Let’s say that you buy a set of deluxe postcards at a museum gift shop, and the postcards are labeled something like French Country Gardens or Chateaux of Provence. Then onto the postcards, you photoshop portraits of fancy, attractive movie stars in lovely period costumes. Then, as you slowly look at each postcard, one at a time, you should also listen to a CD of tinkly, nostalgic tunes from the 1920s. Then take a nice long nap in a hammock. You have now pretty much experienced the new Woody Allen movie Magic In The Moonlight.
I love Woody, but many of his most recent films have been sunlit travelogues set in various high-end European vacation spots, including Paris, London and Rome. Woody’s starting to remind me of Thomas Kinkade, that kitschy, mega-selling artist who painted mostly gooey oils of fantasy cottages with lush gardens, and who called himself the Painter of Light. Woody’s turning into the Director of Light, or maybe the Director of Brochures. Of course, I was distracted during this film by some loud whimpering noises, which were coming from my dear friend, the still tragically single Stacy Schiff. Stacy was sobbing and touching herself inappropriately, because the movie stars Colin Firth, and since James Garner died and House went off the air, Colin is pretty much the go-to lust object for ladies of a certain age.
Colin plays a magician who specializes in debunking phony psychics and spiritualists, and he travels to France to expose Emma Stone, who’s playing a flirtatious young mystic. “Oh my God,” said Stacy, “This is too much! How can I fantasize about Colin when his love interest is gorgeous and almost thirty years younger than he is?” The movie never mentions this age gap, but Colin and Emma both look uncomfortable, especially when they’re supposed to be bantering and falling in love, and Colin seems more like Emma’s suave, erudite Dad. “I can’t believe it,” Stacy moaned, “only Woody Allen could make Colin seem creepy.”
The movie is packed with wonderful actors, all of whom get the same, slightly panicky look on their faces, when they’re being asked to deliver high school drama club dialogue; I could see them thinking, “But Woody’s a genius, right? So this is gonna be great, right?” Woody always attracts amazing groups of stars, so his movies can seem like ultra-refined cruise ship packages featuring name entertainment, or really polite celebrity roasts. In Magic In The Moonlight, Colin has many extended speeches about whether God exists, and about whether people need the illusion of magic to make their lives bearable. I asked Stacy what she thought about all this, and she said, “Well, I believe in God because He made Colin and coconut cake and movie-theater-arctic air-conditioning. And I think that maybe I’m a little bit psychic because the minute someone in this movie started playing a ukelele, I know we were in trouble.”
As for me, I believe in God because He gave us the trailer for that upcoming thriller Lucy, in which Scarlett Johannsen plays a girl who, after some genetic tinkering, begins to use 100% of her brain, giving her superpowers. I’m always a sucker for this plot device, like in Limitless, that flick where Bradley Cooper swallowed special smart pills and began thinking really fast and making a fortune on Wall Street. And I certainly believe in movie magic, because there are plenty of scenes in Woody’s latest where I was happy to just appreciate the vases and the hats. When it’s getting towards the end of July, sometimes a few beaded flapper gowns and plenty of uniformed servants are all the magic I need, if you ask me.
