From “The Nightclub Years: 1964-68″

“When Making Love…” Woody Allen’s Baseball Story

If you love movies you need to bookmark the terrific tumblr site, Cinephilia and Beyond. For starters, check out this great post on the Wood Man, which includes two rare interviews.

[Photo Credit: Brian Hamill]

Did I st-st-stammer, Tatelah?

Props to the New York Observer for reprinting this 1998-Woody Allen piece about the Knicks:

I am always asked to write about basketball. People labor under the mistaken impression that, since I attend the Knicks games and have done so regularly for over 25 years, I’ve learned something or that I have insights and observations that are worth listening to, but they are wrong. I have only opinions and feelings based on nothing much but emotions, and I have gripes and theories, often crackpot. Mostly, I sit quietly at the Garden hoping for a close game, hating the blowouts, even if it’s the Knicks on top, enjoying the fans, marveling at the dancers and barely tolerating the endless insipid promotional stunts during timeouts. (If you’ve ever seen out-of-shape men and women shooting endless air balls from the foul line or frantic physical specimens racing across the floor trying to load, carry and push luggage racks as they compete, you get the idea.)

When asked why it is so important that the Knicks win, since at the end of the game or even the season nothing in life is affected one way or the other, I can only answer that basketball or baseball or any sport is as dearly important as life itself. After all, why is it such a big deal to work and love and strive and have children and then die and decompose into eternal nothingness? (By now, the person who asked me why the Knicks winning is important is sorry.)

To me, it’s clear that the playoffs or 61 home runs, a no-hitter, the Preakness, the Jets, or human existence can all be much ado about nothing, or they can all have a totally satisfying, thrilling-to-the-marrow quality. In short, putting the ball into the hoop is of immense significance to me by personal choice and my life is more fun because of it.

[Man]: “I heard you quit your job?”

Isaac: “Yeah, a real self-destructive impulse. You know, I want
to write a book, so I, so I … Has anybody read that
nazis are going to march in New Jersey, you know? I
read this in the newspaper, we should go down there, get
some guys together, you know, get some bricks and
baseball bats and really explain things to them.”

[Man]: “There was this devastating satirical piece on that on the op-ed
page of the Times. It is devastating.”

Isaac: “Well, well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but
bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the
point.”

[Woman]: “Oh, but really biting satire is always better than physical
force.”

Isaac: “No, physical force is always better with nazis. Cos
it’s hard to satirize a guy with shiny boots.”

[Woman]: “Well, you get emotional, I know…”

Dennis: “Excuse me, we were talking about orgasms.”

Mary: “Oh no, no, please, give me a break. I’m from Philadelphia, we
never talk about things like that in public.”

Isaac: “Yeah, you said that the other day, I didn’t know what
the hell it meant then either.”

Dennis: “I’m just about to direct a film, of my own script, and the
premise is this guy screws so great …”

Isaac: “… screws so great?”

Dennis: “… screws so great that when he brings a woman to orgasm she’s
so fulfilled that she dies. Right, now this one,
excuse me, finds this hostile.”

Mary: “God, it’s worst than hostile, it’s aggressive-homicidal.
You have to forgive Dennis, he’s Harvard direct from
Beverley Hills. It’s Theodore Reich with a touch of
Charles Manson.”

[Younger Woman]: “I finally had an orgasm and my doctor told me
it was the wrong kind.”

Isaac: “Did you had the wrong kind, really? I never had the wrong
kind, never. My worst one was right on the money.”

Via Kottke, here’s a little Woody gem.

Don’t forget to do “My Funny Valentine” with the special lyrics about the moon landing.

Sticking with the Woody theme, watch this (oh, and to see the marquee for the old Regency Theater, never mind Tower Records, brings back fond memories):

Fun.

Flavorwire looks at memorable movie endings.

Here’s a little clip that appears after the end credits in Married to the Mob. Ah, Michelle.

From our pal Diane Firstman:

From the wonderful Scouting NY site, here’s Annie Hall (part one).

It lacks a cohesive structure…

You can still find a good egg cream in New York. It was a drink from my father’s childhood and not one that I had with any regularity as a kid. Still, it’s a delicious treat. My cousin, who knows from these things, says there is only one chocolate syrup to use–it’s not just that it is the best, it is the only one to consider: Fox’s u-bet.

Man, I’m thirsty all of a sudden.

[Photo Credit: Seltzer Sisters]

Via the wonderful tumblr site Je Suis Perdu…

check

out

these  cool photographs

by Steve Schapiro.

Jay Z, Kanye West meet the Wood Man. Ya hoid?

[Photo Credit: Four Eyes]

Isn’t it Romantic?

In “Hannah and her Sisters,” Woody Allen goes to the Metro movie theater on Broadway and watches “Duck Soup,” the Marx Brothers’ finest movie and it restores his faith in life. I wasn’t have any kind of life crisis last night, there was just nothing on TV that interested me, so I put on “Animal Crackers,” the Marx Brothers’ second movie. It was released in 1930 and based on the stage play of the same name.

I hadn’t watched it in a few years and I laughed a lot. Pressed pause and said to the wife, “Look at Harpo, watch this, watch this,” and then laughed some more.

Later, she looked up from her book and said, “Wait, so that’s where you got that line from?”

Yup.

Watching the Marx Brothers makes life better.

He adored New York City. He idolised it all out of proportion.

Great shot of Yankee Stadium in this sequence.

Sunday and Monday on American Masters:

Watch Woody Allen: A Documentary on PBS. See more from AMERICAN MASTERS.

Classic New York scene at the old New Yorker movie theater.

And another one finds Woody at the Metro, also on Broadway on the Upper West Side: