Rating: 
Summary: wonderful style, okay substance
Review: "alice" is the sort of film that you want made every single year (but only for the style). The style in Alice is absolutely brilliant, Woody's direction is wonderful....(choice of music=INSPIRED!...photography=colorful and vibrant.....pace=fast and furious....) However, I did not care for Joe Mantegna...his constant stuttering is unbearable! He slows the whole film down in parts.A nice story (a bit over stuffed at times), Great performance by Mia Farrow, and, again, a brilliant style!
Rating: 
Summary: A must see
Review: A great rainy day movie. It is a rare gem of a movie.Great story. Enough said,get it watch it and tell your friends.
Rating: 
Summary: Penguin House
Review: Alice is a compendium of missed opportunities. Woody conjures up all sorts of angles worth exploring then drops them. The movie is worth seeing for the stunningly crisp cinematography, odd use of color (especially in Farrow and Hurt's bizarre apartment) and unerringly apt musical choices. Woody's deep feeling for jazz is the unbilled star here, and when a lush string orchestra with muted trumpet strikes up a silvery and sensitive chorus of "I Remember You" just before Alice awakes to a visitation from her long-dead lover (Baldwin) you get a palpable sense of the heroine's pent-up longings. Joe Mantegna is terrific. He uses those sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes of his to superb effect; those eyes tell us more than Woody's sketchy script ever will. The film's most electrifying sequence brings the great, underutilized actress Gwen Verdon out of the shadows to play Alice's boozy mom. We've seen this boozy mom archetype in Allen films before: Maureen O'Sullivan in Hannah, Elaine Stritch in September. But none of them brought the FIRE that seethes from Verdon. Verdon conveys such waste and degradation that I felt as if I were witness to something horribly private. And there lies the movie's greatest sin: we just get this one scene and no more. What happened? Was the loaded gun triangle of Farrow, Verdon and "the accomplished sister" Blythe Danner to hot for Woody to handle??? I didn't mind the whimsy of Alice. But there was a meatier, darker story here waiting to be told, and Allen backs away from telling it. Still, given how bad, coarse, loud, vulgar and passionless nearly all of Allen's post-Mia films have been, Alice looks more and more like a gift as time goes by.
Rating:
Summary: Dreamlike
Review: Alice starts harmlessly enough as we meet her, a dissatisfied NY housewife married to a wealthy banker. The fun starts when she goes to a Chinese doctor (played by a brilliant actor, whose name I cannot remember) and he gives her various remedies to her problems. This kind of plot could easily fall into caricature and cliche but miraculously doesn't. The cast play their parts subtly and honestly, and support the movie's delicate frame. Mia is enchanting as Alice (and I don't usually feel this way about her). This quiet film is one that stays with me. Each time I see it, I enjoy it more.
Rating: 
Summary: Mia Culpa
Review: In Wonderland? This is the story of a mid-life crisis Mia Farrow, who, as Alice, the wife of a rich designer, played by William Hurt, has given up her own career and spiritual impulses a long time ago. She now devotes herself to the frenetic passivity of her glamorous but rather humdrum Park Avenue existence - a wonderland of health fads, plastic surgery, extramarital affairs, gossip, with over-expenditure on everything from cuddly toys to personal masseuses and physical fitness trainers. Alice soon meets the mysterious Dr Yan, and is therby introduced to a yet another wonderland of magic drugs that enable her, by turns, to don the cloak of invisibility, summon up ghosts from the past, make anyone fall in love with her, and generally see through the lies and hypocrisy of her life. Despite these rich ingredients, the central theme of the movie owes more to the dourness of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" than to the unrestrained fantasy of Lewis Carroll's work. Allen's Alice is in fact Nora, a faithful wife and, with the help of maids, and, with the help of babysitters, a devoted mother. Beneath the surface, however, she feels stifled and deeply unhappy. Having examined her life with the help of Dr Yan, the catalyst to changing it is Joe, a sleazy, divorced sax player, who enflames her passions, triggers off her catholic guilt feelings, and has her frantically trying to find out what her life meant, means, and will mean. She rushes around seeking answers, discovering her husband with another woman, and finding out, after a short affair, that Joe still loves his ex-wife. All this is very entertaining, but what follows is a disappointment. Alice decides to leave her husband, go off to Calcutta, meet Mother Teresa, and basically turn over a whole new leaf, wiping the slate clean, and living the complete antithesis to her former life by devoting herself to the poor and turning her back on all her old comforts. This is no doubt supposed to be a warm-hearted ending with Alice "finding herself as a woman and an individual" and acting out a few other cosy, well-worn cliches that have crawled off the couches of New York analysts. But just as her former life was perhaps too shallow, material, and hypocritical, her new life is too profound, spiritual, and sincere. There is a coldness in the emotional amnesia with which she excludes her husband from her new life, and a fleshlessness in the spirituality with which she turns her back on all men... The character of Joe shows a more welcome attitude to life, an attitude that embraces life with all its contradictions, obligations, nostalgias, and emotion. If there is any emotional centre to this film, it is not to be found in the main character.
Rating: 
Summary: I hated it
Review: It's simple, I hated it. All the jokes were stupid and the plot made no sense. Don't buy this movie, burn it in your fireplace.
Rating:
Summary: Woody Allen Does "Magic Realism"
Review: This movie was made in the 1989-1990 period. Woody Allen was already an experienced film director and actor. Stas Mia Farrow in the title role of Alice, and Joe Montegna as the lover. Woody Allen does not appear in this film as he is only a director but there is a load of cameos from stars such as Cybil Shepherd and Bernadette Peters in the comedic role of the Muse. Woody Allen's intellectual/philosophical, life affirming comedies have always been effective and successful- Annie Hall, Zellig, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Hannah and Her Sisters, etc. Alice is a modern day and more adult version of "Alice In Wonderland" where it gets its name. Alice is a seemingly happy, married woman living in Manhattan, New York City. The illusion of happiness soon wears off as she discovers her husband, a stockbrocker, played by William Hurt, is cheating on her. Soon enough, she is cheating on him with Joe Montegna's character, a saxophone jazz musician. The reality of this film, which lies in the complicated adult affairs, including marital infidelity, and the urban scenes of New York City, are contrasted but mingled effectively with the "magic" that is dominant in the film. Alice is consulting a spiritual Oriental doctor who gives her all sorts of herbs and potions, including one which renders her invisable. The scene in which she and Joe Montegna are invisible in the women's clothes store is hilarious. Joe Montegna sneaks into a fitting room to spy on a model dressing. "There's a lot of heavy breathing coming from in here" says the model. Meanwhile Alice overhears her friends talking about her behind her back. Ultimately, Alice must make a choice. She has the cure for her problem. A love potion. But will she select her husband or her lover ? Her decision is unexpected and maybe even a bit off-putting to some viewers who would have preferred she remain in the realm of humans and romantic affairs and materialism. The movie had been going this way until the decision which is to reject worldliness and Mia Farrow is inspired by the humanitarian and noble work of Mother Teresa. I feel that it's at least true to Mia Farrow's real life nature. She is notorious for adopting many foreign children from war-torn and poverty stricken countries. This movie is still very good and I really enjoyed it. The witty script by Woody Allen and his position as director and Mia Farrow's husband is also very effectiive. It's a great film by a master of comedy that makes you think. If only this movie was available on DVD here.
Rating:
Summary: i love new york
Review: When I begin to miss NY I watch Woody Allen's Manhattan. The beginning pictorial in black and white is truly worth watching. Woody has a such a comical way of looking at life and all our crazy ways. He allows me to laugh at myself. We can all relate to the people in this movie. His stories always leave me smiling. I can't wait to watch it again . . . it is like visiting old friends.
Rating:
Summary: Whimsy and Fantasy
Review: While I gave this film a 4 star rating, I have to say that it is one of the films I watch repeatedly. In "Alice," Woody Allen has taken his cue from Fellini's "Juliet of the Spirits" and assembled a better story and superior film. The story of a disenchanted housewife finding her real desires and discovering the truth about her pampered but sterile existence is unfolded with such joy and air-light humor that I couldn't help but be charmed. The concept of self discovery after years of self delusion was explored in more somber ways in Allen's "Another Woman." Here, the use of magic potions are administered ostensibly to relieve Alice's psychosomatic discomforts. The cures actually allow the character vehicles for seeing her life from new perspectives. Alice's descent into Wonderland is a great escape, very entertaining. Her character is an upper crust variation on ones she's done in other Allen films, but Farrow shows her range when, in the script's moment of intoxication, she moves in a split second from mousy uncertainty to voluptuous seductress. The humor is mostly character-driven and this mousse of a confection is a great way to remove oneself from the stresses of a long week.
Rating:
Summary: Whimsy and Fantasy
Review: While I gave this film a 4 star rating, I have to say that it is one of the films I watch repeatedly. In "Alice," Woody Allen has taken his cue from Fellini's "Juliet of the Spirits" and assembled a better story and superior film. The story of a disenchanted housewife finding her real desires and discovering the truth about her pampered but sterile existence is unfolded with such joy and air-light humor that I couldn't help but be charmed. The concept of self discovery after years of self delusion was explored in more somber ways in Allen's "Another Woman." Here, the use of magic potions are administered ostensibly to relieve Alice's psychosomatic discomforts. The cures actually allow the character vehicles for seeing her life from new perspectives. Alice's descent into Wonderland is a great escape, very entertaining. Her character is an upper crust variation on ones she's done in other Allen films, but Farrow shows her range when, in the script's moment of intoxication, she moves in a split second from mousy uncertainty to voluptuous seductress. The humor is mostly character-driven and this mousse of a confection is a great way to remove oneself from the stresses of a long week.
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