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.

All About Eve (1950)

All about Eve (1950) is one of those movies that I can’t believe I lived without watching for 24 years. It was so freaking fabulous that as soon as the movie was over I wanted to hit play and watch it all over again. It had every component a guilty pleasure should have – handsome men, beautiful women in amazing dresses, dramatic love stories, and awesome one liners. It was so good I almost couldn’t believe it won an Oscar (ah, take that diss Hollywood).


Made in 1950, it’s easy to see that All About Eve really set the tone for movies in the decade including one of the first appearances by Marilyn Monroe. And let me tell ya, I know totally understand what Kim Carnes was singing about in Betty Davis Eyes.

The film centers on the famous stage actress Margo Channing who finds her life turned upside down by the young, manipulative Eve Harrington.

The film begins at an awards ceremony for Eve, and then turns back in time to show the viewers how Eve became so famous. Eve befriends Margo’s best friend Karen Richards and her husband, Lloyd who is a playwright. She tells Karen how much she admires Margo’s work and Karen introduces the two of them. Margo is taken with Eve and how much she admires her, so she takes Eve under her wing. Eve moves in with Margo and becomes a sort of personal assistant. The only person who seems to suspect something is strange about Eve is Addison DeWitt, a theatre critic. Eve schemes her way into becoming Margo’s understudy and performs Margo’s role one night. The theatre critics love her and Margo begins to become very upset with Eve.

Lloyd is working on a new play which is set to star Margo, but Eve blackmails Karen into convincing Lloyd to give her the role. Eve takes the role and begins her next plan, which is to drive a wedge into Karen and Lloyds marriage and one day marry Lloyd. Addison Dewitt discovers that Eve is not who she says she is, but is Gertrude Slojinski a woman from Wisconsin who was paid to leave town after an affair with her former boss. DeWitt blackmails Eve saying that she now belongs to him.

Eve becomes a famous Broadway actress and the film ends as it begins, at an award ceremony. Eve receives the top honor for a theatre actress. When she returns home she see that a young female fan, named Pheobe has slipped into her apartment. Pheobe begins to take care of Eve, and the movie ends with Pheobe wearing Eve’s clothes holding Eve’s award.

Ah, the circle of life.

This film has some serious staying power. It’d be a great one to remake. Maybe with Meryl Streep as Margo and Michelle Williams as Eve. Love it!

I couldn't find a decent trailer for this movie, which is unfortunate.  But I did find a clip of the famous "bumpy night" line.



All About Eve was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture and Best Director. Unfortunately neither Betty Davis (Margo) or Anne Baxter (Eve) won Oscars for their performances, even though they were AMAZING in this movie.

This movie is the origin of AFI's 9th Most Memorable Movie Quote - "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night."  It's the 16th Best Movie of All Time according to AFI also. 

I’m going to give All About Eve five statuettes out of five, a perfect score for a perfect movie.

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.