Woody Allen chugs along to Paris

I always like say that my Russophilia killed my Francophilia. I grew up a young man with a Romantic streak, a fascination with Europe and travel, and all kinds of cultural aspirations. But after long experience with Russia, somehow Paris has become very quaint and safe, a bourgeois fantasyland.

So I started to tune out of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris sometime during the first real scene of dialogue, as Owen Wilson mooned to Rachel McAdams about how inspiring and perfect the whole damn place is. Especially how breathtaking it is in the rain. The rain, for some reason.

A few quick points:

-- Woody Allen, more or less, has been functionally retired to me since 1997. I think a great number of the fans of his early work would draw that line at different points. But at the very least, the guy has got to slow down. There might have been an interesting movie in here, which with some patience and teamwork and at least another year in the oven, it could have emerged into something really valuable.

-- There's really nothing wrong with rehearsal. Allen's way of having actors interact has become a mannered charade of how late 20th century New Yorkers interrupt each other, say "Really?" in a forced way, and awkwardly try to purposefully look at one another when they aren't yapping. Loved it all when Diane Keaton did it, but man, every new generation that tries it out just looks dumb.

-- Woody needs to have a drink with an actual conservative every now and then. I love making fun of wingers as much as anyone, but even I cringe at the caricatures Woody routinely trots out to get a few cheap laughs from the Upper West Side crowd.

-- I love the "Lost Generation" -- far more than most do. So I enjoyed all the imitations of Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Dali. But I realize they were cartoons, and I think I was kinda laughing at them, not with them.

-- "Prufrock is like my mantra!" ... Really? this line got through a rewrite?

-- I know everyone thinks it when they see it... so I'll say, *SPOILER ALERT* that you should do the math and figure out the age difference between the last two characters on the screen. (okay, I checked IMDB, it's 17 years). It's just gotten creepy already. Is he really so surrounded by yes men that he doesn't realize this? If this movie had any emotional honesty, Carla Bruni (one year older) should have appeared at the end.

-- So, New York, London, Barcelona, Paris... someone wake me up when he gets to St. Petersburg.