Don't Drink the Water

Rating:
Summary: An Allen throwback to the good old days
Review: What kind of Woody Allen fan are you? Do you favor his heavy, drama-laden homages to Bergman? His film noir? His zany early comedies?

If you love the latter, you'll probably like this "lost" gem. A bit like "Manhattan Murder Mystery" which was resurrected years after it was written, "Don't Drink the Water" conjures the early days of Allen's career with zany comedy full of larger than life characters and over-the-top performances.

The cast is great, the script is too, the plot moves along nicely and in general I had great fun. Yes, it seems a bit claustrophobic at times and a bit stagey, but many of Allen's recent work has a similar feel regardless of the genre.

All in all it is an enjoyable farce that harkens back to the golden days of Allen's comic genius.

Rating:
Summary: Well Worth Seeing
Review: Woody Allen doesn't make appearances on television any more, so this video, which is a made-for-television film, has an element of the historic to it for Allen fans.

"Don't Drink The Water" was originally conceived as a play. The story takes place in the communist country of "Vulgaria," where Walter Hollander (Allen), a caterer from New Jersey whose claim to fame is making sculptures of a bride and groom using potato salad, his wife (Kavner) and their daughter (Bialik) take refuge in the American Embassy after wandering away from a tour group and being accused as spies.

They are assisted at the Embassy by Axel Magee (Michael J. Fox), the son of the Ambassador (away in Washington hoping for a cabinet appointment in the JFK administration. Axel Magee is a diplomat so incompetent and so inept that he has been banned from an entire continent and was once burned in effagy...by his own Embassy.

The plot, such as it is, centers on the difficult adjustment the Hollander's are having to being "guests" of the Embassy, and their later efforts to escape. Allen plays his usual neurotic, highly strung character and Kavner offers but a slight variation to her prior characterizations in "Rhoda" and the Allen short "Oedipus Wrecks" (part of the "New York Stories" trilogy). Bialik is fine and offers some shading in the role of Susan Hollander, who falls in love with Axel, and Fox does his usual fine job bringing some depth to the character of Axel Magee.

The high point in casting, however, is that of the fine character actor Edward Hermann in the role of "Kilroy." It's a pity that Hermann isn't seen more often, because he is a gem of an actor. His character, Kilroy, is an ultra-conservative by-the-book diplomat who despises Axel Magee for his incompetence. Then, hit in the head by a projectile during a riot outside the Embassy, he suffers a concussion and acts as though he were the Wright brothers -- both of them. The low point in casting is that of Dom DeLuise as "Father Drobny," a priest who has sought political asylum at the Embassy and hasn't left in seven years. DeLuise, regrettably, offers us the same pseudo-Italian accent he's been doing since the "Dean Martin Roasts" and "Smokey & The Bandit II."

Although the characters are somewhat broadly drawn (remember, this is farce), the film was enjoyable and a definite move forward from the late 1960's-early 1970's film version that starred Jackie Gleason, Estelle Parsons and Ted Bessell (the latter of "That Girl" fame).

My favorite line from the film. Upon learning that his catering partner has purchased budget beef, resulting in guests contracting food poisoning at a function his company catered, the following exchange occurs: KAVNER: Are they going to sue? ALLEN: No, Marion. We're going to sue them. For low resistance to tainted meat.

You don't need to be a fan of Woody Allen to enjoy this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Should be given 6 Oscars
Review: Woody Allen's audiovisual version of an early play which was originally staged on a premiere during a military parade for the Egyptian president Anwar Al Sadat, who was carnaged with his cabinet in the early eighties by his own air force.
The embarassment of the jewish author, who strangely didn't attend the staging due to pregnancy (and started the well known gossip story of a love affair with the dignatary), made him start a re write, which lead him to just leave the title and change everything else (including his famous B&W credit card to the more festive Filemón Pacheco, which sadly didn't make it to the final cut).
If you wanna see Michael J. Fox not traveling to the future (or the past) this is the movie you want to steal from a relative who already owns it and is not that aware of the things he has bought.
If you're tripping in acid maybe you'll discover how this is the prequel to Star Wars' Episode I (if you do, please post a message).
Let's just enjoy our beloved hypocondriac, always funny, always being analyzed in New York!!!!!!