Paris Fresh in My Mind

Everybody has a stereotype about Paris, right?  Prettiest city on the planet, most romantic, center of art as we know it, etc.  Woody Allen's latest movie Midnight in Paris takes all those stereotypes and presents them in an entirely upside down and shaken around sort of way and comes away as perhaps my favorite Woody Allen film ever.

It has many of the Woody Allen trademarks: There is a couple teetering on marriage.  It has bickering galore, improv, and a cast of thousands.  The city is just as important to the story as the characters.  It features infidelity, writer's block, and fear of death.

Funny, I watched a very similar movie in theme (but not at all in spirit) last night called Tamara Drewe, the latest movie from Stephen Frears.  Very snarky and exploring many of the same ideas as Midnight.  Both are about the locale inspiring the writer thinking about happiness and infidelity and death.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, but after seeing Midnight in Paris today, I was quite struck by the thought that there are good good movies and amazing good movies.  Do you know what I mean?

I know I am dancing around in circles here and not telling you much about the movie but that would spoil it for you.  It has many, many wonderful and funny and delightful surprises and ends up one of the prettiest and most wildly optimistic movies I have seen in a while.

Side note: I am not a fan of Owen Wilson at all and his stoner, glazed over stuttering works here perfectly.  I am sure this role was written for him! 

Run, don't walk, to see this movie!