LOS ANGELES � When you make a movie a year, you're going to have your hits and misses. But when you've been making movies with a distinctive voice every year for more than four decades as Woody Allen has � including this weekend's "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" � you're also going to garner a loyal following of fans who are passionate and protective of their favorites.
It's impossible to say definitively what Allen's top five films are, but here I humbly offer you the five I like the most:
� "Annie Hall" (1977): It's quintessential Allen: the neurosis, the self-loathing, the patter of the dialogue, the obsession with a totally ill-suited woman, and of course all those Manhattan locations. It's got the trademark biting wisecracks, countered by the sweetness of how personal this story was. "Annie Hall" may look like a safe choice � and it did earn four Academy Awards including best picture and best director � but it's a perfect little nugget of all the things Allen does best. It's also one of the most enjoyable of his films, one you can watch over and over, with Diane Keaton at her most adorably ditzy. "Annie Hall" helped solidify both of their personas.
� "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (1985): As high-concept as you can get: A movie character walks off the screen and into real life. It's a wonderfully absurd idea, and it works because everyone takes it completely seriously. In one of his earliest film roles, Jeff Daniels is so charmingly earnest, so buoyant in his enthusiasm for discovering the outside world as the dashing Tom Baxter � even if that world is New Jersey during the Depression � and Mia Farrow is at her loveliest as the waitress in the audience with whom he starts a romance. But once other Tom Baxters try to walk off the screen, Allen's skills at constructing a farce kick in fully.
� "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (2008): By far the best among his recent films, it works on multiple levels. It allows Allen (and us) to laugh at the follies of the idle rich and smug bohemians, until we unexpectedly find ourselves not just tolerating them but becoming engaged in their adventures. One of a series of films Allen has made in Britain and Europe, he seems freer here, more comfortable in his rhythm, less anxious to prove himself in a foreign land. The excellent cast includes an irresistible Javier Bardem, a little-known Rebecca Hall and the always alluring Scarlett Johansson, his recent muse. But Penelope Cruz steals the whole thing � and won a supporting-actress Oscar � as Bardem's crazy ex.
� "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989): Allen balances melodrama and comedy with this story of adultery, blackmail, compromise and guilt. Always guilt. The veteran cast features, on the serious side, Martin Landau as a philandering eye doctor, Anjelica Huston as his volatile mistress and Jerry Orbach as the brother who arranges an assassination attempt. On the comic side, Allen himself shows up as a documentary maker who's stuck working for his pompous brother-in-law, played by Alan Alda; despite being married himself, Allen's character finds himself falling for one of Alda's assistants, played once again by Farrow. Other Allen films have had similar tonal contrasts, but few are as successful.
� "Bananas" (1971): Silly, goofy, raw, witty Woody. One of his earliest films shows his flair for slapstick comedy. Allen stars as � what else? � a neurotic New Yorker. He travels to a fictional Latin American country while � what else? � chasing after a woman named Nancy, played by Louise Lasser. Nancy wants nothing to do with him, but the rest of the country's citizens do, and he ends up becoming their leader. Not exactly one of his strongest films from a philosophical, intellectual standpoint � this one's just flat-out funny, featuring commentary from Howard Cosell and lines like: "I object, your honor. This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham."
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Think of any other examples? Share them with AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire.
