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Sleeper

Sleeper

List Price: $14.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: An Allen Mix
Review: Sleepers is an Allen movie with a little more. The one-liners are funny, the political jibes are funny, but the Mel Brooks humor and Benny Hill comedy is not part of an Allen movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: funny
Review: this is a satire of early 70's culture and politics and allen leaves no-one unscathed. right wing dictators and left wing dictators, technocrats and luddites, meat-eaters and plant-eaters: everyone gets it. the best part of the movie for me was seeing the allusions to and influences of other films and directors. the movie was obviously inspired by kubrick's futuristic "clockwork orange" right down to the set design and color scheme. but allen also pays homage to two titans from the distant past, charlie chaplin and buster keater, in his slapstick, keystone cops routines.

a very funny movie that shows how funny allen was in his prime.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Astonishing Allen Achievement!
Review: This is one of the great films of the 1970s, and indeed the 20th century, so get out your orb and fire up the orgasmatron!

Allen portrays Miles Monroe, a health food store owner cryogenically frozen after an ulcer operation gone awry. Awakened 200+ years later by dissident scientests, Miles finds himself at the center of a futuristic coup d'etat attempt and a bizarre cloning experiment.

Fortunately, Allen's future world is quite enlightened: wheat germ are nowhere to be found because deep fat, hot fudge, and alcohol are proven to be healthy. That, and deeply inhaling tobacco smoke. People get Ph.D.'s in oral sex ("in case the machine breaks"), and of course there are jet packs and lots of zipping around in futuristic cars.

Allen juxtaposes this comedic environment with a ragtime music soundtrack, Keatonesque (Buster AND Diane) physical comedy, and a dose of vintage late 1960s revolution humor (much like his earlier "Bananas"). The observant Allen scholar will note that the revolutionaries' anthem is the same as in "Bananas" (Rebels are we! Born to be free! Just like the fish, in the sea!).

Strongly recommended!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Spendid Farce.
Review: This is the perfect blend of physical and intellectual comedy. This was back when Woody was great. Diane Keaton is so effervescent that you will not be able to keep your eyes off of her. It's easy to forget how beautiful that she once was. Also, the social satire is outstanding as he comments on
I challenge anyone not to laugh during his skit when he wins Miss America as Mrs. Montana. You'll appreciate this purchase I guarantee.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Spendid Farce.
Review: This is the perfect blend of physical and intellectual comedy. This was back when Woody was great. Diane Keaton is so effervescent that you will not be able to keep your eyes off of her. It's easy to forget how beautiful that she once was. Also, the social satire is outstanding as he comments on
I challenge anyone not to laugh during his skit when he wins Miss America as Mrs. Montana. You'll appreciate this purchase I guarantee.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of Woody Allen's funniest films
Review: This isn't necessarily Woody Allen's best film, but to me it is his funniest. Most people see ANNIE HALL as the dividing line between early and late Woody Allen. Through ANNIE HALL, he was concerned with creating laughs, lots of laughs. But ANNIE HALL also brought a more mature technique in filmmaking, and with each film after it, there was less and less a concern that the audience laugh at a new joke every few minutes. Personally, I like to laugh, and I am not alone in preferring Woody's earlier to his later films.

The plot is akin to Rip Van Winkle. Miles Monroe is a health food storeowner who is frozen following unsuccessful surgery, to be reawakened two hundred years in the future. Most of the jokes in the film result from his experiences first from being reawakened and then acquainted with the world of the future. He is accidentally thrown together with a woman played by Diane Keaton, and eventually they are forced by circumstances to embrace the rebellion by the Big Brother type of totalitarianism controlling society.

The humor is a bit more slapstick than in much Woody Allen, though there are a wealth of one-liners. There are some wonderful absurdities, such as the ridiculous mechanized pet dog that Miles is given after his rehabilitation. And who could ever forget the Orgasmatron? Or the giant vegetable patch? Or the hysterical cameo narration by Douglas Rain, who also provided the voice for HAL in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY?

I continue to enjoy Woody Allen's films, and have, I guess, seen every movie he has ever made. But I do so with mildly dwindling interest, and considerable regret that he no longer tries to make me laugh so hard I injure my rib cage.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Equal party Orwell and Keaton...
Review: This manages to be a very effective screwball-dystopic-fantasy, while functioning as a great showcase for Woody's physical comic talents.

The setup is a little over the top, but I can live with that. During minor surgery, Miles Monroe winds up cryogenically frozen for 200 years ("I go in to have an ulcer removed, and end up 2000 months behind on my rent!"). It's all a great excuse for some biting Woody-style satire on the 1970s junk culture. The scene where Miles is shown pictures and video of various infamous 20th century figures and lies when asked to identify them is priceless (Charles DeGaulle is a french pastry chef, Billy Graham is rumoured to have had a sexual fling with God, Howard Cosell is a form of capital punishment). He even predicts Nixon's criminal activity!

Other high points include Woody masquerading as a domestic robot, the scene in the hyper-vegetable garden, the jewish robot tailors, and the nose-cloning scene. My favourite part, though, is when Woody and Diane Keaton play 'A Streetcar Named Desire', taking the opposite gender role. Woody is a credible Blanche DuBois, but check out Diane's hilarious Marlon-Brando-as-Stanley-Kowalski impression!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: BETTER THEN I REMEMBERED
Review: This movie is better then I remembered. In fact, the only things I remembered about it were the robots and the Orgasmatron (what early teen could forget that mysterious contraption?). This is another excellent pairing of Allen and Diane Keaton. Being older (and with the passage of time), the scene of Woody identifying items from his past is hysterical (as is the Miss America scene). I just wish that we were able to see all the photos he was looking at. A humorous look at Allen's vision of the future in 200 years (circa 1973). The nose knows.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: One of Woody's funniest
Review: Though not as funny as Woody's classic TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, SLEEPER will still have you rolling in no time. Allen's wit and sarcasm shine through in every minute of this comedy classic.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Woody Allen does the time warp, saving the future by a nose
Review: Twice in the Seventies I literally fell out of my seat in a theater laughing. Once was when the Israeli tanks came over the hill at Judas in "Jesus Christ Superstar" and the other was when they gave Woody Allen's character a drink of water when he was unthawed at the beginning of "Sleeper." Certainly I can explain the first a lot easier than the second, but it might have something to do with the fact that you expect something more cerebral from Allen than letting water fall out of his mouth. But it struck my funny bone in a way my funny bone is rarely touched.

Allen plays Miles Monroe, who finds himself in the far flung future where he has to explain the peculiarities of the 20th century (such as Howard Cosell) to the historians. Of course the point is to critique the present (which is not past) by looking at the future (which has not happened yet). Miles becomes enamored of Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton), who is even more out of touch than the lost in time Miles, and the pair become involved in an attempt by revolutionaries to overthrow the sterile government of the Leader. Miles is not the heroic type, but he needs to impress Luna, who has fallen for the dashing leader of the revolutionaries, Erno Windt (John Beck).

I never really thought of it before, but I can see where "Sleeper" is Allen's Buster Keaton film. Unlike most Allen films there are several funny physical gags, such as Allen having to pretend to be a robotic servant and getting caught in the orgasmatron. Allen does not make a passable Blanche DuBois, but Keaton does a pretty good Brando ("Hah!"). "Sleeper" is the best of the "early funny films" made by Allen (i.e., the ones before "Annie Hall"), mainly because it does not require you to have a thorough knowledge of Russian literature like "Love & Death." There is also the original jazz score by Allen with the Woodman himself wailing on his licorice whip as a special bonus. Who would have suspected what was in store once Allen turned "serious" in his films?


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