I checked Wikipedia and it's official. After watching Melinda and Melinda (2004) a few nights ago and Rifkin's Festival (2020) while in California over the holidays, I've now seen every movie Woody Allen has written and directed over his long career as a filmmaker. I realize that publicly declaring this dubious distinction opens me up for censure, given the significant controversy that has engulfed Allen for years. Why - many could reasonably ask - would anyone want to make this claim? My simple, if inadequate, answer: completism.
Have you ever wanted to hear - perhaps even own - every recording by a favorite musical artist? Read everything ever published by a beloved author? Visit every National Park? Collect every Hummel figurine? I submit most of us - if we're honest - have either indulged in or thought about some form of completism at some point in our lives. Maybe your completism carries less baggage than confessing what I have here. But when you reached that end, e.g., you had a meal at every five-star restaurant in Boston, you set foot on every continent, you completed the NY Times crossword puzzle every Sunday for a year, didn't that give you a rush of satisfaction? Admit it, if for no other reason than to make me feel better.
For the record, neither of the films above was great but spending time with even an average Woody Allen movie - his greatly tarnished reputation aside - is preferable to much of what is available most of the time. My Mt. Rushmore of Woody films? Another Woman (1988), Blue Jasmine (2013), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). The last time a movie of his really enchanted me was a recent re-watch of Cafe Society (2016). This time around it hit me that none of Woody's other doppelgangers - Kenneth Branaugh in Celebrity (1998), Larry David in Whatever Works (2009), even Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris (2011) - played him nearly as well as Jesse Eisenberg did in the later film.
Final conflicted admission: I'll probably continue to re-watch selected Woody Allen films for the rest of my life. He's a flawed human being. Who isn't? He's also a great filmmaker and I love movies. I have no neat rationalization for my decision to continue supporting his art. Another of my flaws, I guess.
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