Annie Hall (1977)

I’ve felt guilty about never watching Annie Hall (1977) my entire life. I feel like I’ve never lived a year without someone saying, “You’ve never seen Annie Hall? You’d love it, you’ve got to watch it.” It even arrived at my home via Netflix once, but my husband didn’t have any desire to watch it, so it was returned, unwatched. So when it arrived for a second time I opened it immediately, climbed into bed and hit play. And I will admit, it was pretty fabulous. Definitely a movie I should have seen years ago, or at least last October when Netflix sent it the first time.

Annie Hall also took my Woody Allen virginity, and I’ll say, I’m pretty excited to climb back in the sack with him again.

Annie Hall is the story of a neurotic Jewish comic, Alvy Singer (Woody Allen), who lives in New York City. After two failed marriages, he falls in love with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). They meet through a mutual friend at a tennis match and Annie invites Alvy up to her apartment for a glass of wine. They couldn’t be more different, he sees a shrink three times a week, she smokes grass before every sexual encounter. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, she’s from rural Wisconsin. He’s obsessed with death and on one of their first dates he purchases her two books on death, she’s an untrained singer that likes to moonlight at Open Mic Nights. You can see where this is going, right? Alvy tells her that she’s not smart and pushes her into taking college classes. She does and begins a relationship with her professor. Alvy and Annie break up. He goes out with another girl (Shelley Duvall, who I recognized from The Shining). Annie calls Alvy one night and he comes to her apartment to kill a spider. Annie begins to cry and tells Alvy she misses him. The couple reunites.

Things are fine between the couple for awhile. But eventually old problems return. Annie begins seeing a therapist and confides in her that things between her and Alvy aren’t working. Alvy confides the same to his therapist. The couple flies to California (a state which Alvy despises) so Alvy can present an award on television. Annie likes L.A., and at a house party she meets up with Tony Lacey, a music producer (played by Paul Simon). Alvy and Annie split up and Annie moves to California. Alvy misses Annie terribly and flies to L.A. to see her. They meet at an organic food restaurant (which Alvy obviously loathes) and sees that Annie is happy in California. He returns to New York, writes a play about their relationship, but edits the ending so the pair end up together. Alvy tells us that he and Annie are now friends, and that even though the relationship was painful, it was worth it all in the end.

The movie is incredibly funny and by far one of the most entertaining Oscar winners I’ve seen. It’s full of great one liners (“My grammy never gave me gifts. She was too busy getting raped by Cossacks.”) and flashback scenes with young Alvy that will crack you up. Also, it’s chocked full of celebrity cameos including Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Walken (what movie isn’t that guy in?). Truman Capote even makes a cameo as a “Truman Capote look-a-like”.

Here's the trailer for Annie Hall.  Gotta love the line about "VPL".



Annie Hall was nominated for five Oscars and won four. Woody Allen was nominated for Best Leading Actor, but lost to Mr. Holland (Richard Dreyfuss for those of you who haven’t seen that musical masterpiece) who starred in The Goodbye Girl.

AFI listed Annie Hall as the 31st Best Movie of All Time and the 4th Best Comedy of All Time.

As for me, I happily give this movie five out of five statuettes. I can’t wait to watch it again.

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

I’ll admit it, it took me a few weeks to get through You Can’t Take It With You (1938). I began the movie when I lived in Lansing and finished it once we were settled into our new home in Grand Rapids. Now, it wasn’t just the move that delayed my finishing this Oscar winner, but the pace at which the first hour of this movie flows. Once the film hit its stride I was able to attach to the story and the strange characters that were living it, though I’m pretty sure the young Jimmy Stewart was what helped me stick this one out.


The tagline for this 1938 classic (“You’ll love them all for giving you the swellest time you’ve ever had!”) isn’t exactly what I found to be truth, though the word ‘swellest’ endears me to the picture.

So here’s the gist:

The entire film centers around one freaky family who all lives together in a large house. There’s Grandpa Martin Vanderhof (played by Lionel Barrymore, great uncle to E.T. great Drew Barrymore) who is the glue that holds the family and the neighborhood together. He doesn’t care much for money and hasn’t paid taxes in over a decade. His daughter writes plays because a typewriter was accidently delivered to the house, her husband who makes fireworks, a daughter who spastically dances around the house like a drunken Anna Pavlova, her son-in-law who is obsessed with the University of Alabama and plays the xylophone, another daughter who is a secretary (yes, after all this craziness all I have to say is she’s a “secretary”) and a few other people who live with them (I’m not sure of their names, relations, or what they do other than make weird things). Okay, so now that you have a clear mental picture of the insanity that this movie centers around, here’s the general plot.

Alice, the secretary daughter works for the Tony Kirby (cutie Jimmy Stewart) and they’re in love. Mr. Kirby, Tony’s dad, is a billionaire who wants to buy Grandpa’s property (if they said why, I must have been deep into a Sudoku and missed it). Tony and Alice want to get married, but Mrs. Kirby isn’t thrilled with the idea. In fact, she’s a pretty cold lady and I’d be scared crapless to be her future daughter-in-law. Anyway, Alice invites the entire Kirby clan over to Grandpa’s house for dinner. The Kirbys accidently arrive on the wrong night, so instead of pretending to be normal the family is acting like their normal wacko selves. Just as the Kirbys are about to flee the insanity, the police bust in and arrest everyone for disturbing the peace and attempting to insight a revolution (I can’t really explain, something to do with the stockpile of fireworks in the basement). While in a holding cell Grandpa realizes that Mr. Kirby is the banker trying to purchase his house. After a bunch of family drama, Alice and Tony break up. Alice flees town and Grandpa resigns to sell his house and follow her. When Alice gets news of this she comes home. She reconciles with Tony, Mr. Kirby has a change of heart and sell the house back to the family, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Love conquered all in 1938, even real estate and cold mother-in-laws.

Head spinning a bit? Yeah, imagine watching 126 minutes of this craziness.

Capra- Stewart had many successful collaborations over the years (It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) that had much more staying power. This just doesn’t really compare to their other films.

I’ll give it three statuettes out of five. I’d probably have to have a box of wine to sit through this again.

It Happened One Night (1934)

It Happened One Night (1934) is one of the best Oscar winners I’ve watched so far. The film had one key ingredient that modern day Academy Award winners don’t – comedy. This movie had me laughing, smiling, and humming along to some silly songs throughout the entire 105 minutes. I actually had fun watching it. If all the Oscar winners were this good, I wouldn’t be dreading having to watch a quarter of the list.

So here’s the gist of it:

Ellie Andrews is a spoiled heiress who is being held against her will on her father’s yacht. He’s ticked because she went behind his back and married an aviator with the name of King Westley (again another old film with strange names…makes me wonder what viewers will think of names like Aiden and Brittany). Anyway, Ellie’s father has had the marriage annulled and this pisses Ellie off to the point of throwing herself overboard. She swims ashore and begins her trek from Miami to New York City. Her father hires a detective agency and offers $10,000 for Ellie’s return to him. She pawns her watch and purchases a bus ticket where she meets Peter Warne, one of my most favorite male characters of all time. He’s a newspaper writer who is down on his luck. Ellie’s purse is stolen, so she becomes dependent on Warne, who is planning to use her for the $10,000 reward. After a few hilarious nights together (including a lesson on how to properly dunk a doughnut that is so charming you won’t forget it) Ellie falls in love with Warne. It takes awhile for him to come around, but the two end up together with the blessing of Ellie’s father. King ends up with nothing, which is fine by me because King is a stupid name.

The most memorable portion of the movie involves the Wall of Jericho. When Warne and Ellie are forced to spend the night together in the same motel room Warne hangs a blanket between their two beds calling it the “Wall of Jericho”. When the two are married they return to a motel and blow a toy trumpet, tearing down the Wall of Jericho. It may sound cheesy, but I LOVED it! They just don’t make movies with this kind of charm anymore.

Here's the trailer.  It really gives you a glimpse into the charm of this film.



This is AFI's 35th Best Film of All Time, out of 100.

Peter Warne is played expertly by Clark Gable, who I’ve never seen in anything except Gone With The Wind, but I will definitely seek out more of his films. He won the Best Actor Oscar for this role and it was well deserved. Claudette Colbert won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Ellie, but didn’t expect to win. When she found out that she did win, she was at a train station and went to the ceremony in a traveling pant suit (I have no idea what a traveling pant suit is). Anyway, both awards were well deserved.

Watch this on a down day and I promise it will pick you up like a dose of Xanex.

I’ll give it five statuettes, my first perfect score!  I’ll definitely be watching this one again.