why'd i ever give up retail?
I told myself, tonight you're writing. Tonight is the night you're going to sit down and pound out at least ten more pages. It can be done. You can do this, probably. You can at least start.
While I ate, I put on something I thought would help get me in the mood. Since part of this story hinges on a relationship falling apart, and since I've been on a Woody Allen kick lately (recently I watched Crimes and Misdeanors, Manhattan, and Shadows and Fog more or less back to back), I went to Annie Hall. I hadn't seen it in a while, I knew it well enough I could turn it off when the spicy peanut chicken wings were gone, and I thought just maybe it would give me a running start on that script-pounding.
Of course, if that's how tonight had gone I wouldn't have opened with a still from Annie Hall... I'd have gotten straight to the excitement of having ten more pages on the script. Annie Hall moves so fluidly as a story, each scene with just enough one-liners to be funny, just enough character to keep me caring, and just enough plot to make it worth sticking with. I was trapped until it was over. So saying, I have to go on record and say Annie Hall isn't my favorite Woody Allen (though I think it's Diane Keaton's coolest and most interesting character ever), if only because by the time I saw the film that changed the face of romantic comedy I'd already grown up with all the silly romantic comedies that this film had changed the face of, like When Harry Met Sally, which is good but not even in the same league as this.
Boy, Annie Hall must have been a jarring, unbelievable piece of cinema when it came out, the first "serious" film from the guy who did Sleeper and Bananas and What's Up, Tiger Lily? Now it's clearly a prototype for nearly everything to follow, and a damned good one at that, but maybe the man's done better since? The one-liners do kind of dumb down the film a little.
Anyhow, I don't want to overdo it on the criticism here: I love this film. I love Diane Keaton in it and more than almost any other Allen film, I believe the character is in love with her, too. This film is flawless, in that I wouldn't change anything about it. I just think the man got better later on, is all.
On the subject of the script, I did manage to write about three lines, but then I deleted them, and I deleted about four other lines as well. I think arresting Luke is a mistake. But I like bringing the cops into the story. I've just got to play it right. Get him in and out of there and let the story keep moving.
Fuck, writing is hard.