MIDNIGHT IN PARIS - Post Release

The biggest flaw are the women as written; McAdams is a nagging shrew (a trend in late period Allen) and Cotillard is stunning but her character is defined by who she sleeps with (or as Wilson defines her, the ultimate art groupie).

Still, this is a fun, warm-hearted movie and Allen's best in over a decade. 

will have to check this out. dont consider myself a Woody Allen fan, in fact i can only count the number of films ive seen by him on one hand. last one i attempted was Whatever Works, only because of my sick obsession with Larry David. couldnt make it past ten minutes. either way, this concept intrigued me from the beginning, the cast looks great and from what you guys say its definitely worth a look. thanks!

After all the good notices it's getting I'm really interested in seeing this one.

It's funny: general consensus is that Woody isn't what he used to be, but he seems to fairly consistently put out at least one worthwhile movie every three or four years, which would be a good track record if it wasn't for the misfires he knocks out in between. Quality control seems to be his big problem these days, not so much having completely lost his touch.

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Originally Posted by EvilTwin 

I don't know if I consider McAdams being written as a shrew as necessarily a flaw. It's not like the movie tries to hide that the two are mismatched. Much of the film is simply Wilson figuring out for himself that they're mismatched.

It's a flaw because she's one of two female leads in the film and she's so obnoxious that Wilson's character seems downright idiotic for ever being with her in the first place, let alone asking her to marry him. 

I kind of want to see the sequel to this. Either Allen's adaptation of the nostalgia characters' histories or (better yet) a completely fictionalized story involving them. Hell, give me a Hemingway spin off and I'm there on opening day.

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Originally Posted by Parker 

It's a flaw because she's one of two female leads in the film and she's so obnoxious that Wilson's character seems downright idiotic for ever being with her in the first place, let alone asking her to marry him. 

Well, aside from the fact that she looks like goddamn Rachel McAdams.

I quite loved this.  Just leisurely and delightful fluffy plushiness.  Fun batch of actors in walk-through roles.  Good message stated bluntly, which I didn't mind here. 

I agree with Parker about the female characters.  Lovely Marion was a pixie dream girl.  McAdams makes it clear that Owen Wilson would basically be marrying her terrible parents.  Hahahah.  But to me that doesn't come across as Wilson's character seeming idiotic.  Him staying with her (however long they've been together) is for the same reason he left Paris before and never finished his book.  It's a part of his character.

McAdams needs more movies where she shows off that amazing set of buttocks.

SHES GOT A GREAT ASSS!!!

I admit... after catching a glimpse of it in the trailer for Morning Glory, my eyes did often wander in that general vicinity during any scene she was featured in.  It was pretty clear that Woody has taken note of McAdams' posterior as well, as his choice in angles and blocking tend to emphasize it.

Really, every attractive female in this film came across as extra-lovely.

I tend to favour Allen's darker, more serious films, but I really enjoyed this movie quite a bit. It's funny, this summer I've seen untold millions of dollars spent on creating immersive fantasy-lands, and Allen manages, on a couple million, to outdo them all with simple lighting, costume and atmosphere tricks. That simple shot of the 1920s car rolling through the quiet lamp-lit Parisian streets packed more magical punch than Oa and Asgard combined.

If there is a slightly glaring problem for me, it's the choice to not combine the tourist guide and record shop girl into a single character. We're obviously supposed to care about one far more than the other, so why is Wilson's character having the former translate Cotillard's journal? That's a really meaningful scene and could have been a great opportunity to enrich the sweet record shop girl. 

That's a good point on the tour guide and the shopgirl. Economy of characters and all. The only problem with it is (a) it would have made it just that more obvious that Woody was setting up a 'rebound' girl for Gil, and (b) I suspect having Bruni in the cast may have helped secure some of the more exotic shooting locations.

To me, the most magical scene is Gil in front of the laundromat. It's all on Wilson to convey that something else used to be there, and he totally sells it without any tricks or FX.

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Originally Posted by Hammerhead 

That's a good point on the tour guide and the shopgirl. Economy of characters and all. The only problem with it is (a) it would have made it just that more obvious that Woody was setting up a 'rebound' girl for Gil, and (b) I suspect having Bruni in the cast may have helped secure some of the more exotic shooting locations.

 

I guess, but Woody made it pretty obvious that record store girl would wind up being his rebound when, following their first meeting, the camera lingers on her for a noticeable amount of time. Which is fine. This movie is pretty much a modern fairy tale anyway, so I don't mind a certain amount of predictability.  Bringing back tourist guide lady later in the film just felt a bit off, as it never felt like Wilson's character had any real connection with her at all in the first place. Maybe if he'd needed advice pertaining to historical events but, even then, record store girl seemed pretty knowledgable. 

Your second point I can't argue with at all.

The economy of characters is an valid point, but I dunno...  That moment where the guide translates the diary seems like it's really a moment meant for Owen Wilson to realize something very different from realizing that the record girl store was a viable romantic interest.  He's in his own world right there and he wouldn't have even been thinking about her while being so taken with Marion.

For that economy of character, the price may have been for a little bit more complication when it came to wrapping the film up at the end.  The museum guide can be the neutral voice that can just spout the exposition in the diary without making any judgment on Owen Wilson.

Yeah, that's very true and I agree with your logic. It might have been iffy to have a less neutral character provide him with that particular information. I just found that, in a film already overflowing with characters, the decision to pump up the tour guide's role felt a tad unnecessary. Especially since Wilson knew Record store girl spoke English. In his moment of desperation of wanting to get that book translated, it seemed odd that he would run to someone he didn't really have an established friendly relationship with.

Of course, ultimately, this is probably all just nit-picking on my part, but - for whatever reason - it really stuck out to me.

Loved, loved, loved this. It's light and breezy and doesn't require a ton of heavy lifting, but I think that that's not proof of an absence of subtext or meaning, and I think Allen says a lot even though I suspect he's just trying to tell a wonderful story skillfully and artfully. Wilson knocked me on my ass-- I never thought he was capable of a performance this good, and yet here he is, playing the Allen surrogate perfectly while really giving the character his own identity. If nothing else, Midnight in Paris makes me yearn to go back to Europe again.

Maybe this is just me, as well, but I felt like the film had something to say about the critical thoughts of some of its cast, too. Sheen's character Paul comes from an approach to analysis that's totally cold and utterly devoid of anything truly personal-- when he talks about Monet or French architecture, he almost totally recites facts he's clearly gleaned from reading textbooks and scholarly works forged by other (better?) intellectuals while keeping his own reactions pretty much on the fringe. Sure, he offers a meager, "I love X" here and there, but it feels passionless and disingenuous; he loves these works based on the words others have written about them. Gil, on the other hand, can't help but infuse nearly every observation he makes-- about art, about Paris, about everything-- with his personal enthusiasm and his individual perspective. He's reacting based on how these things make him feel; Paul reacts based on what he's read from other scholars. Admittedly, Gil has a massively unfair advantage over Paul in the form of Magical Time Travel Cab, but I kind of saw the cab as a metaphor for how Gil's deep passion for art allows him to experience it in a way Paul simply can't.

It's kind of a half-baked interpretation that I'm working on, but it did strike me that Paul felt like a phony armchair critic while Gil, the Hollywood hack, was more capable of processing and analyzing and responding to art in a genuine and human way. They certainly treat/view art very differently from one another.

Absolutely adored this.  I actually saw it twice in theaters which is something I very rarely do.  I was curious if everyone knew going in what the movie was actually about?  The trailer clearly disguises the film's more fantastical elements, and I would have been completely in the dark had I not read a review of the film shortly before I left for the theater (*shakes fist* curse you Roger Ebert *shakes fist*).  As it is, I don't think it detracted from my enjoyment of the film but it would have been neat to walk into the theater and have had the film pull the wool from my eyes, something that rarely happens these days.

Anyhow, the film is just so light and breezy and fun.  The bit with the earrings, the moment the horse drawn carriage pulls up, and the conversation with the surrealists were definite highlights but I'm pretty sure I had a smile on my face throughout the whole movie both times I saw it.  And as a longtime fan of Owen Wilson (seriously, back in the day, I sat through I Spy and the Big Bounce because of him) I'm glad to see him getting high - and deserved - praise.  He pulls off a pretty impressive feat by grounding the movie but not at the expense of its sense of whimsy.  

Owen Wilson's character actually returns to the tour guide twice - the first time to ask about Rodin's relationship with his wife and his mistress, the second time to ask about the diary - and I have to say that, especially the second time through, both occurrences seemed out of place.  It almost felt like Carla Bruni had some extra time on set so they figured, hey why not write in a couple of additional scenes for her?  Having the record store clerk serve as the journal's translator would have been a pretty good (not to mention obvious) solution.  Yeah, it might have made it a bit more apparent where her character's relationship with Owen Wilson was heading, but at that point in the film, the choice is still seemingly between Colitard and McAdams.

Nevertheless, easily my favorite film of 2011 so far (not that it's had much competition). 

I had no idea what the film was going to be about and was very thankful of that fact.  Made it feel like I was discovering the film every step of the way.

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Originally Posted by Andres 

 

Did you geeked out when Kim from Scottt Pilgrim appeared?

It took me forever to figure out where I'd seen her before since the characters are so different, but she's a definite highlight.

Why didn't someone tell me the best film of the year has been out for three months? This movie is a goddamn masterpiece.

It was a sweet little film. But a deeper exploration of the art and litterature of these great legends would have been truly amazing. The few tidbits that dealt with this were by far my favorite parts.

I can't remember the last time I got such unmitigated joy from a Woody Allen film. Or the last time I enjoyed Owen Wilson so much. And the message may indeed be simplistic but it is so nice to hear it from someone with the years and mileage Woody has on him. And Brody was bloody delightful.

But I have to admit some baser reasons for my extra appreciation of this. Half of my fun came from laughing at how baffled a lot of my fellow audience was from the cameos. Laughing at the uncultured villains not knowing who Cole Porter was or missing the Hemingway jokes.

Was I the only one who watched this and was distracted by just how bad Owen Wilson looked? Like, as in, he looked like he came off his suicide attempt and went right into filming this a week later. I wanted to give the dude a hug throughout the entire running time.

And for all the talk about Wilson's character as a Woody Allen stand-in, I can't help but think it resonates more with Wilson's career in schlocky mainstream crap. Let's hope we can interpret this movie as him moving into somewhat more meaningful projects. He's obviously a smart guy with better taste than his role in "Marmaduke" might indicate.

Wilson in this was one of the least Woody-like protagonists of Allen's movies, ever. At least he steered clear of outright mimicry like so many are prone to.

I thought Wilson came across as a wee bit schlubby, but in no way did I think he looked bad.  I thought it went with his character/performance just fine.