Everyone Says I Love You [DVD]

Viewers expect comedy (and often drama) from the writing and director genius of Woody Allen, but few people have seen this musical comedy feature film by the cinema master. The story ends with a Christmas and New Year's celebration in Paris. The film features a year filled with nearly unbelievable life (and one death) happenings of a fantastically wealthy New York society family headed by Alan Alda, Goldie Hawn, and Woody Allen (directing himself). The film is in one way a positive return to the Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland films of the 1940s. Every new event in the film is cause for the talented cast to burst into song. The movie is filled with humor and great popular music. One particular surprise is how good Goldie Hawn is with her vocal segments. She has a lovely voice. Why did she never do a musical? The movie is filled with unusual surprises that should delight viewers. The late film critic Roger Ebert rated Everyone Says I Love You as one of the year's very best films in the year of its theatrical release. He was not misleading viewers. This is a gem of a film probably rarely seen. The cinematography of New York City and Paris as well as the New York countryside is beautiful.

Great movie with great actors and actresses it's recommended.

`Everyone Says I Love You', written and directed by Woody Allen should have been entitled `Fickle, thy name is Woman', as it seem to be about one romantic change of mind after another by the leading female characters in the story.Woody has parodied virtually every other genre of movie and play, so it was only a matter of time until he got to doing a parody of a musical. Thankfully, the Woodman did not try to write his own original songs for the story. Instead, as he almost always does, he borrowed songs from other Broadway and Hollywood musicals, mostly, I believe, from the Twenties and Thirties. I could have sworn that most of them were written by Cole Porter, but only one was. There was also one song from Rodgers and Hart, but anonymous songwriters from what was once known as Tin Pan Alley composed most others.What was less fortunate was that all cast members, including the multi-talented Mr. Allen did all their own singing. And, with the possible exception of Drew Barrymore, not one of them seemed to be able to effectively carry a tune. It wasn't that they were off key so much as all their voices were incredibly thin. One expected them to crack under the strain on every line. There are a few numbers done by a standard Broadway type chorus that both work and are immensely funny.As usual, Allen has his cast of thousands, headed by the likes of Julia Roberts, Goldie Hawn, Alan Alda, Edward Norton and Natalie Portman (in a very young, pre-Star Wars role). Particularly clever was the casting of Tim Roth as an ex-con, playing a role stolen whole from a Quentin Tarantino script.The story has a sense of being a first draft of `The Royal Tennenbaums', although I confess it is not as good as this dark comedy.Oddly, very few of Allen's usual subjects and themes make it into this movie. It seems as if he was committed to making the film as lighthearted as possible and he certainly succeeds in that. The danger is that unlike some of his other seriocomic family dramas such as `Crimes and Misdemeanors' and `Hannah and Her Sisters', this movie threatens to float away for lack of substance.What is going for it mostly are the performances of actors who seem to really be enjoying themselves and the lovely scenery in Manhattan, Paris, and Venice, lovingly photographed by Carlo DiPalma.This is a movie primarily for Woody Allen fans and Goldie Hawn fans. Fans of musicals will probably be disappointed. The best thing about it is that it succeeds in being funny.

The 90s was a bad decade for movie musicals. Walt Disney's Newsies was a complete flop (except with my kids who have worn out several VHS videos and DVD's over the year). Several other studios canceled musicals already in production -- today it's a big hit on Broadway. Of course Woody went ahead anyway and made this wonderful flop. It deserves a second look. Maybe it will make it to Broadway, too. I've seen La La Land and, believe me, the music in this film is far superior. And Goldie Hawn and Alan Alda are far superior at singing off-key than Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. And no one can pick great songs like Woody. The production numbers -- Making Whoopee, My Baby Just Cares for Me -- are amazing. Hooray for Captain Spaulding in French! And the final dance with Woody and Goldie is unbelievable. The cast is incredible with unknowns Natalie Portman and Gaby Hoffman in key parts. Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore and Edward Norton round out the cast. The plot is absurd, but it doesn't matter. To round it out, Paris, Venice and New York are all gorgeous.

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Based on the raves that this movie received, I gave it a try. There are a few funny moments but overall, it is as though someone had described what a musical was to Mr. Allen and so he tried to create one secondhand. The actors, for the most part, are actors and cannot sing or dance at the level necessary to reach the level of a true musical.The Hollywood musicals - especially the great ones - had an incredible energy and a sense of panache that is missing from this one. Looking back at this film, I cannot recall a single close-up on any of the actors. Mr. Allen, as is his forte, has some wonderfully humorous lines. I enjoyed the dance sequence at the hospital and the Captain Spauldings. But there was always a point to the dances in musicals - a way to further the plot or emotional content.I applaud the attempt, but this is one movie I won't be watching again for a very long while.