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Visitors Review

WritePhoto 2012-05-24 16:26:24

A really slow dull movie

For a comedic writer, Woody Allen really lets the paying viewer downwith this meager attempt at character development. There are a fewentertaining moments, but no more than one would have listening totheir dryer tumbling tennis balls.Will Ferrell wastes his time in this movie which fails to showcase hisusually funny delivery. Amanda Peet did well, but again, didn't havethe room to move in this otherwise corpse like movie. The movie is soheavy and dull that it cannot be carried but if it were carried, RadhaMitchell did it. If you enjoy movies that go on and on in one scene and don't reallyaccomplish anything but to show that their writer can write a few linesof snappy dialogue on occasion, then you'll love this movie.

Dragan Antulov 2012-05-24 10:18:07

finding the plot "gimmick" seems to exhaust all of Allen's creativity

imdb-12718 2012-05-24 00:06:19

Leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth

If your idea of a good time is seeing a collection of fundamentallyunsympathetic characters dumped into a glass box and then poked with astick, you might just be able to muster up some enthusiasm for thisfilm. Otherwise, if you want to watch half a drama that is undramatic,and half a comedy that is not even remotely funny, then go right ahead.Other comments have suggested that the acting in this film is not up topar. I disagree. Many of the actors have done far better thingselsewhere, so it is not that they are incapable. The basic problem isthe appallingly stilted dialogue and unengaging situations into whichthey have unreasonably been asked to breathe some life. Woody Allenspeaking his own words is, well, Woody Allen, and you judge himaccordingly. Other people speaking Woody Allen can be, as in this case,simply painful to watch.By the time the end credits on this movie rolled, I felt distinctlyunclean. Next time I feel like watching a Woody Allen movie, I willwatch something by the Coen brothers instead.

Stephanie Zacharek 2012-05-23 04:55:35

The comic and tragic stories are cleverly intercut, but they're both so inconsequential that it's hard to bring yourself to care which one you're watching.

Andy Klein 2012-05-22 10:09:51

It doesn't rank among his best, certainly, but it's encouraging in a way that Anything Else wasn't.

myIIcents 2012-05-21 17:23:29

Terrible!

I give it a three because I'm a Will fan and there were a few funnymoments because of him. I've seen better acting in a porn flick. It wasall over acting and very predictable almost like those energizer orGieco "we fooled you" commercials. The whole plot seemed pointless andold. Dreadful at times,my wife and I go to the movies at least 3-4times a month and this ranks with the worst I've seen.And they seemedto be hell bent on the interracial relationship,its becoming like asubliminal message thing these days. There were too many stereotypicalcharacters and situations...like I've said very predictable. And theacting...very soap opera like over acting.

tedg 2012-05-13 00:24:59

Trip Beginnings

I think I know how Woody works. First he has an idea about the type ofnarrative experiment he wants to do. My favorites are "Sweet andLowdown" which is subversively clever, and "Annie Hall," which issomething of a museum of narrative folds. But you can trace each filmback to some novel narrative device that he has not done before. Here,it is a film about filmmakers discussing films and as they imagine twobraided stories, we see them, jumping between them and in and out ofthe dinner discussion, which incidentally looks a lot like "My Dinnerwith Andre." Oh, and those stories? They involve film people, plusperformers of other kinds.Second he devises some story. This is wholly independent of thenarrative trick. It usually deals with insecurity and love, but whocares? Its the cinematic narrative that makes him special. Only at last does he make lines and characters. I think the linesdefine the characters rather than the other way around, as actors wouldnormally have it. This stuff is what most movie- goers see, it seems.But if you come for just that, you'll be disappointed most of the time,because the center of gravity in Woodland is elsewhere, in thestructure. I can easily imagine Woody acting out each of the parts,every line, for the actors.Its something of a burden. He's a bad actor because his range is sonarrow, and that limits every one of his projects. He's an unevendirector. Its because he is steeped in study, so while he is sometimesa competent director every place he succeeds in bringing his narrativeto cinematic expression, he does so by using techniques of others in abewildering scope. (This is where Hitchcock excelled.)Its in that first step where his genius shows. No one else ever has hadthe imagination, the range, the willingness and the success innarrative form as our Woody. He must think he is nearing the end, whatwith the crazy projects he's been putting together, some apparentlytrite (those Scarlet ones) and some deceptively light, like this. Itsalmost as if he has a grid, a map of all the territory he might know interms of how to kink narrative, and he only wants to go to those spotswithout pins in them. I'm glad he's alive.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Ian Freer 2012-05-12 06:36:36

It has great performances, snappy one-liners and a likeably tricksy structure, all wrapped up in an affirmative antidote to life's daunting complexities. Welcome back, Woody.

Steve Rhodes 2012-05-11 13:37:43

Melinda and Melinda is like a single date with a beautiful girl from out-of-town in which not much happens, but you had a good time anyway.

mockturtle 2012-05-10 22:52:29

Miasma and Miscarriage

Melinda and Melinda is a movie about how life can be a comedy or atragedy depending on how you look at it, and if the circumstances arecompletely and totally different. For example, if things go well it canbe a comedy and if they go badly it can be a tragedy. It's all abouthow you look at it (and if good or bad things happen).If Jean-Luc Godard made this movie, it would be hailed as a masterpieceof bourgeois satire.First, I would like to address all the critics that have hailed Woodyfor finally giving a dignified three-dimensional portrayal of a blackperson: are you on crack? "Ellis Moonsong" is yet anotherpersonification of the "magical Negro" as we have seen him in filmafter film, most vomitously in "The Legend of Bagger Vance." We are tobelieve that a brilliantly gifted and intelligent black man can findnothing better to do with his time than to screw around with two boringnarcissistic screwed up white women? I'm sure the NAACP Image Awardsare just gearing up.In stretching the horizons of his actors, Woody manages to coax ChloeSevigny into playing "Boring" and Will Ferrell into playing "NotFunny"; quite a directorial feat.The tragedy section plays like a comedy that isn't funny. So does thecomedy section.The tragedy increases in painfulness as the film drags on, but thecomedy side becomes more bearable. Not in a "funny" way but in themanner of habituation, the same thing that makes you stop smelling themonkey house after a few minutes.Putting 3/5 of "Vanya on 42nd St." into your movie does not magicallyendow you with the talent of Louis Malle, Andre Gregory or AntonChekov. Not even 3/5 of it.If you are turning Chloe into a boring WASP (and NorthwesternUniversity - as the characters mention they went to 800 times! -produces a lot of things, but not many WASPS) then you might not wantto have her say Jewish grandmother phrases like (in response to "I'm sofat"), "Everyone should be so fat!" Josh Brolin looks like Rob Lowe in"Wayne's World" if he were a blind sailor. Nice sweater.You can't smoke inside in New York City, Woody. If you lived on Earth,you'd know that.Everybody in this movie looks like they would rather be back wheretheir peeking accents are from. I bet Robert Downey, Jr., is sendingroses to the insurance company.The story lines ARE NOT PARALLEL."Comic" Melinda describes a "tune my mother played" and then plays"Don't Get Around Much Anymore." We're "on tenterhooks" and have a lot of "irons in the fire" and everyother line is "Tell me about it", "I'll say" or "Take it from me…" Nowonder Larry Pine's character's plays don't attract audiences, they'rewritten entirely in the language of cliché."From that moment the demons set in." Sucks. Just in case you werewondering.It's always fun to watch actors quoting the "bartlett's familiarquotations" of texts they haven't read and Woody only seems to havecombed for bad jokes.Woody, you have become a wellspring of perennial disappointment. Thevisible titles on the bookshelves in the background proclaiming"NABOKOV" alone are enough to justify a new student revolution againstbourgeois cinema. And nobody is named "Moe Flanders" or "BudSilverwhatever" or "ELLIS MOONSONG." But what really annoys me, whatreally gets me: NOBODY CAN AFFORD THOSE STUPID APARTMENTS! By the way,this review was written by a Woody Allen fan! I even like "AnotherWoman" (for which I expect a medal some day), so please stop raping mymemories.But hey, if it's any consolation, I don't think you could ever make aworse movie than "Anything Else." I don't think it's physicallypossible.This movie was so bad it made me long for the dignity of an OrsonWelles frozen pea commercial.

Prairie Miller 2012-05-03 12:56:18

A movie just shouldn't feel like homework. And with the constant shift in stories and repeatedly reinvented characters, unless you're in the mood for taking notes, you're going to feel like you're invited to rehearsals, rather than the finished product.

2012-05-03 01:05:30

Tale of Two Stories - One is Better than the Other

After watching "Melinda and Melinda", I discovered that this was a Woody Allen film. I've just never been a fan of Woody Allen and have always found him overrated as a screenwriter and filmmaker. However, after watching "Melinda and Melinda", I admit I was pleasantly surprised how good a movie this was. In fact, I was also surprised why this movie didn't do well at the box office. With Hollywood being focused on remakes, the concept of this movie is definitely something that is "out of the box" . I was entertained throughout the movie. It also features an unsung performance by Will Ferrell."Melinda and Melinda" actually has two parallel stories taking place around a character named "Melinda". The movie starts off with two filmmakers conversing with a group of people over dinner. One filmmaker makes comedies and the other focuses on the tragedy - and the two engage in a debate over why one is better than the other. During the dinner gathering one proposes a story where a distressed woman shows up at the door crashing the dinner party - that woman being Melinda. From that premise, we see the parallel stories develop as told from the two filmmakers - one from the comedic end and one from the tragic end. Melinda, who is played by Radha Mitchell in both storylines is the central character in each of the storylines. While Mitchell does play Melinda in each story, the character of Melinda are really two different people - with two different personalities. At the same time, while these are two separate storylines, there are a lot of parallels between the two storylines. For example:* Each Melinda crashes a dinner party in a distraught mood* Each Melinda is returning from the Midwest* Each Melinda will be rebounded from a broken marriage that involved infidelity* Each Melinda wrecks havoc on a married couple* Each Melinda will be fixed up on dates, who are both dentists - and each will end up going up with different menMitchell's character of Melinda will appear in both of the storylines, but none of the other characters will appear in both. In the tragic version, the married couple that Melinda will wreck havoc will be Lee and Laurel (played by Jonny Lee Miller and "Big Love"'s Chloe Sevigny). In the comedic version, the married couple is Susan and Hobie (played by Amanda Peet and Will Ferrell). The two storylines could have easily been made into individual movies - and while both versions of the story are highly entertaining, I found myself more interested in the comedic version. The comedic version took on much more of the form of a romantic comedy as opposed to a classic comedy. A lot of why the comedic version worked was because of the performances by Peet and Ferrell. Peet seemed born to play the career-driven Susan - and was very believable in the role. However it is Will Ferrell that really shines as Hobie, the laid-back unlucky husband of Susan. Ferrell has really emerged as one of the top Hollywood actors with audiences accustomed to his "big name" movies he has starred in (many are most familiar with his classic role of "Frank the Tank" in "Old School"). At the same time, Ferrell proves he can do the "artsy" film. The amazing thing is while Melinda was the central character of the film, I found myself gravitating to Hobie's character throughout the comedic storyline. By the end of the film, I felt that Hobie emerged as the hero of the storyline - and of the whole film.The tragic story isn't bad either, but it just didn't stand out compared to the comedy. Miller and Sevigny's portrayal of Lee and Laurel were good, but didn't really standout to the characters of Peet and Ferrell. At times I felt the tragic story was dragging on compared to the comedic story. This is seen in the tragic story when Melinda and Laurel's friend pregnant friend Cassie (played by Brooke Smith) throws a dinner party to fix up Melinda with a dentist - it was just very slow. I found the elements of the tragic storyline more difficult to follow. I also found the ending of the tragic storyline unsatisfactory. There were more loose-ends that could have been pulled in that storyline (i.e. such as Cassie being pregnant) that were just never explored. Still this wasn't a bad story - it was just one that could have shined, but didn't. Another thing that one must be careful of is "coming in during the middle of the film". The viewer will definitely be confused if they don't understand the premise of the film as both stories switch back and forth.With Radha Mitchell playing both Melindas, she has to be given credit for such a performance. She does an excellent job in both movies - and does a great job at coming across as two different Melindas. Like Ferrell, I'm surprised Mitchell's performance didn't get more attention - as it was a good one. Wallace Shawn is very believable as the comedic filmmaker.The setting for both storylines (as well as where the filmmakers debating tragedy and comedy) is New York City. This seemed to be the perfect setting for the entire film. Most of the characters are definitely yuppie-like characters and New York City seems to be the perfect backdrop for this movie. Despite some of the weaknesses of the tragic storyline, overall this is still a very good film. I have to give Woody Allen credit for keeping the storylines flowing and knowing when to switch back and forth between the storylines. This is definitely a movie that shouldn't have flopped at the box office and is something worth checking out.

2012-05-02 16:05:30

Reenactment Catharsis

I didn't see this movie in the theater when it initially came out. I was watching every Woody Allen movie in the post-Mia Farrow era, near opening night in the theater, with the nerdy-Jewish version of a rowdy audience, for a while, until they really started to disappoint. He was on a great streak there, culminating in the mid-nineties with a pair from opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, the gloriously upbeat, joyful Everyone Says I Love You, followed the next year with the negative, bitter, (but also funny) Deconstructing Harry. The quality then dropped off precipitously, first with Kenneth Branagh's near-epileptic Allen-imitation of him in Celebrity, followed soon thereafter by the lame, vintage-Vaudeville style comedies such as Small Time Crooks and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, movies that felt old at their premiers. But "Melinda and Melinda," (or is we say in Boston "Melinder err-ah Melinder,") followed by Match Point (they say it's good, I haven't seen it yet), is hopefully the beginning of a rebound into another great run.Like I said, I didn't see this when it came out, but I did read an interview with Woody Allen at the time this movie came out. He described this movie as something of a personal experiment for him. He really wanted to explore the question of whether life is fundamentally tragic or humorous, and he thought that answers would be reviewed in the process of trying to make a movie that told the same story as both a tragedy and a comedy. In this interview, I remember him acknowledging that the movie was a failure in that respect, that he didn't learn anything about the fundamental differences between comedy and tragedy. But- displaying at least a modicum of promotional instincts- he described the movie as a success anyway. He was half right and selling himself short. I think this movie does speak to the differences between tragedy and comedy, does contain its share of lessons. And I will give him credit for the movie also being a success from the entertainment point of view as well. The comedic parts are not all that funny, and the tragic parts are painfully unpleasant in the same unwatchable way as "Interiors," and yet somehow it does work as a single cohesive movie. But we don't get a real chance to fully explore the question. Here's the problem: Woody Allen cheats his premise. He does not show the same story portrayed two different ways. But there is a lesson in the ways he swindles the audience. The stories are different, with the tragic version being rich in heartrending and sometimes disturbing details, and the comedy version conveniently skipping over the more gloomy details of the back-story and focusing on the comedic elements of the relationships in the movie. I would say there is a lesson there. Turns out the universe in neither tragic nor comic. It's indifferent. The Universe is not embarrassed when you track toilet paper out of the bathroom and the Universe doesn't celebrate when you lose your winter weight. It's a big vibrating nothingness with chunks, chunks that are themselves even more vibrating nothingness of lessness. It's quite uninterested in your life. Sorry.Things are sad and funny in our minds as we interpret them, and a skilled artist can manipulate any subject to relatively emphasize or de-emphasize the more tragic or more humorous aspects of things. The lesson illustrated so well here: How we interpret thoughts and actions color our emotional experience. But it is a reciprocal relationship. It is just as true that our emotional state colors how we interpret thoughts and actions. So, the shifting back and forth is quite unsettling, which is part of the point.I'm recommending it overall, a good enough movie a hopefully a sign of a return to form. The DVD doesn't have any extras, which is fine, I think those voiceover tracks- though occasionally very cool- are generally gimmicky. Outtakes and theatrical trailers- unnecessary. Not one of Allen's greater movies, but not bad either, better then most of the garbage out there. Both stories center around a character, Melinda, played by Mia Farrow look-alike/act-alike Radha Mitchell, who enters a dinner party and shakes up the lives of established couples. As with most Woody Allen films, we get to see couples break up in particularly cruel eruptions of infidelity. The characters in Woody Allen's movies are themselves so emotionally tone-deaf, self-absorbed neurotic pawns who mete out callousness and then languish in guilt. All as portrayed by a male lead not so subtly imitating Woody Allen and a female lead imitating Mia Farrow. Kind of funny. And sad.

toonces1989 2012-05-01 23:42:55

Awful!

I rented this movie because I am a big fan of Will Ferrell and SteveCarell. This movie was complexing at first, with the movie producerssitting at the table discussing the Woman-At-A-Door scenario.The dramatic take on it is extremely boring, to the point where wefast-forwarded through the parts to get to the comedy parts. I'm just ateenager, so I enjoy a comedy more than a drama, but the drama partshad terrible overly-dramatic acting.The comedy parts were saved by Will, he had some good lines and cutescenes, and I really did enjoy the Steve cameo. The comedy portion ofthe movie was the better portion by a landslide.All in all, this movie was saved by Will Ferrell. If it weren't forhim, this movie would be a complete failure.

Josh Larsen 2012-04-30 00:39:27

...may be fractured, but (Radha) Mitchell's presence keeps it from becoming schizophrenic.

derise1-1 2012-04-29 19:55:05

Can I have my two hours back PLEASE?

I am so disappointed. This movie left me feeling jipped out of my timeand mental energy. Here was the quintessential Woody Allen film allover again: the neurotic upper-class Manhattanites debating whether ornot they will cheat on their spouses. Woody, I've seen these charactersalready, I've seen the storyline from you ten times already. Where didyour creativity go??? You need to open your eyes and look around you.The world has changed dramatically since Annie Hall - and you need tochange along with it.There are far more interesting and funny scenarios to which you canapply your brand of angst and neuroticism - why not try them outinstead of rehashing the same old slop over and over and over again.When I hear that Woody Allen has a new project coming out, it doesnothing for me - because now I've come to expect his old standby: thecouple who are growing tired of each other and end up cheating.Depressing and same old, same old.If Woody wants to win his fans back, then he has to understand that oursense of humor and intelligence has to be stimulated - not insulted.

Robert Denerstein 2012-04-26 14:51:48

A movie that too often is dull and duller, an exercise posing as a full-blown drama. Or is it posing as a comedy?

2012-04-26 04:34:18

Excellent little work. Better than some, not his best.

`melinda and melinda' is a standard Woody Allen written and directed seriocomic essay in human relations. It is good, but not as good as his very best, such as `Hannah and Her Sisters' or `Crimes and Misdemeanors'. Herr Professor Allen's conceit in this film is set up in a conversation of four friends over wine at a Manhattan bistro, where two of the four friends are playwrights discussing the premise / first scene of a plot. One writer interprets the situation as a tragedy and the other interprets the situation as a comedy.The remainder of the movie plays out the two different plots with a single actress, Radha Mitchell, playing the central character, Melinda, in both the comedy and the tragedy. Unlike a similar scenario in the famous Kurasawa movie, `Rashoman', the two interpretations are not different ways of seeing the same events. The plot in the two threads diverges markedly after the initial arrival of Melinda at the dinner party of two completely different sets of characters.Unlike most of Allen's other movies, this cast is not packed to the gills with famous names and faces itching to appear in one of the Woodman's films. The only three actors who I recognize by name or face are Will Ferrell, Amanda Peet, and Allen regular, Wallace Shawn. Woody doesn't even appear in the movie himself, although I swear Ferrell's lines and personality were written for the stock Woody Allen nebbish character. Even though Ferrell looks much more like the character typically played by Tony Roberts in earlier Allen films, in this work, the tall guy with the short curly hair is the out of work clueless character, being supported by his wife in her job as a film writer and director.Another twist which raises the story above the mundane is the fact that the two story lines are neither purely comedy or tragedy, although the comic story, woven by Shawn and starring Ferrell does end on a happy note, while the tragic story line does end unhappily, albeit not in total tragedy as you would understand that term as applied to `Macbeth' or `Hamlet'.On the back of the CD case, Rolling Stone is quoted as saying that `You'll laugh till it hurts'. Well, I didn't even laugh once. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the movie. The charm and the humanity of the performers in playing out Allen's ideas was well worth the price of admission. Another blurb declares that Ferrell delivers a `laugh out loud performance', making it sound like his performance in `Elf'. Ferrell committed himself much better in this movie than in his more slapstick / comic strip efforts in recent movies, proving to me that he is as good an actor as people have so often said he is. This may very well be my favorite Ferrell performance since his appearance in Kevin Smith's `Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back'.This is not Allen's best effort, although it may be his best among his last few outings. It is also not quite as crisp as, for example, `Sideways', one of the few intelligently funny movies other than Herr Doktor Allen's works lately. But, as intelligent, adult entertainment goes, this will tide me over until Woody produces another `Manhattan'.Recommended.

Alex Seedman 2012-04-25 06:22:22

Just plain BRILLIANT

First of all, I think you should know that I mainly saw this movie for Will Ferrell. I stepped into the theater excited for classic Ferrell humor, and stepped out with a stronger sense of the idea that life could be about tragedy and humor. This movie points out the fact that tragedy and humor mix in with life around us. Woody Allen did what he does great, and the actress who played Melinda did equally well. Although I know that it won't win any Oscars, I do know that it deserves them.

Stephen Hunter 2012-04-24 11:34:23

The tragedy is not particularly tragic except in rote recitation of what came before, the comedy not particularly comic.