Everyone Says I Love You

Rating:
Summary: Move Over Baz Lurhman, Woody Allen Coming Through!
Review: I must preface my remarks by admitting I never liked Woody Allen films, his humor and neurotic little guy characterization are simply unfunny -- but, after viewing Everyone Says I Love You, I've changed my mind.

A film that harkens to the wacky musical genre of the past, the outstanding performances by a stellar cast including Allen Alda, Goldie Hawn, Ed Norton, Tim Roth, Julia Roberts, and Drew Barrymore, is nostalgic and entertaining for today's audiences. Singing and dancing, whining and wineing, the film utilizes New York's spectacular seasonal changes, the romantic canals of Venice, and the beauty of nightime Paris to stage this somewhat simple storyline of boy loves girl, girl is more neurotic than boy, and the libral Democratats are more neurotic and simple than all the film's boys and girls.

Enjoyable perhaps because Allen does not center the story on himself in every scene, I found myself liking the implausible situations as actors broke into songs of love, which no matter what the setting, seemed thoroughly appropriate for the dramatic situation. I loved watching Goldie Hawn dancing with her nebbish partner Allen along the banks of the Seine. Her gravity defying graceful steps were matched by the equally graceful Allen. Alan Alda's serenade to his wife at their anniversary party was both touching and a good rendition. And, Allen's hysterical New Year's Groucho Marx theme party and musical review had me in tears laughing. The wit and droll humor of tranlating familiar songs into foreign languages is a brilliant juxtiposition of expectation and surrealism.

This is a wonderful film to spend the afternoon or evening, and while sentimental films are not usually my cup of tea, I found myself enjoying the romantic Allen film moreso than the visual, energetic angst and splendid efforts of the recent Baz Lurhmann musical, Moulin Rouge. Both directors approach to the musical genre is respectful of the great choreographers and songwriters of the past. However, the differing styles each director brings to the subject is worth consideration. Everyone Says I Love You is perhaps a bit less energetic and overt, but is equally satisfying as Moulin Rouge. In finding myself enjoying Allen's approach to the musical, I will now look to his other work with a new interest and respect.

Rating:
Summary: Everyone might not exactly love this film, but I do!
Review: Can I just say that I was 12 years old when I first saw this film, and had no remote idea as to who Woody Allen even was? After viewing this delight of a movie, I completely fell in love with his style and wit, and I quickly rented his other works such as "Manhattan", "Annie Hall", and "Celebrity". Some were good, some were mediocre, and some were just plain boring. But none of them were like "Everyone Says I Love You".

Famous for his all-star casts, "Everyone" starts off with - what else? - a couple: Drew Barrymore as the charming Skylar and Edward Norton as the neurotic, albeit determined Holden. Shot in a grainy, peculiar style reminiscent of the 1960s and '70s musicals, the film quickly establshes itself as a romantic musical comedy, and you know you are headed for a magical ride when the mannequins displayed in the posh store windows start singing along with the principal actors.

Narrated by the wonderful up-and-coming actress Natasha Lyonne (in one of her first roles!), the film's plot mainly revolves around a not-so-average Park Avenue family. Kind of a "Brady Bunch" for the Manhattanite crowd, the family is both dysfunctional, peculiar, and wildly entertaining. Goldie Hawn plays the liberal mother, married to Alan Aldas, the charming stepfather, and then there's their barrel full of kids. Some, like Drew and Natasha's characters, are from Goldie's previous marriage to Woody's character, a writer living in Paris. Others, like Lucas Haas, Gaby Hoffmann, and Natalie Portman, are children of Hawn's current marriage. And of course, there is the wandering, cranky Grandpa and the foreign dictator of a maid. Playing the part of Drew's fiancee is the sweet Norton. Julia Roberts also makes an appearance as Allen's dream lover. Of course, he knows everything about her from his daughter, who regularly listens in on her therapy sessions.

"Everyone Says I Love You" features a strong cast, solid performances (an especially great one by Tim Roth, who shows up as a hilarious felon eager for Drew's affection), and wonderful, nostalgic songs from the '30s and '40s (think Marx Brothers). As always, Allen's loving relationship with NYC shines through, and scenes filmed in Venice and Paris are breathtaking. Did I mention this film is magical? Expect singing ghosts, a levitating Goldie Hawn, and a Marx fest at the end. Don't let the weirdness dissuade you - it takes awhile to get into, but the end result is satisfying. If only all films could be as creative and dazzling as this one.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this movie, it made me laugh so hard...
Review: It is a musical, and it is not a musical. There are songs in the movie, but it is not distracting from the movie, and the songs do not take up too much time. The movie is hallarious. The first time I saw this movie I was laughing for days. There is a scene where the girl is in the kitchen of her fathers house, heartbroken, singing a song about how she is "done with love". In the middle of the song it switches from the upper class white teenager and her tears to a black rapper who uses some of the same lyrics, but delevers it in a completely different manner. I had beer comming out of my nose I laughed so hard. This is a must see!

Rating:
Summary: I smiled during the whole film!
Review: First of all, allow me to say that I am not a Woody Allen fan. I find his screen persona to be whiny, scatter-brained, and somewhat grating on the nerves. And he seems to use the same persona in film after film after film. I don't think I've really enjoyed any of the few Woody Allen films I've seen.

That being said, also allow me to say that this film was one of my favorite films of the last ten years. From the very first song until the song-and-dance at the end, I couldn't stop smiling. The film was utterly delightful and harkened back to the golden days of the movie musical, where the fun and the the spirit of the musical were more important than big budget stereophonic extravaganzas. Woody Allen uses a whole batch of classic-if-somewhat-forgotten tunes to complement his light and fluffy love story. Practically everyone in the movie is given a chance to sing (except Drew Barrymore, who was dubbed). Some are better than others, but the overall effect is quite magical. My favorite tune was the simple ballad that Alan Alda sings to Goldie Hawn during their characters' anniversary. It was touching and just quite romantic. And it's quite amusing (in a good way) to watch Edward Norton(!) and Tim Roth(! ) sing. This is easily one of the best musicals to come out in an extremely long time. As for Woody Allen, he plays...Woody Allen, but for once, I didn't mind at all. I was simply too enthralled by the spell his film was casting over me.

As for the DVD, the transfer is quite acceptable. The picture looks good, and the sound, while monophonic, is crystal clear. Unfortunately, the DVD doesn't have an extras at all (typical of the early Disney DVDs). If the lack of extras doesn't bother you, and you love musicals as much as I do, then by all means get "Everyone Says I Love You" and you'll thank me!

Rating:
Summary: This movie shows why Woody Allen is a cinema genuis!
Review: Woody Allen is a Genuis. This movie was Released theatrically in the USA Christmas Day December 25, 1996 when musicals were not popular...But woody Allen had the moxy to do a musical when they weren't in and he did it well.
This movie is set in Manhattan and Paris. It shows all the seasons of New york and Paris. But the winter season of the movie is the most incredible parts of the film. This is one of the things i love about mr. allen he uses new york and his surroundings and shows them in a incredible way.
This movie centers around various members of a madcap Manhattan wealthy- very high society, democratic family, who attempts by turns to find romance. Allen returns to his improvisational comic vein, reportedly springing the musical numbers on his nonmusical stars--only Barrymore was dubbed--shortly before production began.
In this film, director Woody Allen mixes song-and-dance with his usual array of neurotic, upscale New Yorkers suffering romantic woes.
Allen's character's daughter DJ-(Natasha Lyonne) is the narrator telling stories about her crazy, multi-layered extended family and their love lives.
Her family includes :
her step-father Bob -(Alan Alda)
her mother Steffi-(Goldie Hawn)
her sister Skylar-(Drew Barrymore),
her sister's fiance Holden-(Edward Norton)
her brother scott (Lukas Haas)
her half sister laura-(Natalie Portman)
ex-convict James Ferry-(Tim Roth)
and the object of her father's obsession Von-(Julia Roberts).
While the impending wedding of young lovers Holden and Skylar is the centerpiece of the film, we also get to know various members of Skylar's family -- and their dysfunctional love lives.
Sklyar( Barrymore) and Holden (Norton) are to get married but things are soon shaken by the fact that her mother invites a just released convict by the name of James Ferry ( Roth) skylar falls for mr. perry and decides to call off the wedding.
that's when the hijinxs begin. But will Skylar choose Holden or Perry ?
Woody allen's character Joe is also in love with Von(Julia Roberts) who just so happens to attend therapy session with Joe's daughter Dj's step sister's friend's mother dj knows everything
about Von and tutors her father about her likes and dislikes.
Laura (portman) on ther hand is competing with her best friend(Gaby hoffman) for the heart of a rich teenage boy.
DJ(Lyonne) while evryone is looking for love for DJ love comes to her and she falls in love with numerous of men thru out this movie...a italian artist, a man she shares a cab with, a man dressed as one of the marxs brothers at a party.
The only person in the film who isn't in love is lukas haas who plays alan alda's son scott they are sort of butting heads with each other cause they can't see eye to eye cause his father is democrat and scott is a republican.
The characters often express their feelings through
such classic tunes as "Just You, Just Me" and "My Baby Just Cares for Me,", " If I had you" making this one of the more unique movies in Allen's oeuvre.
Everyone in the movie looks for love in all the wrong places- whether it be in the form of a criminal or neurotic married woman. Three of the best characters is the grandfather- both before and after he dies and the ex convict James Perry- Tim Roth who has a very good singing voice, and drew barrymore who plays a virginal very proper woman ( something we haven't seen drew play) but she shines in this movie.
The cast really makes this movie special. Allen has made a extraordinary modern musical that still has the old-fashion feel to it, a diffucult thing to do in this day and age.
I give it *****5 Stars! and two thumbs way up!

Rating:
Summary: One Man's (Extended) Family
Review: By now, Woody Allen fans have learned to take the long view in evaluating his, uh, oeuvre. Those of us who remember such early efforts as BANANAS or TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN--which we loved but no one was about to try and pass off as great cinema--also remember when almost out of the blue, Allen became a filmmaker to be reckoned with. LOVE AND DEATH was sharp, literate and suggested that could put together a well crafted film. But ANNIE HALL caused genuine excitement, garnered deserved critical acclaim and (although Allen purportedly could not have cared less) Academy Award nominations. It seemed, at the time, a quantum leap in terms of sophistication. It also hinted at artistic problems that would start to surface in later films.

One of the key differences between ANNIE and the earlier comedies was the lightly self-referential touch. If Allen had always played a nebbishy everyman in his early comedies: he now played--truer to his actual life experience certainly--a nebbishy successful filmmaker and comedian. The change was crucial. He was no longer a little man. Alvy Singer may have been a neurotic mess, but, like Woody Allen, he was a real player.

By the time we get to EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU some 20 years later, Allen's milieu is clearly defined--and extended. The single and childless Alvy and Annie have been replaced by the multi-married, no longer together Joe and Steffi (Goldie Hawn) and their array of children from their various marriages, blended, by all appearances, more or less successfully. Like so many of Allen's later films, it takes place in a glowing, warm upper middle class Manhattan (when we're not off to Paris or Venice). It's a world most of us can only dream of (as was true of the young and struggling Woody Allen once).

If EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU's setting is a kind of fantasyland, its characters are probably equally fantastic. Sophisticated, sweetly neurotic, but hardly desperate, these are people who remain best friends with former spouses, with no lingering "issues" rearing their heads at odd moments. College aged children play cupid for their own parents, and go, with a nod and a wicked wink, way beyond innocent PARENT TRAP territory. But nothing is done maliciously. Intentions are sort of good even when they involve such unethical behavior as eavesdropping on a private therapy session.

As warm and engaging as the characters are, and as attractive as their world seems, placing it all in the context of an old-style "burst into song" kind of musical belies all that. If the similar milieu of HANNAH AND HER SISTERS seemed like a possibility (a real world that we're just not fortunate enough to inhabit), this film's setting is pure fantasy. It is tempting to say that in his post-Mia period, Allen is projecting a vision of the kind of social world where forgiveness and reconciliation are not only possible, but are a virtual given.

It's probably not wise to rely on a psycho-analytic approach to Woody Allen's films. It's hard to ignore the fact though that both in real life and in his films, Allen went from dyed-in-the-wool bachelorhood to having an extended, perhaps eccentric family situation. It cannot be surprising that themes of family and forgiveness should appear in his later films. What's fascinating here is that these themes are addressed in a normally light-entertainment mode (musical comedy). It makes the yearning for innocence all the more profound in a way.

The music is pretty good too. Yes, the untrained voices of the actors work only in the context of the movie and no one's going to rush out looking for the soundtrack, but in that context, the device does work fairly well. Call it a little "alienation effect" or an "Allen-ation" effect. I find the songs effective for the most part, and certainly no more disturbing than some of the more traditional bits of surrealism in Woody Allen films (e.g. Marshall McLuhan jumping out from behind a movie display board in ANNIE HALL to lecture some pretentious buffoon about the real significance of his work). ANNIE was a great film, EVERYONE SAYS isn't quite on that level. But in the overall context of his work, it's certainly merits our attention--and our affection.

Rating:
Summary: ONE OF WOODYS BEST
Review: EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU. I can not believe I never saw this movie before. A musical comedy. It's now one of my favorite Woody pictures. Right up there with Love and Death, A Midsummer Nights Sex Comedy, Bloodhounds of Broadway, Manhattan and those other ones that I like. It was worth the price of admission just for the Hurray for Capt. Spaulding in FRENCH number ! Ooo LA LA . A party in Paris Xmas eve and EVERYONE as Groucho Marx. Woody Goldie Ed Drew ect... everyone EXCEPT for Allen Alda, how sweetly ironic that the man who did BAD Groucho imitations all thru MASH was sick in the hotel. NICE touch Woody.

Rating:
Summary: Who's the Crazy one?
Review: Woody Allen plays an obsessed lover spying on Julia Roberts who is in therapy. I think Woody Allen's character is the one who really needs the therapy.

Rating:
Summary: Adieu to love . . .
Review: It's all been said. This film is charming, lighthearted, and nostalgic. Perhaps 'nostalgic' needs a bit of explaining. It's a throwback to American musicals when they were devoid of cynicism or violence. Even the title is an homage to the Marx brothers--Chico sang it while playing the piano.

(For a hundred trivia points name the film)

It's all meant as pure fun, to be shamelessly enjoyed. The charges that it's "shallow" are silly. For crying out loud, people it's a MUSICAL COMEDY! If you want depth go hear Mozart, Wagner, or Puccini at the opera!

And no, no one's going to buy the soundtrack to this one, though some might be tempted for the sheer funkiness of listening to Ed Norton break into song.

My favorite numbers were 'The African Explorer,' sung by a chorus of French Grouchos, 'It's later than you think,' sung by ghosts, and the last rendition of 'Farewell to Love,' on the banks of The Seine, as a magical Goldie Hawn floats above the Parisian night.

Woody is, IMHO, the most innovative and imaginative of American directors. Like Billy Wilder and John Huston, he began as a writer and became disenchanted when supposedly established directors (after all they had credits!) mangled his work. That's when he stepped behind the camera.

Some fans and critics have noted his use of overlapping dialogue, which adds to the believability of his films, and which, as Michael Caine commented, is set in stone by Woody; it only sounds as if it's improvised and 'natural.'

Strangely, not many have mentioned his superb and equally "natural" use of the camera. For one thing, he doesn't cut unless he absolutely has to. The action keeps flowing even as characters exit the scene for a few seconds. As to close-ups, the supposedly knockout punch of Indie film school grads, he is sparse in the extreme. In this film there are only two. They occur in a scene towards the end when Julia Roberts announces she's leaving him. One could even argue that they're not really close-ups at all, since Woody is photographed in profile and his face only fills half the framed shot. This allows both the actors to move and the audience to be invited and pulled into the make believe world, rather than hammered over the head by a camera that overacts.

Sorry for getting technical. Um, say if you're a beautiful woman, may I show my collection of Venetian Tintorettos?

Rating:
Summary: So shallow it's deep
Review: The reviewers on this site uniformly rate this film as shallow. It is effortless to watch, and that's not just because its technique is flawless, even the aerial hoist scene. The story makes sense: these people are muddling through their lives. That is the great truth of life. We muddle through our lives in little bits and bites of sincerity smeared with dabs of denial. All we can do in the whole thing is what Woody's crew manages to do in this movie: do it together. They not only believe in the project and each other: they believe in the viewer. They invite us to muddle through life with them, and so they ask us to muddle through life with our own "each others". That is why the movie is so sweet to watch, so excellent a work of art, and so profound an artifact.