alvy as shallow but it also implies that he has made no effort to get to know Annie on any kind of real basis. This seems to be a constant, as yet another scene involves Annie trying to decide on college courses while Alvy tries to initiate sex; the irony and hypocrisy being that he is constantly trying to force reading material and academia on her.

One of their many inevitable breakups occurs as a montage of jump-cutting conversations between the two leaves no doubt as to who has sabotaged the relationship. Alvy discourages Annie’s pursuit of higher education when he suspects she is sleeping with a professor, when Annie reminds him that he was the one who pushed for her to take courses we are shown the conversation where this takes place- with Alvy flatly telling Annie he doesn’t think she is smart. His “selling point” is that adult education classes would benefit her- immediately followed by another jump to him lashing out against adult education courses. This tactic is creative and even amusing in this context, but the effect is regurgitated ad nauseum; intercuts comparing her family meals to his, dueling shots of his and her visits with psychiatrists etc.

Eventually Annie moves to LA, moves back to New York and Alvy is resigned to the fact that they will never be more than friends. He writes a play based entirely on he and Annie’s relationship (he justifies this by essentially using the copout that the best stories come from real life experiences, but it is clear that he also can’t get Annie out of his system) and attempts to move on as best he can by dating other women. At the end of the movie they meet again and Alvy stresses so many times that it is platonic and that he is happy to have Annie as a friend that it is totally unconvincing, so much so that I’m sure that is the point.

The conclusion is jammed with symbolism; Annie takes her new boyfriend to the same Nazi documentary Alvy drug her to time and again (a reference that he has at least worked his way into Annie’s system too), Alvy sees a montage of clips from the film of him and her together and, despite the original context they are all cherished memories now, and the syrupy last shot of the two of them parting ways after a friendly lunch is meant to tug at the heartstrings but really does nothing more than indicate the end of the movie.

It really is a shame that “Annie Hall” drags on as long as it does, because smaller doses of Alvy, less reliance on little stylistic devices I mentioned earlier and a deeper sense of how smart and talented Annie really is would have all made this film much more memorable. However, the only real memories I walk away from it with are those of extreme character eccentricity that would make Larry David puke and so much up-playing of Jewish stereotypes that it puts “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and the standup comedy of Margaret Cho to shame. Please Woody, the “finding humor in making fun of my own culture” shtick is SO blasé.