Whatever Works

Never thought I'd live to see Woody Allen and Larry David team up together but that's what they've done in Whatever Works, another tale of a neurotic sexually repressed manic depressive doing his best to get by. Within, Allen recycles a number of the themes that have successfully worked for him in the past but this time rather than star in the film himself his (alter?) ego has been replaced by Larry David (as Boris Yellnikoff) (whose resemblance to Allen is remarkable). Boris speaks to the screen and is aware he's being filmed even though his fellow cast members have no idea which simultaneously accentuates and deconstructs his mania. A disgruntled genius, Boris cast off the trappings of the ivory tower in order to teach chess, scraping by a meagre living as he presents his antagonistic reflections to anyone stuck listening to him. Enter Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood), a troubled Southerner homeless and destitute in the streets of New York. Boris takes her in, grows fond of her, and the rest of the film unreels in response to their off-beat odd coupling.

It's definitely a Woody Allen film and will most likely appeal to most of his fans. Seeing Larry David play a hapless genius as opposed to the hapless Larry David is fun, as is seeing what happens to Melodie's parents when they arrive in New York City. There are times when it's impossible to separate Larry David from Boris Yellnikoff which decreases the dramatic affects of the characterization, but I don't think this is a problem. Nothing really that new, but so much fun all the same.

Immortal

Watched the Enki Bilal film Immortal this evening and was thoroughly impressed. Its uniformly moderate pace was aptly complemented by its multi-dimensional plot which contains a huge cast of monsters (one of whom looks like he swam out of The Last Starfighter), confused lovers, curious scientists, and Egyptian Gods. The plot unravels as follows: its 2095 in New York City and a blue-skinned girl is kidnapped by Eugenics Corporation who hopes to perform experiments on her body in exchange for official identification. A cryotube malfunctions and frees a prisoner responsible for leading an alien rights movement some thirty years in the past (who holds all kinds of nasty secrets in his head concerning the degenerate practices of Eugenics Corporation). Concurrently, the Egyptian God Horis arrives in town with some of his fellow deities and is granted one week by Anubis to travel around in the pursuit of finding someone with whom to procreate. Great sci-fi romance which would go well with wine, cheese and pomegranate.