Rating: 
Summary: A MASTERPIECE
Review: I LOVE WOODY'S FILMS AND THIS ONE STANDS ALONGSIDE "HANNAH","ANNIE", "BULLETS" AND "MANHATTAN" AS HIS TRUE MASTERPIECES!...BUT IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A WOODY COMEDY THIS FILM ISN'T IT. iT IS A STUNNING ACHIEVEMENT ON ALL COUNTS ESPECIALLY THE INCREDIBLE GERALDINE PAGE IN A PERFORMANCE THAT SHOULD HAVE WON HER THE OSCAR!
Rating:
Summary: AUTUMN SONATA
Review: I was a little anxious before playing this DVD. I saw Woody Allen's INTERIORS more than 20 years ago when it was theatrically released and I never had the opportunity to see it again since then. Well, I must say that the movie stands perfectly the test of time and is far better than the actual psychodramas delivered by Hollywood. There is a simple reason for that. While most of today serious directors and screenwriters use the cinema media only as a way to expose their own neurosis to the audience for a US$ 20 million consultation, Woody Allen, in his first - serious- movie, chose to present a universal story that could touch the european viewer as well as the New -York intelligentsia. If one often thinks about Ingmar Berman during the meaningful silences of INTERIORS, the reference to Tschekhov seems to me more relevant. The three sisters staring through the window is obviously a reminiscence of the theatrical play THE THREE SISTERS of the russian writer and one would nearly expect to hear Diane Keaton whisper " Moscow... Moscow... " at this moment. Tschekhov is also present in the cruel little sentences written by an inspired Woody Allen or in the sudden explosions of hate that burst out with an unexpected violence from these so quiet people. Apart from the choice of different subtitles and a trailer, no bonus features with this DVD. Sound OK but average images. A DVD zone your library.
Rating: 
Summary: where's the prozac...
Review: I watched this movie stunned. I kept hoping the mother would loose it and gas this whole morose bunch. Maybe if my siblings were poets and TV actresses I could relate. Personally, I think Mr.Allen has a problem with WASPS.
Rating: 
Summary: Interiors
Review: If you're familiar with Woody Allen and you've seen a few of his films, you've seen this one. It's the same characters he will later add flesh to in Hannah, Manhattan, and Crimes & Misdemeanors. Here again, you'll find Upper East siders burdened with their vices: Infidelity, infertility, domineering mothers and alienated artists. The difference is that with Interiors there's not a ounce of humor, and we keep waiting for the punch line -- it's the funniest movie ever made without a single joke. And when we realize there's no wit, we wait for Allen to deliver some serious insight. Sometimes they do, as with the mother, who is the fullest idea he's ever had for a character, and sometimes they don't, and the rest of the cast seems like uneven caricitures. Allen has chose to make a movie begging sympathy for the same people he's systematically satirized throughout his career. But he doesn't give sympathy himself, the camera is so tight and the shots so sterile that you keep checking your pulse to make sure it's still beating. Is it right to criticize the filmmaker for doing something different? The resentment of this film may be directed not towards the movie but towards its creator for being a near hypocrite. We accept him for making us laugh, but how dare he try to make us feel a different emotion (like pity.) We love when our artists break new ground but we don't like it when they change. It makes us feel uneasy because we have to open ourselves up and learn a whole new thing. Interiors, as you've heard, is a Bergman copy (there's barely a soundtrack), but it's a well made Bergman copy, and for a lot of us that's enough. I'd rather a young filmmaker xerox Autumn Sonata than The Big Sleep. They're both good movies, but you can't take the latter any further than it's already been (you're not supposed to).
Rating: 
Summary: Woody Allen does Neil LaBute
Review: In general, I tend to slant towards Woody Allen's comedies as opposed to his dramas. I'll take "Annie Hall" and "Hollywood Ending" over "Husbands and Wives" and "Bullets Over Broadway" any day. And as far as his dramas go this one is just about as dark as they get. The story focuses on a family of miserable people who derive joy only from causing more misery within the family. I liked the way the film was fearless in looking at the way families argue. I felt many times that I had accidentally wandered into my own living room. . .especially when Eve was causing a scene over the lamp. It also remained very grounded, at least until the very end. Allen deals with life's big issues in this film such as death, expectations, and truth. At times he digs too deep for the sake of the movie, but I will take that concession to get a movie this good. Of course by saying that I will probably be lampooned in his next film as a naïve fool who can't understand why the movie I'm watching doesn't have any explosions. In this film he takes the obligatory shot at those who only see art for their surface value, and a woman named Pearl is his stand in punching bag. In the end, Allen teaches us that truth is good, until it morphs into cruelty, and that in the interior of the world we know we can try to protect those we love, but when they run up against the waves of the real world there is nothing we can do.
3.75 out of 5
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: Not much music in the soundtrack, which contributes to the somber feel of this film. Despite some of the critical rejection of it, and despite the Bergman influence, this is one of his finest. I remember seeing this reviewed by Gene Shalit who was nearly speechless (not much of a change, since he was doing those 30 second reviews for Today back then) and in awe. The performances were natural and believable, and the cast were well chosen. Allen's "Stardust Memories" was in part a kiss-off to critics of "Interiors". This film may appear derivative, but I found it to be unique, particularly among American films, and couldn't take my eyes off it, despite the deliberate drabness.
Rating: 
Summary: Achingly pretentious.
Review: Please. I am probably stating the obvious, but isn't this film so embarrassingly copied from several of Ingmar Berman's films, "Persona" especially, that it qualifies as a remake? Allen fans know of Woody's regard for the Swedish director's films, but does Allen have to go so far as to borrow emotional landscapes and intellectual situations from Bergman as well? The American film audiences are completely unaware of the similarities, and perhaps that's why he is able to get away with it, but critics and especially Nordic audiences have no excuse.
Rating:
Summary: A Film That Deserves A Place In Every Art Collection
Review: Revisiting INTERIORS written and directed by Woody Allen in 1978 it becomes apparent that this is one of the most important American films made. In this time of video art and digital manipulation of images, both in real time and in fixed entities, INTERIORS exemplifies the finest in what film can achieve. Without manipulation of scenery, without (gratefully) a senses-asaulting musical score, without GIMMICKRY - here is a film of brilliant writing, stunningly and beautifully subtle sets and costumes, and acting of the first degree. The angst so present in our society's family relationships is gently observed and explored and the results are a paean of understated simplicity and pain. It is difficult to single out any of the outstanding cast as 'best' and that is yet another proof of ensemble acting and directing at a zenith. Yes, it is unimaginable to leave behind the characters created by Geraldine Page, H.G. Marshall, Diane Keaton, and Maureen Stapleton, but again this is an indicator of how well and cohesive the experience provided by this movie is. I have never been a Woody Allen fan: I find his comedies overwrought, self-absorbed, and frustratingly tedious. Seeing INTERIORS on a DVD, in the quiet of home, has altered my respect for this man. A dazzingly brilliant, thoughtful, elegy of a film.
Rating:
Summary: A Film That Deserves A Place In Every Art Collection
Review: Revisiting INTERIORS written and directed by Woody Allen in 1978 it becomes apparent that this is one of the most important American films made. In this time of video art and digital manipulation of images, both in real time and in fixed entities, INTERIORS exemplifies the finest in what film can achieve. Without manipulation of scenery, without (gratefully) a senses-asaulting musical score, without GIMMICKRY - here is a film of brilliant writing, stunningly and beautifully subtle sets and costumes, and acting of the first degree. The angst so present in our society's family relationships is gently observed and explored and the results are a paean of understated simplicity and pain. It is difficult to single out any of the outstanding cast as 'best' and that is yet another proof of ensemble acting and directing at a zenith. Yes, it is unimaginable to leave behind the characters created by Geraldine Page, H.G. Marshall, Diane Keaton, and Maureen Stapleton, but again this is an indicator of how well and cohesive the experience provided by this movie is. I have never been a Woody Allen fan: I find his comedies overwrought, self-absorbed, and frustratingly tedious. Seeing INTERIORS on a DVD, in the quiet of home, has altered my respect for this man. A dazzingly brilliant, thoughtful, elegy of a film.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Bergman....
Review: Simply dazzling in its understated way. And the dialogue is lot less stilted than most Bergman subtitles. There's no camp howler in this film that can even touch the godawful line in Persona where the ostensible nurse says to her ostensible patient: "Thank you for teaching me how to smoke." Woody leaves Ingmar in the dust, period. And I feel grateful that we have this film, flaws and all. 2002-era Woody could not possibly craft a film like Interiors; it isn't in him anymore. Why Mary Beth Hurt wasn't even nominated for an Oscar is yet another instance of Academy lack of taste. Perhaps her performance is a little too real. God knows she nearly made me leap from my skin in discomfort when I first saw the film in 1981. Watching it again after 20 years, Hurt is the most alive and vivid person on screen. She captures the frustration of having an artist's temperament with no outlet for expression --a condition that haunts many of us. It is interesting, in Allen studies, to compare this character with the flailing indecisive women (also of artistic temperament in search of a form) that Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest would portray in the later Hannah and her Sisters. Interiors also gives us one of Geraldine Page's most inspired variations on the coming-apart archetype in which she specialized. Page's Eve is so fragile that you want to hold her, even though she would most likely reject that reassurance. The scene between Page and E.G. Marshall in the church unnerves me to even think about; it is the most harrowing portrait of hopelessness I can recall seeing in a movie. Diane Keaton is arch but good. True, her character isn't likable, but Keaton's take on the chilly academic hits bullseye. There are women like Renata in any university English or Comparative Literature department. Marshall is terrific as the dad who just wants an uncomplicated woman. Sam Waterston is an engaging presence; he was still young and cute and nice to look at in 1978 (a far cry from that insulting blind rabbi role Woody later stuck him with in the execrable Crimes and Misdemeanors) . On the debit side, Richard Jordan is undistinguished and Kristin Griffith as the actress sister is just plain awful. The finale sequence, Eve's suicide, is unquestionably the most powerful closing statement Allen has ever put on film. Page returns late at night to the seaside house that rightfully, aesthetically, belongs to her; listens in silence to Hurt's recounting of "willful perversion" she endured from her mother while growing up; and walks out in the ocean and drowns. What happens next is both brilliantly audacious and more true to life than we'd care to admit. Hurt runs into the pounding waves to save Page; Waterston runs in after Hurt; Waterston brings Hurt back and drops her unconscious on the shore. Maureen Stapleton, the new stepmother whom Hurt openly despises, has followed them down to the beach and stood anxiously watching. Stapleton then gives Hurt mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Hurt revives, realizes that the woman she hates has just saved her life --and she reaches out to embrace Waterston. Even in a life/death situation, Hurt still rejects Stapleton. Has there ever, ever, ever been a kick-in-the-seat-of-the-pants finale as electrifyingly human as this?
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