Tfw no Misaki gf

Why imagine anyone other than Asuka as you're waifu?

...

I wonder if he ever sleeps.

goes on /a/

Goes here too spergman.

I find this hot. Maybe it's the inner cuck in me but I want to be a tool for some girl's pleasure.

If Asuka isn't your waifu you're probably a hopeless autist.

You've already been BTFO in that Tomoko thread.

I wasn't btfo, it was me and Asuka against the entire board. I was glorious germany defending mai waifu against the ZOG controlled allies of Holla Forums and got overrun by a bunch of commies. Asuka is a goddess and you're all insane if you can't see it.

...

It's been a while since I saw Welcome to the NHK. I was so depressed when I watched it I almost dropped out of college. If I'm no longer a depressed weaboo loser does it still hold up? I remember they tried to make a shitty sex game or some cringeworthy thing. Misaki was sexy tho

Read the book, it's actually very close to the TV Anime and very good. Avoid the manga. The manga is full of NTR cuckshit and isn't anything like the book or the TV Anime at all.

No matter how long you are "no longer depressed", you will never be able to erase the channels and impressions that it left on your mind. They are like river channels that have been painstakingly carved by rushing water, but run dry. All it takes is a little rain to fill them up again.

This.
In the manga she's a turboslut.

>>>/a/

bump

Why is redditpol so anti-anime, when imageboards like this one have always been havens for actual nerds who love outsider shit like anime? Is it because they're new and young? You see them crying about samefags and IDs a lot too, why do they hate anonymous so much? Why come here if they hate being anonymous? I'm just asking questions.

goes on /a/

Only shills prefer no ID

SHILL SHILL SHILL!!1111

Look at me. This is /a/, now.

Today marks the release of Woody Allen: Reel To Real, which is, as of this writing, the most comprehensive book on Woody Allen ever published. Poet and critic Dan Schneider, of Cosmoetica fame, has called it a “seminal” and “revolutionary” book, a book that ought to change the way people talk and think about film. I hope that you’ll agree, if not with some of my interpretations, then at least with the tools Reel To Real provides — tools that can be applied to the art world as a whole, for greatness (as Schneider has argued) is its own company, and what works or fails in one place can be extrapolated into another, from film to film, art-work to art-work, and to the kinds of stories people like to tell.

In short, the book covers every movie that Woody Allen has ever written, directed, or otherwise acted in, with preference given to the material from Annie Hall onward, and especially to neglected masterpieces such as Stardust Memories, Interiors, and Another Woman. Thus, I take a film-first approach, with detailed analyses and 100s of references spread across ~160,000 words on art-centered writing. Yet the book also features a dialogue between the writer and reader, a huge chapter dissecting 6 major critics of Woody Allen (read it here, in full), a fiery exchange between me and Jonathan Rosenbaum, perpetual updates to the e-book via a ‘sync’ system whenever a new Woody film is released, and a final chapter wherein — after much praise, from me! — I finally take Woody Allen to task on his influences, opinions, and general philosophy. In short, no one gets off easy, because, just as Judah is told in Crimes And Misdemeanors, ‘the truth will out.’ Except, in this case, it’s not mere naïveté, and I’ve got the hammer.

Stay cucked stupid Shinji. I'll never be your waifu!

Anyway, to celebrate the release of Woody Allen: Reel To Real, I’ve decided to compile a list of Woody Allen’s top 10 films, and explain my reasons in depth. Note that while there are some films, below, that can legitimately be knocked up or down a few spots, they all have at least SOME claim to artistic greatness, if not being indisputably so. So, despite Jonathan Rosenbaum’s claims, to me, a 40-minute fluff-piece like Oedipus Wrecks simply does not belong here. And, conversely — and critical negligence aside! — a well-written, well-filmed, and well-scored opus like Another Woman does. And now that at least some of my reasoning is clear, let us begin with the list proper!

asukafag status: BTFO

...

don't say things like that

Woody Allen’s Top 10 Films
1. Stardust Memories (1980)

I respect the reader, and so won’t waste time by forcing anyone to scroll to the very bottom of this page to see my top Woody pick. It’s not merely annoying, but would occlude a great film, a film that deserves the #1 spot, and needs to be watched without blinders, and understood without the silly imbuements into Woody Allen’s person that it’s been subjected to for the last 3 decades. No, Stardust Memories is not about Woody’s anger with his fame; it’s not about his Jewish self-hatred, as the remarkably dense Pauline Kael had argued; it’s not a homage to, nor a rip-off of, Federico Fellini’s excellent but inferior 8½, and it’s certainly NOT a mess without narrative, for it is rich, dense, brimming with wonderful character flourishes, and always refers back to itself — both to Allen’s film, in toto, and Sandy Bates’s film within a film, which recapitulates some of the wisest and most ennobling things that have ever been said of and within art, in any medium.

Unlike most Woody Allen films, Stardust Memories utterly defies capsule, much less a temporal breakdown, due to its use of flashback, dream, fiction, metafiction, and many other techniques. No, the film doesn’t really have a plot in terms of temporal sequence marked by ‘big events,’ but it has something far more important: narrative, which is how all the important features of an art-work — emotion, ideas, music, scripting, visuals, characterization, and so on — fuse into a coherent whole, while both tuning in and seemingly turning away from it. In Manhattan, for instance, the soap operatics are given heft by the strength of characterizations (tuning in — in fact, a laser-like focus, as on Isaac), while being undermined by the visuals (turning away). Yet, a statement emerges, nonetheless, as it does in Stardust. But while the earlier film did a great job of excoriating relationships and the personages that seemingly destroy them, Stardust Memories is focused on even higher things: art, the artist, dream, identity, and the ‘big’ questions of meaning and existence, as well as those questions’ utter pointlessness and futility. Too many have decried the film as “bleak” in this regard — even Roger Ebert, who often gets it right with Woody — without taking the time to even examine the answers the film actually provides.

Stupid little Shinji… if you're really that desperate then maybe I can give you some of my old panties to masturbate with, but in exchange I have to take down all the angels that show up while you sit there and watch from your EVA unit 01 like the little cuck you are.

The opening shot of filmmaker Sandy Bates (Woody Allen) shows him stuck in a train full of unhappy people — or, perhaps more accurately, ‘losers’ — with another train full of upbeat, successful types blowing kisses at him. Realizing this, Sandy shows his ticket to the attendant, but while he speaks, as if explaining why he belongs on the other train, the whistle obscures even his voice, thus ‘blotting’ him out, not merely trapping him. As he tries to escape, there is a suitcase full of sand that slowly drips its contents to the floor, a wonderful little symbol of time and futility, which all ends with the train’s passengers on a beach, walking, as if making a pilgrimage, to a trash heap — perhaps of the bodies and belongings on the other train? This, too, might say something of ‘success’ and its perception, as Sandy is forced to confront his desires, and where they end. Woody has been accused of ‘stealing’ Fellini’s opening in 8½ of a filmmaker trapped in a car, but while without a doubt that is the clear antecedent, Woody not only changes the scene’s terms, but absolutely betters them. Fellini’s scene works on one or two symbolic levels, while Woody’s has multiple, with lots of touches — the whistling, sand, pilgrimage, gulls, confrontation — that comment on completely different things altogether (i.e., ‘turning away,’ instead of Fellini’s merely ‘tuning in’). In fact, if one closely analyzes other scenes, similar discrepancies turn up, and not only of the scenes themselves, but of character, even down to the very different reasons why Sandy and Guido have so many flatterers. In the sequence that directly follows this, a bunch of critics are blabbering about the film that was shown (for it’s Sandy Bates’s ‘film within a film’), complaining of its pretentiousness and grimness, similar to the dense comments others make about Guido’s artistic choices. They are inane, but even Woody (or Sandy?) allows one critic to slip in a great, pertinent comment about “the gift of laughter” and Sandy’s alleged inability to appreciate it, thus allowing even a clear ‘type’ — i.e., a bad critic — to rise above his self-made station. This is the set-up, then, for much of Stardust Memories: Sandy tries something new, only to get shot down by producers and studio execs who relentlessly tamper, while Sandy (and Woody) zip in and out of film, dream, fantasy, and reality, which allows both men to delve more deeply into the issues that exist outside of the more basic conflicts that have routinely been taken for the film’s core, rather than its excuse to probe even further.

By the way, if I wanted a cunt with high standards I'd date 3DPD.

Given the film’s look at celebrity, it is easy, then, to see why the Sandy persona has been so conflated with the real-life Woody Allen, but it’s just not so, for the two are clearly different. In the film, Sandy Bates is not only flawed, but responds to an irony and authority that Woody (not Sandy) creates, even if Sandy’s meta-film includes much of this wisdom already. Yes, Woody is critical ‘in real life,’ and Sandy is as well, but Sandy’s conflict is really the nature of all artistic misrepresentation, where critics read into or even openly destroy perfectly good works, a reality that is unique to neither Woody nor Sandy. To go a step further, nowhere in his biography, interviews, or real-life anecdotes can we deduce that Woody is bitter about anything, or angry at producers and studio execs, for one of Sandy’s main issues (an artistic one) is others’ tampering, which Woody barely experienced, as well as others’ demands on his person (and not merely his fame), which most critics (Allen included) simply ascribe to existential angst. Yet Sandy is neither destructive, as is claimed, weak, nor even the all-loathing “whiner” Roger Ebert says he is, but is, on the whole, a well put-together human being who ultimately sees farther and deeper than everyone else around him, continuing to make valuable work despite others’ great hostility and manipulation; the very antithesis of the word “whiner.” If he really is, for example, making a film within a film, then Sandy Bates, the film-maker, is at the very least a great talent, which makes ‘Sandy Bates,’ the character playing a filmmaker, the creation of — well, two minds, really, even if there is only one brain behind it. This comes out in one stunning scene in particular, where Sandy meets some extraterrestrials, and conducts an exchange which deserves to be quoted in full:

Sandy: Don’t go! I’ve got some questions!
Alien: We can’t breathe your air!
Sandy: Yeah, at the rate we’re going, we’re not going to be able to either. You guys have to tell me, why is there so much human suffering?
Alien: This is unanswerable!
Sandy: Is there a God?
Alien: These are the wrong questions!
Sandy: Look, here’s my point. If nothing lasts, why am I bothering to make films, or do anything for that matter?
Alien: We enjoy your films, particularly the early, funny ones.
Sandy: But the human condition is so discouraging…
Alien: There’s some nice moments too.
Sandy: Yeah, with Dorrie…
Alien: That’s right. And Isobel. Be honest!
Sandy: You prefer Isobel?
Alien: There’s no comparison. She’s a mature woman!
Sandy: Mature woman?! What are you, my rabbi?
Alien: Hey look, I’m a super-intelligent being. By Earth’s standards, I have an IQ of 1600, and I can’t even understand what you expected from that relationship with Dorrie!
Sandy: I loved her…
Alien: Yeah, I know, and two days a month she was the most exciting woman in the world. But the rest of the time, she was a basket-case! On the other hand, Isobel is someone that you can count on.
Sandy: But shouldn’t I stop making movies and do something that counts, like, helping blind people or becoming a missionary or something?
Alien: Let me tell you. You’re not the missionary type. You’d never last. And, incidentally, you’re also not Superman. You’re a comedian. You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes!
Sandy: Yeah, but I gotta find meaning!

...

This is Woody Allen — not the ‘masochist’ or the hypercritical being who sees his sycophants as nigh-monstrosities, nor the obsessiveness personified through Sandy Bates, but the artist who wrote the exchange above, which not only makes fun of the things that engender the character’s way of thinking, but also offer some truly great wisdom. Although the scene lasts only a couple of minutes, a lot is tackled: the nature of meaning, existence, God (or rather, the irrelevant feelings God engenders) and what to do with one’s life. Yes, relationships are touched upon as well, but they are treated as extensions of Sandy’s basic problem, and thus enlarge to bigger, deeper things. Consider, for example, the alien’s response to the question of “meaning.” It is “unanswerable” precisely because it is a loaded question, with the assumption prioritized above the answer, itself. People might not see this, but an extraterrestrial who has long transcended such petty, all-too-human concerns will. Or consider the advice that Sandy Bates (and by extension, everybody) should stick to what he is best at, rather than fixate on things beyond his nature, and beyond his purpose. As Dan Schneider writes in his review of the film, this is something that more people ought to do, for it’ll bar angst and put human ‘wandering’ in its place: as a phase of self-consolidation, rather than one’s perpetual identity. That so much can be deduced from an exchange that seems superficially comic says much of the film’s leanness, and its ability to communicate so much with so little waste.

Asuka or Tomoko?

Yet even more important than trying to figure out where Woody Allen himself fits in the film, is the alien’s probable retort that it, too, is simply “the wrong question.” The fact is, Sandy Bates — whether real or fiction, wholly or in part — nonetheless exists as a character within a specific film, with certain views, interactions, and relationships, and it is far more important to evaluate those, within the film’s universe, than trying to extrapolate biography from its sum. At its core, the film is an examination of art and its pitfalls (beautifully reproduced, I might add, in the real-life critics’ misrepresentations, as if part of some meta meta-film, whose architect is still a mystery), what it can do, and cannot do, and where human identity fits within this nexus. Art, for instance, is not Sandy’s ‘savior’ (as it isn’t for Renata in Interiors), although, as the critic at the beginning of the film points out, it is very much a “gift” — and larger, in fact, than any of the possible alternatives. Thus, it is not at all a bleak film, but a wholly optimistic one, for even if art cannot save the flatterers, critics, the needy, nor even Bates, himself, it is simply because they do not see its magnetism, hung up, as they are, on themselves, and are treating the thing in a purely selfish manner: the critics, producers, etc., as wanting to get a piece of the action by manipulating the finished product, or Sandy, as a means to get some answer for himself, rather than for the whole of humanity, which is really at the level that the best art functions.

The ‘real’ Bates (not to mention Woody, himself) seems to know better, however, as the creator of the ‘inner’ film. At the ‘inner’ film’s end, the characters that appeared within are seen to be talking about it, and in fact, even seem to have been bettered by the experience, as thinking, sentient beings in the face of something stimulating and rich. Are they mere characters, then, in Sandy’s film, or memories from Sandy’s life, bubbling up, now, as if in a dream? Again, the answer, itself, does not seem to matter too much, for they have existed and transpired — context be damned!

Tomoko. Asuka's a cunt.

2. Another Woman (1988)
“Fifty. I didn’t think anything turning thirty. Everybody said I would. Then they said I’d be crushed turning forty. But they were wrong. I didn’t give it a second thought. Then they said I’d be traumatized turning fifty. And they were right. “

– Marion in Another Woman

If September, from the year prior, was only a mild success, then Another Woman was Woody’s highest accomplishment in the genre, and one of the greatest ‘pure’ dramas ever made. I’ve seen it many times, from my very first watching, wherein I’d interpret the film’s title in the most superficial of senses, i.e., infidelity and other wan thoughts, to ritual re-viewings once or twice a year, getting a bit more out of it each time, to my more mature years now, where my mind feels like it’s finally coming into its own, and is able to handle poetry, narrative, and their composites precisely in the way the film imparts. And although I am not of the view that art is a service to anyone, the best art, I am learning, tracks you through the years, exposes your biases (both petty and not), refines your sense for patterns, and denudes your very shortcomings — the very kind, in fact, one sees on full display when so many critics attempt to talk ‘about’ this film, but can only talk around it, for they seem to want a conversation without wishing to first define its terms. I won’t dwell on these issues here, for the film is really its own best answer.

Now, since I give a scene-by-scene — in fact, almost minute-by-minute! — breakdown of this film in Woody Allen: Reel To Real, I won’t do this now, but focus, instead, on what others have written of it, given how much the film has been savaged over time. In short, going over things scene by scene, in this way, I am reminded why I consider the film to be among the very best in cinema, whether one looks in the scoring, the acting, the scripting, the great, symbolic visuals and shots, the rich poetic narrative, or the tiny details that become obvious only upon multiple viewings, which both help drive the film, as well as condense it to a mere 82 minutes in which nothing is lost, and everything seems to have a place. I am aware, as with Stardust Memories, this is not the critical consensus, but it’s also true that, as with the other film, Another Woman has not been properly watched, as evidenced by the critics’ poorly thought-out dismissals. Indeed, as Nick Davis points out, the film was both “commercially ignored” and “critically unheralded” despite being a “sensitive, accomplished, and ambitious picture,” qualities that I’ve already substantiated. So, what’s the issue, exactly? Vincent Canby, for instance, felt the characters don’t seem “real,” and that the world of the film, itself, is not “real,” but merely contrived, thus mirroring his own views on Interiors — one clue as to its hatred from all the WASP types who populate Marion’s (Gena Rowlands) world. Yet the only evidence provided is characters’ “stilted” dialogue, which is both utterly common in that world, and only half-true, for while there are formalisms, which appear as needed for character realism, they are balanced out by near-perfect acting and snatches of dialogue that not only capture what the characters feel, but describe reality in a way both accurate and poetic, the very opposite of “stilted.”

Tomoko > Misaki >>>>>>>>>> other waifus >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> piss >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> shit >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Asuka

Suffice to say that this is like complaining of Mr. Stevens’s ‘manner’ in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, for while accurate, such a criticism misses the entire point of why it’s being enacted in the first place. Canby also says the characters more often “announce” what they’re feeling rather than truly “experience” such (see the film clip, above), yet one must wonder, then, if he’d caught Marion’s hurry upon meeting her sister-in-law, the supernal expressions she gives off when confronted by others’ eyes, as with Claire, or her perfectly-timed pause before delivering “I think of you more than sometimes” to Larry (Gene Hackman); masterly acting, all, and the absolute pinnacle of ‘show, don’t tell,’ for those that feel they need their films to follow this sort of trite advice. — even as the film so often tells, too, and magnificently, at that. At end, Canby even claims that Mia’s gloomy feelings are more easily explained by her pregnancy (!), wondering why it is not more readily acknowledged by the film, and that the characters are more or less stand-ins for Woody’s own neuroses, missing the fact that Woody wrote the analyst’s lines as well, as a kind of ‘over-voice’ that judges, not suckles, the issues and hang-ups within.

In short, it is a tired conflation, and an inaccurate one, at that. One further wonders of Jonathan Rosenbaum’s take, which says little of the film, itself, and provides even less evidence for what it does say. How could it, when Rosenbaum writes a mere four sentences filled with things too vague to even argue (“self-flagellation”), or manifestly inaccurate (“glitzy, suicidal chic”)? One may disagree with Bill Thompson’s review, for example, in which he criticizes the film for lacking an emotional core, but he provides evidence for claims, and takes a ‘personal’ approach regarding his own emotive response to the film, which obviates any kind of objective critique, anyway, rather than hiding behind its pretense.

asukafag on suicide watch

As an ubermensch I already have high standards for myself, and for mai waifu Asuka so I can assure you that Asuka is top tier. I've already been through my autistic phase, the lowest point in my life and I will never go back.

These faggot race mixers with no dignity would fuck anything that moves. Tomoko is trash and only trashmen take the trash.

She's ginger.

Critics often point out the film’s many borrowings from Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, and while the connection is there, this observation (which is more often than not a charge) ignores the far more obvious differences between the two films. Perhaps the biggest surface-level similarity is the films’ openings: that of a professor whose familial details are revealed via photographs and a voice-over. This sequence (short as it is) was clearly borrowed by Allen, not only due to the set-up, but the way the credits begin after this sequence; a departure for Allen, whose films typically begin with credits first and narrative later. More telling, however, is that the two professors are forced into self-discovery via dream and flashback, often coming to terms with others’ perceptions of them in a way that challenges their own self-awareness. But while Isak’s tale (Wild Strawberries) is that of a grump who, despite others’ comments, — still treats people fairly, and even has a strong emotional core that many viewers deny, Marion is truly self-deluding, and suppresses the emotions Isak so clearly acts upon in virtually every scene of his film. In short, Marion must come to terms with others’ perceptions and change her life accordingly. Isak, by contrast, must come to terms with others’ perceptions and sadly internalize them, despite the viewer knowing how untrue these perceptions often are, and how far apart they remain from the ‘real’ Isak Borg. This is not a subtle difference, but a large one, as Isak remains kind, whimsical, and given to the sort of reveries that are utterly foreign to Marion, thus creating a light film masquerading in darkness to Allen’s far more brooding work.

Bitchy girls cannot be waifus. It's no different from trying to make a slut your waifu.

This.

Still others have called Another Woman intellectually masturbatory, singling out Marion’s references to Rilke, Gustav Klimt, and others, as false and pretentious. Yet the film revolves around intellectuals, including a poetry-minded philosopher, so to have a few references to the very things that might stimulate such people is not exactly unwarranted. Also, there are, maybe, two very short references to Rilke, and one to Klimt. In an 82 minute film, that takes up virtually zero screen time, but adds, in just those few seconds, a whole lot. Critics have complained that using Rilke does nothing to move the “plot” (thus once again confusing plot with narrative), but I wonder if they’d even read the poems in question, or thought for a second of their implications. Archaic Torso of Apollo ends — after a magisterial look at the power of art — with an intuitive leap, to ‘change one’s life,’ the very dilemma that Marion entertains, and eventually resolves. The animal in The Panther, sixteen year-old Marion concludes, must be looking out into the image of death, wherein we see a several-second shot of a caged animal, with a drama mask lying on the floor — the same mask through which Marion kisses Sam (Philip Bosco), who commits suicide, well before we even learn of her abortion. To say this is irrelevant or does nothing for plot (much less narrative) is both unfounded and ridiculous, for it only takes a second’s thought to see the import. In fact, one might even be more justified for (incorrectly) stating that the references are too obvious — incorrect because there are too many rich details (the mask, Rilke’s line on ‘seeing’ which hearkens back to the ghost-like eyes suddenly upon Marion) that involve themselves in more subtle, insinuating ways. Sure, most viewers will not see this, but that professional, literary-minded critics play ignorant is either disingenuous, or absurd.

But perhaps there is a simpler explanation, too. Perhaps the film, as I’ve said, has not really been watched, nor its terms ever defined. And if not, how could a conversation ever be held, and be more than mere posturing — the very posturing the film’s routinely accused of, yet seems to point out so well in others who dismiss it out of hand?

3. Crimes And Misdemeanors (1989)
“He’s out there. Yes he is. And he’s far scarier than Hannibal Lecter, Freddy Krueger, Anton Chigurh, or any of the other cartoonish murderers served up by American cinema over the last three decades or so since slasher and serial killer films came into vogue. The reason is because he is far realer. There are more of him out there, in real life. He is not some freakish killer who hides in the corner of society, doing ghoulish things and masturbating over it. No. He is in the mainstream, and for every person, in real life, that is killed in the Hollywood style depicted in films that star the above named ghouls, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of human beings killed in the very way that he killed. They are murdered, as a way of doing business, as a seeming necessity for someone to retain their privilege. There is no indulgence in the passions and perversions that the gory monster sort of killers in cinema indulge in. No, they are strictly business-like. Efficient, emotionless. Professional. They are all exemplified in perhaps the most realistic embodiment of murderous evil put on to the silver screen. That character is Judah Rosenthal, as portrayed by Martin Landau, in Woody Allen’s masterful 1989 film, Crimes And Misdemeanors– a work that far supersedes the work of art it is almost always compared to, Fyodor Dostoevesky’s Crime And Punishment, and provides a glorious capstone to Allen’s greatest decade in film…”

– Dan Schneider’s review of Crimes And Misdemeanors

Not true. You have to be a really manly man like Kaji if you want a real woman's respect.

Tomoko's personality is better than Asuka's though.
Then I'd adopt a white child if hapa kids are that bad.

...

I don't want a real woman's respect.

Asuka is going through puberty and having her first period. It's literally the only reason she comes off as a little bitchy. Like I've said in other threads, all she needs is a strong alpha role model and she will become the perfect, nicest, kindest, dedicated waifu. Tomokuck would have YOU doing the cooking and cleaning. Asuka is just ripe and ready, bursting with juices. How you cannot see this is beyond me.

Much good has been written of Crimes And Misdemeanors, but aside from the quote, above, few seem to notice that — on top of the great visuals, the acting, and the wonderful, poetic script — Martin Landau’s Judah Rosenthal is one of the most hyper-realistic killers that has ever been depicted, in ANY work of art. I mean, simply watch him, as he moves through the film’s world, and knowingly and unknowingly cuts through everything in his way — even through those who, at first glance, ‘seem’ even worse than he is, yet cannot match Judah’s expert manipulation of others, as well as of self. And this is not only due to the film’s ending, wherein evil goes unpunished (as is the case for virtually all evil acts in human history) but also due to all the little moments that reveal a sociopath on the cusp of realizing his own nature before fully embracing it. No, there’s no blood, or screaming, or deformities; only motive. And it is THAT motive, as opposed to mere freakishness, that frightens grown-ups.

they respect their wealth and status

Bitches stay bitchy forever.

Aside from Judah, there are other great characters, as well. Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) has often been interpreted as a kind of hero, or at least the film’s force of good, alongside Ben (Sam Waterston), but realistically, even in the ‘comic’ portion of the film, Cliff’s antagonist, the slimy Lester (Alan Alda), is much closer to Cliff than is realized. First off, both are losers, at least in the sense that neither exhibits much talent — not Lester, who pushes mere Lowest Common Denominator crap, nor Cliff, who has artsy pretensions to things that, based on his comments throughout the film, he clearly does not understand.

For evidence, just consider this scene, and its implications. In a screening room, Lester is finally shown Cliff’s video project, which captures Lester perfectly by showing him in the worst possible light, complete with shots of Mussolini, a donkey repeating Lester’s idiotic words, and even Lester in an intimate moment with a young, pretty co-worker, to whom he promises a little ‘getting ahead’ in exchange for getting to know “what’s in here,” as he points to his own chest. It’s a bad, almost extreme film, funny to the audience, no doubt, but strange and offensive to Lester, who immediately fires him. Yet Cliff’s look is of genuine surprise — he really did think that Lester would be all right with this, thus casting doubt on Cliff’s intellect. What’s more, the film, as shown, does not seem to be a very good one, implying that Cliff and Lester are not true opposites, after all. If Lester is a passionless hack, with no ideas nor talent of his own, Cliff is a ‘visionary’ hack, both spineless and forever lost. In a way, then, they are two sides of the same coin, for while one has no ideals and zero integrity, the other has a lot of both, but no means of recognizing them, nor executing what he does have into the ‘real world,’ where it could live and affect others. This, again, is an example of great writing and excellent character development, for neither man is a true symbol of good, bad, phoniness, or integrity. They each have a little bit of both, with Lester even being a bit more intelligent than originally shown.

Yet Cliff, while being quite close to Lester in the deeper sense, is one of life’s losers by happenstance, while everyone else around him prospers. At film’s end, he tells Judah that he’d make his story more ‘tragic’ by forcing the killer to turn himself in, thus placing the killer as arbiter of morality in the absence of God. Yet Judah merely shakes his head and says that we’re dealing with real life, NOT fiction.

And this is a true Woody touch, for it reveals Woody Allen’s desire to not merely show what’s on film, but what’s in real life, too, no matter how stylized, such as the film’s final few shots. Judah departs, and Ben dances with his daughter as music plays and colors swirl, as if he finally is in the “kingdom of God,” apart from the spectators, who can only clap at film’s end. Is Ben a fool, then, merely putting on a performance apart from the rest of the world? Or is he in fact wise, no matter if that wisdom is purely situational, whose ideals have merely been rejected, no matter how right, by people who do not share his basic assumptions? In fact, I’d argue that Ben is a more nuanced figure than typically thought. Yes, he has ‘perfect wisdom.’ but at the same time, is perfectly wrong as well, for the wisdom is not really playing out in the real world, as Judah shows. To be wise and wrong is not a contradiction, either, for the two apply to completely different aspects of human existence: the former to a world of ideals, propped by an assumption that most people share, while the latter to the truth of the assumption itself, and what ought to be done with the knowledge gained.

All women are bitches including Tomokuck. Asuka can change though because she wants a man, not a weakling racemixing weeb.

Thus, if Another Woman is a great film that hasn’t yet received its due, then Crimes and Misdemeanors is a widely-praised film whose greatness, while generally acknowledged, is often misunderstood. At its core, the film is not only about a hyper-realistic killer (as opposed to merely a ‘torn,’ freakish, or symbolic one), but also about the winners and losers that surround him, who not only shed light on his import, but on the lives and personalities of millions just like him. In fact, it is one of the film’s seemingly most throwaway lines — “might makes right” — that brings this idea to the fore. To see it in action, one simply needs to look at how the film’s relationships bud and die. Halley (Mia Marrow) rejects Cliff because he’s a loser, and falls for the vapid and loathsome Lester because he’s a success. A stranger humiliates Cliff’s naive, lonely sister merely because he can, and she’s only too willing. Dolores (Anjelica Huston) is not only killed, but her utter shallowness is remembered by Judah, even after her death, wherein she confuses musical composers, or waxes poetic on the eyes being “windows to the soul,” despite us knowing that her own eyes were empty, with neither definition nor identity when she was killed.

Yet, for all that, it is Judah who is at the center of it all, and it’s Judah who, far more than being a mere symbol or plaything, is something far more real. He is just another guy living at home, raising his kids, going to work, and giving to charity, separated only by the style and the frequency of his rationalizations, while the fact that he is ultimately a “winner,” to use Schneider’s word, affirms the Bible’s oft-ignored dictum: for whoever has, more shall be given, but whoever does not have, even that shall be taken away. This is ‘might’ as it begets might, and riches for the Judah Rosenthals, but even as Judah argues at film’s end, no fairy tales, nor happy endings.

Also she was a bitch even as a young child.

4. Hannah And Her Sisters (1986)

Although Hannah And Her Sisters is not a personal favorite of mine, I’d be amiss to not list it among Woody Allen’s 5 or 6 best films, for objective greatness transcends whatever one might ‘feel’ about a thing. After all, there’s much going for the film: a great score, great visuals, some of Woody’s best writing, in ANY film, and a ‘comic’ side — mostly via Mickey Sachs (Woody Allen), in a choice slightly reminiscent of the structure in Crimes And Misdemeanors — that comments upon and expands the deeper stuff, within.

In some ways, Hannah and Her Sisters revisits the same tropes of Interiors, with a seemingly talented artist, Hannah (Mia Farrow), a ‘sore loser’ and drug user, Holly (Dianne Wiest), and a half-lost woman, Lee (Barbara Hershey), who, perhaps out of envy or resentment, starts an affair with Hannah’s husband, Elliot (Michael Caine). In fact, the film begins with Elliot mesmerized by Lee during a Thanksgiving party, an interesting twist that immediately puts the viewer into the mind of a romantic, subverted by the fact that — despite his poeticisms and depth of feeling throughout — he’s quite the creep. Pretty soon, Mickey, a television producer and Hannah’s ex-husband, makes his first appearance as a stressed hypochondriac. He’s subjected to endless medical tests due to his constant worrying, at one point even fantasizing about his own impending death due to a non-existent tumor. This, then, is the film’s make-up, for the main characters’ issues are all played against Mickey’s, whose silliness highlights the silliness of their own self-inflicted problems, even as they evade or obfuscate, and downright magnify them as being deeper than they really are. Yes, it is a borrowing from earlier films like Annie Hall, but goes beyond it as it approaches similar subjects — death, love, and other human relationships — more deeply, probing, as it does, far more than mere romance.

Exactly what I expected cucks to say.

Finally a REAL man around here who knows exactly how a girl is feeling! Kaji is that you?

All 3 sisters have issues with one another, for, as Nick Davis writes, it is the “molecular, push-and-pull connections” that are the story’s focus. But even if one were to argue that there is no main character, it’s really Hannah that’s at the center of it all, or at least seems to be, for Hannah is either a great, well-disciplined and otherwise lucky person, whom her sisters can look up to, or a cold manipulative bitch, depending on how the evidence is interpreted. It’s partly this ambiguity that makes the film so rich, for it is impossible to say with certainty what Hannah is, except that she most likely experiences a change at film’s end. Lee is ‘lost’ and immature, but not self-pitying or self-destructive — save for an early episode of alcoholism, which seems resolved — and uses Elliot as her solid ground, in the same way, perhaps, that she’d once used alcohol to fuel her longing, or Frederick as a kind of anchor. Her new marriage seems to do her a great deal of good, as she’s clearly happy, but we still don’t know what she’s doing for herself, only that her romantic life is now in order. Yet her romantic life with Frederick (Max von Sydow, of The Seventh Seal fame) was acceptable for a while, too, wherein she had no identity but his, and lived off of his money. Does she, for instance, merely jump between relationships in order to stave off loneliness? Yes, her ‘lost’ quality has been replaced with radiance, but it is impossible to tell how long it’ll last, or that her ending is definitively happy; only that the film’s end is happy, which is different but often confused. Holly, too, is similarly lost, albeit in a deeper way, with drugs, slip-shod interests, and a kind of ‘hopping’ quality reminiscent of Joey in Interiors, as well as Joey’s bitterness and anger.

Yet my favorite scene involves Mickey in his quest for ‘meaning,’ as he tries on various new religions, unhappy, as he is, with his lack of faith. After meeting with a priest, Mickey picks up some Catholic doodads and visits his Jewish parents. The conversation that ensues is one of the best, deepest, and funniest parts of the film:

Mother: What! Oh my God!
Mickey: I don’t understand. I thought that you’d be happy?
Father: How could we be happy?
Mickey: Well, because I never thought of God in my life, and now I’m giving it serious thought.
Father: So Catholicism? Why not your own people?
Mickey: Because… I got off on the wrong foot with my own thing, you know, but I need a dramatic change in my life.
Father: You’re gonna believe in Jesus Christ?
Mickey: I know it sounds funny, but I’m gonna try.
Father: But why? We raised you as a Jew.
Mickey: So, just ’cause I was born that way… I’m old enough to make a mature decision.
Father: But why Jesus Christ? Why, for instance, shouldn’t you become a Buddhist?
Mickey: That’s totally alien to me! Look, you’re getting on in years. Aren’t you afraid of dying?
Father: Why should I be afraid?
Mickey: ’Cause you won’t exist!
Father: So?
Mickey: That thought doesn’t terrify you?
Father: Who thinks about such nonsense? Now I’m alive, when I’m dead, I’ll be dead.
Mickey: I don’t understand. Aren’t you frightened?
Father: Of what? I’ll be unconscious.
Mickey: I know, but never to exist again?
Father: How do you know?
Mickey: Well, it certainly doesn’t look promising…
Father: Who knows what I’ll be? I’ll either be unconscious, or I won’t. If not, I’ll deal with it then. I’m not gonna worry now about what’s gonna be when I’m unconscious.
Mickey: Mom, come out!
Mother: Of course there’s a God, you idiot. You don’t believe in God?
Mickey: But if there’s a God, why is there so much evil in the world? Just on a simplistic level, why were there Nazis?
Mother: Tell him, Max.
Father: How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don’t know how the can opener works.

Most 2D girls,(including Tomoko) are nowhere near as bad as Asuka.

Most 2d girls are unable to birth babies because they never have their periods. Asuka is ready my friend. She is the perfect waifu.

Although wrapped up in comedy, the dialogue is quite revealing, with the father’s matter-of-fact retorts among some of the very best and most concise ever penned on the topic. In short, Mickey is wrong, and his father is right: why should someone punish himself with unanswerable questions when they only lead to depression and confusion? Why be terrified of death, when life is the present condition, and must be gotten through before all else? Yet Mickey does not recognize this, and creates the same kind of problems — albeit more dramatically — as the other characters do, all the while feeling himself ‘justified’ in this or that mode of thinking. Sure, the others are dishonest and manipulative, and Mickey is not, but their basic issues stem from personal immaturity, which is his own problem, too. The difference is that Mickey wraps it up in highfalutin language about God, evil, human suffering, and other existential concerns, as if his own issues are somehow incomparable or more sophisticated. They are not. One can talk oneself into depression as easily as infidelity, for the root problem is the same, with Mickey serving as a semi-comic mirror for the rest of the film’s drama.

The film’s use of music is also reminiscent of Manhattan — not in the song choices, which are quite different, but in the way that they both prop up and undermine the film’s very illusions. It is, alongside Stardust Memories, Allen’s most complex use of music thus far, with certain composers being linked to specific characters (Puccini and David; Mickey and Count Basie; Bach and the Elliot/Lee arc), and the use of classical, which would only grow with stature in his later films. Yet it is really the various manifestations of Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered that stand out most for their emotive and narrative drive. On the one hand, Elliot is in love (or thinks he is), as are Hannah’s parents, who sing the song at the first Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, the song’s simplicity captures these emotions — and the title, itself, can be seen as a comment on so much of the film’s behaviors — yet Elliot is also clearly ill-suited for Lee, and his love quite immature, while Hannah’s parents seem to stick around only for the misery they can inflict upon one another. The song’s many reprisals, then, have a complex effect, with its purity being undermined by the reality it’s so often paired with, even as, at film’s end, the idea is that Hannah’s parents have gotten over their issues (not likely), and that Elliot has finally ‘seen the light,’ also not likely, for a man in his forties capable of acting like a perpetual fifteen year-old probably has much deeper issues to fix.

...

5. Interiors (1978)

In looking at Woody’s post-Love And Death films, one sees that they aim higher, and simply accomplish more. Interiors is precisely such a work, for it takes a kernel — a family in turmoil — and shows how characters are affected by it, as well as how they, themselves, are the contributors to the dissolution. The film shocked viewers upon release, for it had exactly zero comedic value, and remains one of the heaviest stories that Woody Allen has written to this day. It is also precisely what is so hated in Allen’s work, for he skewers an upper crust family in a way that is both poetic and realistic, thus opening Allen up to criticism because ‘they’ don’t like what they see, or simply do not believe it. And yet, for all the superficial difficulty one might have with getting into it, it is, at its core, a highly complex and well-wrought drama, full of great characters, interesting symbols (the red dress at end; the black, almost cosmic tape during the first suicide attempt), and some really great psychological interplay between three sisters that would not be equaled until Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

Of all the characters, I’d argue that Joey (Mary Beth Hurt) is the most complex, and perhaps the most enduring. Yes, Eve (Geraldine Page) is extremely well-acted, and absolutely necessary to the film, yet her presence is that of an apparition: she always stalks their thoughts, and in a way is an extension of themselves, as if the fat, drab, haggard woman is a symbol of their various ills, which her death ultimately cures. One does not see much of Eve when young and triumphant, only the ghost of such, which comes out in little moments such as her re-designing of Joey’s apartment, where, instead of the true talent she might have once had, the viewer only sees obsession and fixation. If Eve is mentally wrecked and spiritually sick, Joey’s ill is that despite being bright and ready to ‘live,’ she simply has no creative talent, no way of expressing her thoughts and feelings in a truly meaningful way. Michael (Sam Waterston) seems to care for her, but as a ‘regular guy’ who likely does not have much talent himself, or any real reason to crave it, he does not know how to handle Joey and her endless moods. On one level, Joey worships Eve because of her talent, but manipulates her because, on a deeper level, she feels that she’s inherited something from her mother, and needs to be wary, for talent (at least to Joey) is probably not worth all the suffering Eve put her family through.

Asuka doesn't think of herself as an independent woman. Many times through out the series she states very clearly that no JAPANESE man is good enough for her. Imagine being in a country full of weak midget ant betamen as a glorious aryan going through puberty. It would be Hell.

In Woody Allen: Reel To Real, I write that Joey is very much an American, practically as a symbol of excess, because ca. 1978, America was (and is probably more so now) a place of so much freedom for the rich, that the leisure and opportunity could drive a person to functional idleness. In short, ‘everyone’ can be an artist, it is repeated. ‘Everyone’ is encouraged to do everything, no matter how ill suited to the task they are. Every whim is indulged, and no question thought insoluble. As Joey literally hops around, it is all too easy to loathe the self-indulgence she represents, and loathe her, by extension. Yet, this would also miss something important. The Joeys of the world are quite good for the arts, if not downright necessary, for they can be its arbiters, or at least understand the deeper things in a way that quotidian, non-artsy folk cannot. No, they will not be artists, but, basically, artists need someone to communicate to. All throughout the film, Joey is sensitive and has a good read on people, even if her actions (as with Pearl) are repeatedly marred by her own biases. But Joey does represent a bright, sympathetic type, and thus ought to be the kind of audience an artist aims for. Moreover, her inability to replicate such aims herself is irrelevant, for it is outside of her core purpose. Talent is indeed wonderful, but, as Woody Allen has so often argued, it’s also a crapshoot. One either has it, or not. If one does, not cultivating it is an absolute waste. Yet if it’s not there, the most self-destructive thing one could do is to obsess and desire the impossible. Joey, then, is quite real as a Woody, not Bergmanian, creation, and her conflict, which is uniquely Woody, is central to the tropes within the film itself.

Yet for all the good within the film’s chief characters, even the minor roles are quite fleshed out. Flyn (Kristin Griffith), for instance, although a supporting character, at best, is nonetheless an interesting one, for she’s always somewhere in the background, a sister neither of the two seeks out, nor a person who stirs up any real passion in anyone. Despite this, however, she clearly has a very different emotional make-up, a purity that the other two lack, even if she is insipid. And to be fair, we never do hear any stupidity from her — it is all second-hand, as we are expected to take this on faith. But, perhaps this says more of the other characters’ perceptions than about Flyn, herself, for in the few scenes where she does open up to her sisters, she reveals no resentments, no hang-ups, no passive-aggressiveness or ill will towards anyone, but, surprisingly, a good deal of self-awareness. In the scene where she is walking along the beach with Renata, and a camera follows them at a distance behind an undulating fence, Flyn gently rebukes Renata’s compliments, saying that she knows who she ‘actually’ is, that she is a minor television actress, and that if it weren’t for some insipid culture, she’d not even have a job. Flyn says this with some resignation, but not resentment or self-loathing. To Flyn, it just is, and there is no sense in fighting against reality. (If only Joey could agree, or Renata see herself as clearly!) At the funeral, where Joey appears rigid, and Renata only mildly upset, caring, as she does, for Eve only for the first time now, it is Flyn who has the strongest and most emotionally ‘pure’ response, given the fact that she’s had no such personal investment in Eve’s death. To Flyn, it is merely the death of a pitiable mother. To the others, however, there is exoneration and release. This surely makes Flyn less complex than the other two, but no less interesting, and the fact that Woody was able to give this kind of personableness to one of the film’s trivialities flies in the face of everything that’s been written of its supposed lack of realism.

I'd still take other 2D girls anyway.

Allen was very critical of the response to Interiors, calling it “a shame.” In fact, he’s quite critical of the entire ‘dramatic’ genre in America, saying that soap operatics, rather than solemnity, is what’s typically preferred. Perhaps, for this (along with the false assertions of ripping off Bergman) is the only reason why the film seems to have been so savaged — that is, for its dead seriousness. Of all the bad that’s been written of the film, however, it is Vincent Canby, perhaps, who requires the most attention for his critiques. After describing, accurately and precisely, what Interiors is about, he goes on to say that he “hasn’t any real idea what the film is up to,” and that Woody “set out to make someone else’s movie,” a “Brooklyn Jewish boy’s fantasy about middle-class American Protestantism.” To this, I can only ask: Huh? Did Canby ever meet these types and their infinite variations in the lower classes, and beyond? And, even if Woody had ‘inaccurately’ captured a certain slice of the population, they are still real characters that inhabit his created universe, play out a narrative in complex ways, and say something of substance and worth, whether or not Canby is willing to recognize this as such, and are therefore real, consistent, and in need of NO justification, other than what’s on the screen.

Asukafags are delusional as fuck.

As it stands, however, Woody left the typical “Brooklyn Jewish boy’s” life in his early 20’s, and more or less subsisted on the WASPy Upper East Side ever since, drawing on experiences that were true-to-life as can be, with the added benefit of distance that only a transplant could provide. If that wasn’t enough, Canby goes on to deride Keaton’s role, as it’s “impossible” to write a successful poet’s character. (What?) He ponders what success even means — publication, awards, disheveled hair. Canby, who was no artist, thus foists up the very artistic stereotypes he, himself, does not understand, and thus cannot appreciate how the film attacks and deconstructs. A real poet is not disheveled; he merely writes real poems. All else is accoutrement, and as varied as people vary. To Canby, Diane Keaton is too busy looking out of the window, thinking “sensitive, poet-type thoughts.” Yet, this is the Diane Keaton of his invention, not Renata, who exists in a real universe of people, who do complex things, and are not defined by merely one part of their existence. With Eve, her fate was exactly that, and this is why her reality went hollow.

They think some cunt that hates everyone would somehow love them.

6. Manhattan (1979)

Although Manhattan is one of Woody’s best and most-loved films, it also among the most misunderstood. This is probably because there is such a disconnect between the film’s stunning and romantic imagery, and the way the characters actually behave on-screen. Often, it’s been called a “love letter” to New York, or what’s worse, a “love poem,” but it’s really an excoriation of Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) and the projection of his ideals, which are incongruently set against all that’s beautiful and lush. It is quite an effective device, for it makes the film seem to be about one thing, yet completely undermines the genre tropes that other superficially similar works are so dependent on, even as the black and white cinematography of the great Gordon Willis seems to ‘pretend’ otherwise.

Not wasting any time, Woody makes this apparent from the very first shot, in which Isaac is busy at his book. Yes, it’s a ‘romantic’ trope, in the sense that Isaac is a man in love with his city, and trying to write, but is marred by the fact that he simply cannot express one well-articulated thought. At end, he settles on this line: “‘He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.’ I love this. ‘New York was his town and it always would be.’” This is not exactly good writing, and flies in the face of a later scene where he up and quits his job so he could stop writing crap television, and work on something “serious” and worthwhile instead. Clearly it is not, and despite being one of the most-quoted parts of the film, there is an irony, a futility, here, that most viewers do not catch. The stunning visuals of fireworks are celebratory, but of what? Probably of Isaac’s feelings and ideals, which are repeatedly shown to have little to do with reality, not only of the outside world, but of his internal life, as well, which is as false and self-congratulatory as anything he critiques. This gives Manhattan a special place in cinema, even as, thirty-five years later, it continues to outshine films that, while inspired by Woody’s, are restricted by the genre conventions he absolutely defies.

Interestingly, the film’s last 10 minutes or so are often loved for their ‘romance,’ but I just don’t see this — most likely because it’s not really there! Isaac, after all, runs to Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) only when Mary (Diane Keaton) leaves him. Yes, he seems to surprise even himself when he says her name into the tape recorder, but did the name come up organically, or was it borne merely out of his recent loss, and thus loneliness? The film does not answer this question, and leaves much else open-ended, but if anything, the alleged ‘love-letter’ imagery of the film must be seen in this light, for Isaac does not truly learn, and while he grows, he does so inward, deepening into his own irreality while remaining perfectly aware of this fact.

In short, Yale (Michael Murphy) will now have to deal with a broken marriage. Twelve years, in his estimation, is a long time. He will have to adapt to Mary’s neuroses. The technicians at Isaac’s old TV studio will continue smoking angel dust, but the city will go on being loved by them. At the end, then, Isaac has all the advantage: he keeps the sense of ‘romance’ all the while undermining it, he has his overwhelming self-deluded moral sense, a seemingly bad novel that a big publisher nonetheless loves, and, quite possibly, an eighteen year old girlfriend waiting for him when he wants her, no matter how temporary, one-sided, and immature their relationship will be. Isaac, then, is ultimately a winner, for all the reasons that winners are so often hated. It does not concern him, however. He is not Martin Landau in Crimes and Misdemeanors, and is not evil. He is merely good at small, intoxicating delusions, and while they don’t wreck lives, they bite at them — his own, included. Yet it is simply never bad enough to stop. And what images, what pictures along the way; what romance, and its ideation, for Isaac to fall back on, when the going gets tough! I suppose, then, this is the way that most people view Manhattan, especially if they are its true-life residents. But, do they ever see what’s underneath?

That cunt just needs a good dicking. It's really not that complicated.

points out that Manhattan has a “soap-opera plotline,” yet it succeeds anyway, for the unique way it is treated. This is true, as well as inviting comparisons to the similar Annie Hall. Yet I’d argue that Manhattan is an even better film, for while the core is more or less the same — a dissection of people’s flaws and the effect upon relationships, often moved by jokes and wit — this film has deeper situations, deeper dialogue, better and more daring visuals, and fuller characters. Compare, for instance, the car scene in Annie Hall to the one here. In the earlier film, Annie is merely shown to be a bad driver, and the entire sequence is subjugated towards ‘the joke.’ It is funny, it is good, but it is more reminiscent of Woody’s earlier work than his mature drama. In Manhattan, however, there is a car scene in which Emily and Yale are simply driving, and the camera stays a good ten to fifteen feet away, as if someone is eavesdropping on Yale, or following him, in the midst of his lying. It is a paranoia that at once undermines the lush visuals, as well as more deeply characterizes Yale by showing his unease, a multi-layered technique that Woody Allen probably could not have thought of a mere two or three years before. There are deeper things Woody says about art — “talent is luck” and the like — and a more complex look at manipulation within a wider, more diverse range of characters, with a large number of poetic moments interspersed, compared to Annie Hall’s more strict treatment of ‘the relationship’ and one man’s relation to it. Then there are the visuals: the bridge scene, the blinds obscuring Isaac, the few stunning minutes at the planetarium, fireworks, the final panorama… In short, if Annie Hall was a great early work, slightly rough around the edges, Manhattan is a more developed one, complete with a deeper — and, apparently, more bewildering — notion of itself that, to this day, still tricks viewers into accepting its illusions.

Waifus are for Platonic love you nigger.

Was he autistic? Or just a cuck?

7. Radio Days (1987)

As the title implies, the film is ‘about’ America’s fascination with radio in the 1930s and 40s, and all that entailed. More accurately, however, it is any family’s milieu, and how its characters respond not only to one another, but also to the images and longings that radio brings out of them. People zip in and out, develop, regress; generation-defining incidents, such as German subs, a fictionalized account of Kathy Fiscus falling into a well, and Orson Welles’s adaptation of The War of the Worlds scratch at the film’s interiors; music — both real, and the film’s specific scoring — drives the various, complex emotions; and the narrator, Joe (Woody Allen), feels his entire childhood well up as he stands before the beach, lost in his memories.

The film’s structure is deceptively loose, for while scenes appear haphazard, they in fact create a very real beginning, middle, and end, for not only the characters, themselves, but the ideas and emotions they impart. Even seemingly ‘isolated’ scenes, such as at the beginning, when two burglars break into a house at night only to wind up being called by a radio show and win prizes, do much to propel the film’s narrative and set up its atmosphere. Other snippets, such as Joe’s discovery of his dad’s profession, deepen both, and shed light on the family’s desires and insecurities, while the side-plots involving various radio stars poke holes in the very magic the film props up, mostly by giving these larger-than-life personalities a human quality most listeners probably missed. In that way, Radio Days does something tough: it gives off the aura of effortlessness, of taking a full look at a boy’s sense of self as if by merely running through a few memories, but in fact has a reason for its choices, with scenes losing their punch if ever rearranged, or their sense of closure if ever altered.

not even waifufags are this autistic for free

Although it’s often said that the film lacks plot, this criticism misses the fundamental difference between the words ‘narrative’ and ‘plot’, and how they apply to art. Plot is merely the happenings, not even how one gets from one point to the other, but the fact of getting there. It is, in other words, an excuse to dig at deeper things, and not the main attraction. Narrative, on the other hand, is how all things in a given art-work cohere, whether that be music, scripting, acting, image, or the mere smash-up of events, which may or may not include a rich plot. To give an example, one reads a trashy romance novel for its plot-line (a device that may devolve to simple entertainment), but Moby-Dick for its narrative drive, and deeper meditations within, which themselves further drive the narrative. So, does the film have such ‘narrative’? Well, let’s see: a beautiful opening shot of a glum, overcast Rockaway Beach that, according to Dan Schneider’s review, is “somehow gorgeous,” is narrated by the adult Joe, which leads to remembrances of his childhood, and the personages within it. One sees his family and their typical, New York bickering; their ‘bad Jew’ neighbors, who are in fact Communists; the fat fish-eater; the n’er lucky aunt who fails in love (slightly based on Woody’s real-life family), even bringing home, one time, a pretty-looking man who turns out to be gay; the seeming hatred and bitterness they all feel towards one another, only to be undermined many times over, but also in a particularly thoughtful scene, where Joe, who’s about to get beaten, sees his father’s hand stop mid-ass, interrupted by a radio broadcast of a girl who fell into a well, and how, in the next shot, the father’s hand is tenderly coaxing down Joe’s hair.

I don't think he knows how easy it is to just hide his posts.

This is New York to a ‘T,’ in the 1950s; hell, it is my own immigrant family in the 80s and 90s, showing how universal the depictions really are. In short, the details do not matter; only the spirit does, which is the only thing that is ever stayed. Then, there is the plenum of stars in radio; not only The Masked Avenger, who drives some of the child-like, magical quality of the film, as well as beautifully framing its end — his tag-line shouted, as it is, into the night; not only Mia Farrow, who brilliantly acts a dumb girl stuck in her Brooklynese, only to become a big star after some diction lessons; not only the affairs and under-goings of the celebrities, whose flaws absolutely kybosh the narrator’s sense of childhood ‘perfection,’ even as they unwittingly enhance it, too; but the adult radio stars, as well, whose chi-chi breakfasts and seemingly happy marriages are a parallax to the longings of Joe’s own family, and how ironic, how illusionary such things really are. They all get their individual plotlines, from radio to real life, and they all get their ends, whether happy or sad, growing or stalled, or something in between, where life really springs. Sure, I could see why the film might be ‘hard to like,’ for not everyone wants to follow so many characters and events, but to charge it as ‘loose,’ rather than tightly constructed, or ‘meandering,’ when it clearly isn’t, are observations not based on fact, and judgments not based on reason.

The film’s fleshed out by music, and oft-poetic narration framed by great visuals, such as the end narration, where Joe notes how much “dimmer” those voices seem to grow with time, as the club’s lit-up top-hat bobs up and down above the roof. There is even the classic song by Diane Keaton, above, at the same night-club, whose voice lingers through the house via radio, as the camera finds each family member stuck in their own lives, happy or disillusioned. Indeed, of all Woody’s films, Radio Days is perhaps the best scored, down to the fact that music appears in virtually every scene to evoke something of the narrative, whether this is basic humor, or more complex thrusts, such as with Keaton’s singing. In fact, the song does not so much capture what the family members are doing, exactly, but more importantly, captures their longing (for what?), implied only by looks and gestures one gets more and more attached to with each viewing, for the characters are real, they have true-life analogues, part of a “web” that extends through almost any childhood, to be crystallized only by the highest art — which Radio Days is, for the reasons listed.

Where to find rule 34 of Misaki?

danbooru.donmai.us/posts?tags=nakahara_misaki

danbooru.donmai.us/posts?utf8=✓&tags=nakahara_misaki nude &ms=1

And you said Tomokofags would fuck anything that moves.

BBC slut.

What if I'm not even white?

tfw you fall in love with an Asuka cosplayer

…those eyes.

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btfo

Unlike anime, real life doesn't have a happy ending for everyone

Tomatofags can't understand this feel.

How do you know she's not a whore?

Also

She's a whore for me.

And hundreds of other men you cuck. At least 2D Asuka isn't a whore.

Seriously, what's her name? Girl's a fuckin' qt3.14

It's Alexandra Gayer lol (Александра Гайер) cosplayer from slavland.

vk.com/idenna

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Nice! Thanks user.

Found a few more pics here: taringa.net/posts/manga-anime/19488730/El-mejor-Cosplay-de-Asuka.html

I know you're reading this thread you pig fucking cuck, come back here.

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Shi nigga that's too much for me. Yo where my boi Tarantino at? Yo Quentin! I got your homegirl right here! I got your homegirl Mr. Del Toro! Plz make an Evangelion movie for us, don't be so heartless man I now yous got dem connections man, I know yous reading dis man.

2D Asuka and 3D Asuka is one and the same so STFU you DnC tomatofag shill, everyone knows 2D Asuka was sucked into a Sea of Dirac and gained an extra dimension making her fully 3D.

Asuka smiles for me and Asuka is a little whore just for me, I know her love is true, but tomatofags can't comprehend this because they don't know how to win a woman's respect, they prefer easy-come easy-go girls like tomato, Asuka is hard to get because she has standards but if you're man enough for her she will become your bitch I guarantee you.

Proofs?
Also this 3D whore isn't even German and most likely already has a boyfriend (who she'll leave for another one eventually). You don't even deserve a waifu if you're lusting after dirty camwhores. I actually have more respect towards regular asukafags than you.

You're looking at them.

That would be me.

Good, I hate Germans.

I already told you man, this is the real Asuka, the one that emerged fully 3D from the Sea of Dirac. No one wants to cosplay dirty old tomato anyway.

Just face it man, you are just a pathetic self-loathing human being who's attracted to someone as equally pathetic as you are. Seeing tomatofags lust after their tomato is like watching a couple of worms reproducing. Love yourself, maybe then you'll see the error of your ways and repent.

Everything about this whore is fake, that's not her actual hair, not her actual eyes, she doesn't act like the actual Asuka, all of these photos are just set up. She is TRICKING you, like 3DPD always does, and a truly pure girl wouldn't even think of camwhoring.
So you hate Asuka then.
The real Asuka is not a slav and would not camwhore.
At least Tomokofags are loyal and actually love their waifu.

Not true.

She is a real 2D girl but in a 3D body, how many times do I have to tell you?

I'll take slav Asuka, thanks.

Bruh, I realize she may be a cocktease but she's still a sweet girl and would never think of cucking me. These are purely personal photos that Asuka made for me, I'm actually doing you a favor out of the kindness of my heart by sharing them with you so don't dishonor my beloved's good name. Know shame you savage beast, I know you're jealous that tomato isn't real and would never camwhore for you but that ain't my fault, sorry.

True. Show photos of her younger self if all of that is real.
Prove it.
So the fake one then.
The real Asuka is German
Yet they're public for everyone to see.
3D women always lie and don't understand the concept of loyalty or dignity.
Never, you whore fucking cuck.
I'm glad she isn't real. If she became real she would become corrupted like every other 3D whore.

I ain't gotta prove shit nigga, it's science.

What does it mean to be real? Is it the joy or pain we feel? The happy or sad memories we have? How do you know you're real? How do you know you aren't German? What does it mean Slavic or German? Is it the traditions they have? Is it the citizenship they grant?

Asuka likes to cocktease little Shinjis like you, she likes to remind them that tomato is inferior and they will never have an awesome waifu.

Now isn't that just sad… love yourself bruh.

So you can't prove it.
There is nothing sad about preventing the one you love from whoredom. Protect your waifu.
I do love myself, which is why I'l never change for some disgusting cumdumpster. I will always stay loyal to my waifu forever, and nothing you say will change that.

Nope.

Ok I will.

That's fantastic, God bless.

I shiggy.

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But she likes Kaji.

bump desu

How could it be racemixing when all anime girls are white?

post proof

japs btfo

What did he mean by this?

It was a bad line and a prank call, someone spouting insane babble. I couldn't make sense of it.

But I had an overwhelming sense of deja vu and the caller's voice sounded oddly familiar.

Rulecucks simply can't understand imageboards, smdh

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Newfag trumpgoons REALLY hate anime & anonymous.

Wait a second. I thought the trumpgoons wanted anime to be real.

Spammer's still at it, huh?

Typical MO of the Holla Forums posters. I think they came over from endchan as a raid.

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I don't know whether you're CTR shill, an Holla Forums goon, or the reddipol spammer, but you sure are fucking dumb.

White males and anime girls: the only two demographics that Trump leads in, but anime girls President Clinton.

Got tired of your poleddit maymay, Hershel?

What did he mean by this?

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bump

bump for what? there's only 2 people here that care about misaki and they barely even post in the thread for her.

tbh I just want to keep the asuka posts around. I find them very interesting.

Here:
archive.is/g7abG

That's not really authentic though…

What's the difference? Fuck just make an Asuka thread if you want her posts that badly.

top cringe material

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Misaki a cute, A CUTE!

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