Sleeper

Just watching this old Woody Allen movie and don’t really feel compelled to blog about anything important tonight.  It’s still a great movie, even though it’s probably 30 years old.  The classic Woody Allen, before he got serious.  The thing is, I’d never seen it before.

This is one of the amazing things about modern culture, books, movies and stuff like that.  Everything lasts.  If you don’t see it when it comes out, you can always enjoy it later for the first time.  Of course, some movies just don’t stand the test of time.  I remember one year my brother and I, caught up in Oscar fever, decided to go out and rent some Oscar winners from years past.  Unbelievable that the sense of what was good should have changed so much in such a short time.  Kingfish.  Not exactly a keeper for historical accuracy or great filmmaking.

One movie I thought was absolutely brilliant when it came out and then I saw it again about 10 years later and was amazed that I ever thought it was a great film was “Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure.”  Laughed my ass off the first time I saw it but then, with a detached view, it was clear that the entire humor of the film depended upon an appreciation of early 90s teenage slang.  Another example of that is Red Dwarf.  It had some hysterical moments but, basically, once the word “smegma” stopped being funny, after a couple of hundred repetitions or so, there was nothing left.

The Three Stooges or Monty Python, however, are timeless because their jokes depend on hitting people over the head with various objects and men dressing up as women, both of which are comedic themes which have been funny for thousands of years.

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in Sleeper