Irrational Man

Hold on.

Situation critical.

It's been a long time since I haven't liked a Woody Allen film.

Curses.

Merry-go-round and around and around.

It seems like a joke, Irrational Man.

What I think happened was that Allen realized his script wasn't on par with his typical texts, and salvaged what he could by including recurring lackadaisically upbeat music, which consistently states, "whoops", while deliberately editing scenes too quickly, or including rather short scenes that could have been left out, to formally chide philosophy, mock the corporate tendency to pack too much information into too little a packet, and reflect on the emptiness of existence, when one never has time to calmly sit back and reflect.

When you take a bunch of philosophers and reduce what they're saying to a couple of trite statements, the engagement with philosophical texts is lost, Xavier Dolan making the same error with literature in Laurence Anyways, if they're not the focus, it's better just to leave them be.

There are so many banalities and clichés in Irrational Man, leap-frogging their way through the script like giddy platitudinous inanimate cockadoodles, inadequately developing character and then arrogantly assuming firm bonds between character and audience, that it's difficult to sit through, until the music picks up again.

Take the Russian roulette scene.

If a professor actually plays Russian roulette at a party with students, firing the gun several times, you would think it would have a greater impact on the story, but it practically disappears immediately afterwards, like it wasn't significant, like Abe (Joaquin Phoenix) was comparing prices on toothpaste or blankly examining bark on a tree.

Perhaps Irrational Man really is Allen's subtle satirical crack at corporate filmmaking.

It does co-star Queen of the Indies Parker Posey (Rita).

And Allen has stood outside the system for decades while generally still delivering high quality accessible thought provoking films.

I've heard people critically condemning Allen's examinations of relationships and he seems to be acknowledging their insights by exaggerating these faults in Irrational Man, the male protagonist's relationships within being way freakin' ridiculous.

There was an interesting critique of romanticism mentioned by Jill's (Emma Stone) Father (Ethan Phillips), however, that caught my attention.

Utopias, goodwill, fluffery, I admit that such ideas, when applied to daily life, often seem bizarre and out of touch, especially in the "we're all hopelessly craven so why don't we just act that way?" nihilistic disengaged pandora, but without them you leave yourself vulnerable to total and complete ethical unaccountability, because they set practical guidelines which apply foresight to fascination, in order to uphold something greater than common individuality.

One additional point.

In regards to my interests in action and science-fiction films, note that gregarious generalizations about literature and philosophy (etc.) in dramatic films often work more successfully disguised as character traits for monsters and heroes in action sci-fi, like in, one more time, Mad Max: Fury Road.

The action is the argument.

Surveillance, likewise.