Thoughts I Had... The "Cafe Society" Poster
Thursday, April 21, 2016 at 5:00PM Look at this amazing poster for Woody Allen's Cafe Society (2016). The film will open the Cannes Film Festival and also, a little closer to home, the Seattle Film Festival this May. It will play near you this August as counterprogramming to Suicide Squad and Pete's Dragon.
After the jump, thoughts I had as they came to me unedited. Share yours, too, why don'cha...
• I wish Liza Minnelli was in this but will remember that it's at least sorta concurrent with the Weimar Era if I get bored?
• How amazing would an animated Woody Allen musical be? I'm not talking rotoscoped Waking Life but full Pocahontas - oh shit. Maybe that was Antz? Wasn't he involved in some way never mind
• Jeannie Berlin top billed (yes, we know it's alphabetical but let us pretend) - can you imagine?
• Did they have collagen injections in the 1930s?
• Remember when Karen Akers was in a Woody with a fierce black bob?
• "Anyone who is anyone..." is a fun tagline and extra boastful if you happen to be Jeannie Berlin, Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll or Ken Stott since you're name is right under that exclusionary phrase.
• Wealthy people and their problems. Cry me a (golden) river.
• Remember when I was so righteously super pissed about Corey Stoll's exclusion in the SAG nomination for Midnight in Paris and talked to him about it. Now he's big enough to get his name on the first title card (in Woody Allen movies you have to share them, so SAG counts that first card as "individual credits" for their awards) so if this is a surprise hit he can be nominated. The actors who are likely on the second title card (if this poster is indication) and thus will not be considered part of the "ensemble" in SAG's dumb rules are actors as fine as Anna Camp, Judy Davis, Paul Schneider, and Tony Sirico.
• Do we think this is poster is a drawing of a particular character from the movie? If so can it be Parker Posey instead of Kristen Stewart? The movie takes place in 1930s Hollywood and Parker can read that era way more easily than Stewart if you ask me.
• I prefer Woody Allen male leads when they're not easily understood as Woody surrogates but Jesse Eisenberg is definitely in the Woody mode: nerdy, intellectual, pain-in-ass, motor mouthed. So... potentially frustrating.
• [Clicks over to IMDb] !!! You guys. Oscar winning genius cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, Dick Tracy, Reds, The Last Emperor, Last Tango in Paris) shot this. Somehow he is out of retirement and working again? His last major Hollywood picture was Bulworth (1998) so, yes, he did a handful of Beatty films. He is 75 years old.
• Keepin it 100 -- Curse of the Jade Scorpion and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger also had cool illustrated posters and they were terrible movies.
Reader Comments (20)
There's nothing period about Kristen Stewart. Poor Judy Davis. Her part is too small to count for the A-list. Will Woody ever work with Tomei?
This is Woody's first digitally photographed movie.
Nice to see Corey Stoll in another Woody Allen film! Don't recall Allen ever having a male-muse, but if he ever does, go for Stroll! Also, good for Jeannie Berlin getting another solid role. Can't believe it's been 43 years since her Oscar nomination?
I know I am in the minority here, but You Will Meet... was the last Allen great movie. Y'all should see it again.
Beautiful poster! I have zero interest in the movie, but I'll go see it. It's a tradition. It's like Christmas.
I think there might be an inverse relationship between the quality of a Woody Allen poster and the film.
Of course I'll set it anyway.
Peggy Sue said it all for me.
I know I am in the minority here, but You Will Meet... was the last Allen great movie. Y'all should see it again.
Your opinions are always incorrect.
Storaro actually came out of retirement to shoot the most expensive Iranian film of all time, Muhammad: Messenger of God (directed by Oscar-nominated Majid Majidi of Children of Heaven fame) and I believe he's shooting both sequels as well.
So Judy Davis is in this movie and she wasn't named in the first title card?! What the actual fuck?!!!
Does anyone know who Ken Stott is? That was my first reaction.
Kenneth Campbell "Ken" Stott is a Scottish stage, television and film actor who won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1995 in the play Broken Glass at Royal National Theatre.
Weird, my mind went to Angelina in Changeling. Which would be the first and the last time that would happen.
With Berlin in this and Elaine May starring in his amazon series, Allen is really providing a great public service getting this mother/daughter pair back in front of the camera.
I've got a good feeling about this one. Then again, I love almost all Woody's movies so i'm likely to be a happy camper regardless.
Also, I agree with cal that You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is sorely underrated. Almost nobody saw it so i'm always surprised that it's so widely dismissed.
Nathaniel, Davis isn't in the movie. She said so while promoting The Dressmaker last year
3rt, you're a rude troll. If this was my blog I'd have banned you. Bye.
Sorry, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is not a terrible movie, I finally saw it last year and was shocked by how much I loved it (and that so many people didn't at the time of its release). It's one of the Woody Allen films that I'm thinking about when his name comes up in a conversation.
Ken Stott made a big impression as the elder Dwarf Balin in The Hobbit films.
I've been a mega-devoted fan of Woody Allen since the late sixties, but I regard each new release with trepidation these days. For every Midnight In Paris and Blue Jasmine, there are two From Rome With Love and Magic In The Moonlights. He is still capable of brilliant work, and even his misfires have their pleasures... but he has gotten quite sloppy, often using thin caricatures instead of writing real characters, and much too dependent on those magical endings.
Still, he's made so many brilliant films over the years, and I'm always hopeful of another gem. That poster is lovely, but we'll have to see...
Given how good she's been in her last few movies, I wouldn't assume that Kristen Stewart is too modern to pull off a performance in a period film.
My first thought: 'Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle'
Does anyone know who designed the poster?