One Paragraph Review: Annie Hall

In the attempt to broaden my Woody Allen repertoire, I requested Annie Hall from Netflix almost three months ago; unfortunately, it sat forgotten on a shelf until tonight when I finally decided Trey and I needed a little cultural education. We enjoyed the movie well enough, but really, apart from the typical review I could write (Woody is a sad, but brilliant man; Diane Keaton is charming and absolutely deserved her Oscar; the sexual revolution has been as full of hypocrisy as anything else; were the 70s really that drug infested?), I only have one real takeaway from the film and it has nothing to do with Annie Hall. In fact, it has to do with (500) Days of Summer, or as I will now be calling it The 2009 Movie That Completely Ripped Off One Of Woody Allen's Most Brilliant. I mean, really, the two films are almost identical! Except that one was an original idea with iconic scenes and dialogue delivered by some of Hollywood's greatest and the other was a hipster rip-off by someone who either didn't care enough about the history of film to know he was copying a classic or who did know exactly what he was doing and had the gall to recognize that the average American under 30 wouldn't. The most surprising thing is that nothing has changed in 30 years concerning our views on wisdom; the moral of both movies remains the same - romantic/sexual relationships burn us, but we need them, so let the cycle continue.

~Hannah

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