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Directed by and starring Woody Allen.

This movie was made to look like a documentary of this guy "Leonard Zelig" who changed shape/color to fit in with whomever he was with.
Zelig played of course by Woody Allen

It was extremely silly. There were several laugh-out-loud moments, but overall it dragged too much to be enjoyable.

Viewed 11/20/03 (Theatre) (First Viewing)

A nice funny faux documentary of such from Woody Allen.
Its quite touching and unique.
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So today.
Got to work on time, blah blah blah.

It was a lonnnnnggg day.
I saw my former therapist Karen who came in with her son,
who used to coach my brothers hockey team.

As I told her that I was doing better, I realized that I was lying.
Working a lot has made my wrists hurt.

But I have a massage tomorrow...and it will help.

My feet a killing me, as is nearly every bone in my body.
ugh...
--

Some of the girls at work invited me to go out with them on Friday night,
because we all aren't working !
So finally, I have something to look forward to that doesn't involve a paycheck.
;)

Comments pending.

I thought it was a near-perfect satire on how the public longs for freaks to latch onto to make themselves feel more significant, how the media plugs into these longings, and how fickle both are. The themes of being yourself vs. changing to fit other people's expectations is also done extremely well. The voiceovers and dialogue are constantly witty and fit the mockumentary style perfectly. I only felt that the sexual aggressiveness of Zelig felt tiring at times; it didn't always fit.

ZELIG

This is easily the funniest Woody Allen film I've seen yet. It's a faux-documentary about a man named Zelig who is a human chameleon, able to turn into whichever dominant person is around him in order to feel accepted. I thought the joke would get old quickly with this one, but it didn't. Each act had a great new twist on the story and took it further and made it funnier. It's not my favorite Allen film, but again, it's certainly his funniest.

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did, but in the end it was the B-movie quality that turned me away. It was almost as if the film was good enough to have been an A-list quality movie, but Peckinpah settled for B-movie status because that's what he enjoys making. That's all well and good I suppose, but parts of this were eye-rollingly bad and took away from the impact of the film. Either way, it's like a dirty, disturbing, and morbid take on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

THE FRONT

This is the best Woody Allen film I've seen and it wasn't even directed by Woody Allen. I liked it more than both Annie Hall and Manhattan. It was funny, touching, and relevent even today. It was everything I look for in a great drama and a great film. It's incredibly neglected in the buzz department on this site and in general. More people need to see this film, or the people who've seen it need to talk about it more often.

THE WAR ROOM

I'm a pretty big documentary fan, but I'm not much on politics. Still, getting an inside view of a presidential campaign seemed interesting enough so I gave this a shot. Being a fan of Pennebaker, I thought I would like this more than I did. However, the film seemed to skip over the intriguing parts, like how Clinton's campaign heads (Stefanopolous and The Ragin' Cajun) dealt with the Gennifer Flowers debacle and other such scandals. Instead it seemed to be satisfied showing the two leads yucking it up at the camera and arguing over which insult to throw at Bush Sr. next. It was interesting for the most part, but underwhelming in the long run.

VERA DRAKE

Mike Leigh did an interesting thing with this film. He took great care introducing Vera and her family, spending more than half of the film following them around in their daily routines and getting us to feel for them. Then, in the second part of the film, Leigh moves at sprinter's speed to finish up what he started, and the transition was awkward and annoying. It's nice that the film didn't cop out with a sappy conclusion, but I could have used more time with the family and friends after Vera's arrest.

Zelig seems like a very wierd concept on paper. A fake documentary about a chameleon man? The truth is that the execution is just about perfect. It looks and sounds just like a real documentary, but the events that take place in the documentary provide you with an unorthodox comedy unlike any other ever made. It is, of course, hilarious in a surreal kind of way. There are some really, really funny gags in Zelig and this is typical in a Woody Allen movie. Some people don't appreciate the creativity and originality of this movie. Zelig is one of my personal favorite films of all time and is definantly up there with other Woody Allen films such as Annie Hall and The Purple Rose of Cairo. This is a must see if you are to fully appreciate the comedic genius of Woddy Allen.

Woody Allen

Take the Money and Run
Zelig
Sleeper

I guess I should still keep up with this thing. I didn't really watch much this semester, so I don't have much to update. I have watched 5 films this week, which is about how many I watched over the course of the last 2 months. Oh well, on with the ratings.

Zelig (Allen 83) 8.5/10

I love mockumentries and this one lived up to my high expectations. Although I don't think Allen's take on the small sub genre was as good as the majority of Guest's work, I still really enjoyed it.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Tsukamoto 92) 5.5/10

A guarenteed headached waiting to happen. This insane flick is a truely unique film that is as repulsive as it is interesting. Worth a watch, just don't forget the advil.

Badlands (Malick 73) 8.0/10

Safe (Haynes 95) 8.0/10

Me and You and Everyone We Know (July 05) 8.0/10

The Purple Rose of Cairo is one of my favorite on-screen romances. Mia Farrow's character goes to see a movie called The Purple Rose of Cairo and really likes one of the supporting characters. Meanwhile, her life falls apart (see the movie if you want to see why; I feel terribly funny giving it all away). In the matter of a couple days, she sees the film five times. And the fifth time, one of the characters on-screen notices and begins to talk to her. Then he leaves the picture and tries to run away with her. There's more to it, but it's such a great idea for a movie and Woody pulled it off perfectly.