Woody Allen and Larry David to Open Tribeca Film Festival Tonight

Woody Allen’s new film Whatever Works, starring Larry David in the curmudgeonly old guy role, has its world premiere as the opening night film of the Tribeca Film Festival this evening. The movie marks Allen’s return to New York City after four films shot in Europe.

Allen and David make a perfect match, and from David’s performance it seems clear that he’s enjoying himself. He brings out the full misanthropic bite of Allen’s dialogue in a very different manner from Woody’s own performances. His character Boris, a formerly upper class physics genius now slumming it in Chinatown teaching chess to kids, frequently breaks the fourth wall, directly addressing the audience during his philosophical diatribes.

The film is shot in a very different NYC from Woody’s comfort zone, with primary locations around Chinatown and the East Village. At times, though, characters revert into mouthpieces, and as they crash into other characters with very different backgrounds, too often you can see the chess pieces being moved around the board by the script. But the Jewish Neurosis jackpot of Allen and David working together is too good to pass up, and the movie still manages to let a sunny disposition shine through.

This year’s Tribeca Film Festival is a scaled-back and more centralized affair (granted, not exactly centralized in Tribeca, with most of the screenings taking place in the East Village). The program is less reliant on past major studio fair like M:I 3 or Spider-Man 3 that gain empty buzz for the fest yet push the indie and foreign selections out of the spotlight. Stay tuned to Heeb for coverage throughout the festival.

What do you think?

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7 Responses

  1. Anonymous

    But he’s dug himself a partisan hole with this big bill, and it’ll be interesting to breitling watches see him try to dig his way out. On the one hand, an Academy Award is nothing to sneeze at. Bullock has

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