Script review - "When Harry Met Sally" by Nora Ephron

 This was mocked on a podcast by two males making fun of the premise, but it does operate as a decent thesis and also is a film of its time. This material has been much mined since by TV. It copied a lot of Woody Allen, but does offer a female point of view. It also feels, well, Jewish, in its emphasis on the importance of being married. But it's simple yet effective, smart, two contrasting characters, and the plot develops logically. I'm not sure how long they'll last married -Harry's got too many issues.

Sidebar: Meg Ryan really made the film go next level. Billy Crystal is absolutely fine but I get the feeling a bunch of other stars could have played the role but Meg is the heart.

Movie review - "Running Scared" (1986) ***

 I've got a lot of affection for this because I saw it as a kid. The Chicago locations look great as is the cinematography. It's a shaggy dog film ambling along - "we gotta get Mendoza!" The cops all look the same, with beards. There's a lot of police brutality.

Gregory Hines is likeable but Billy Crystal is the real standout - he's believable as a cop and very effective. Should've done more action. Jimmy Smits is paying his dues in a thankless part ditto Dan Hadeya.

Some really funny moments eg intimidating Joe Pantaglio by saying "he has cash in his room" and decent action scenes. Other stuff less fun eg bullying the boyfriend of the girl Hines is sleeping with - what did he do wrong?

Book review - "Laugh Lines" by Alan Zweibel

 I was only vaguely familiar with Zweibel before reading this but he has a rich pedigree: an original writer on Saturday Night Live, a man very skilled at doing life stories of top comedians (Garry Shandling, Billy Crystal, Gilda Radner, Martin Short), writer of some of Rob Reiner's least successful films (North, Story of Us), show runner of Ryan O'Neal's Good Sports, dabbler in many forms (novels, theatre, movies, TV).

It's an entertaining book. Good to hear insight about early SNL from a writer, throws in a whole chapter on a film he made with Crystal, skips over some potentially interesting stuff in a sentence (a brief cocaine problem, his wife being robbed at gun point), illuminating sketches on Radner and Shandling, take downs of Ryan O'Neal and Farrah Fawcett, touching account of the backlash to North (less analysis of Story of Us... my take with the problem: it seems it was written by two happily married people), he is refreshingly empathetic about age discrimination in Hollywood.

Movie review - "City Slickers" (1991) ***1/2

A first rate comedy which starts with a strong concept - three men with varying mid life crises decide to drove cattle across country - and excellent complications - their range leader dies and they have to take the cattle themselves. It also attempts to provide an answer to the question "what is the meaning of life"... "one thing". And you know, that's a pretty good answer.  I can't think of a movie that's come up with a better one.

Other bits in this film have always stayed with me - the fact men can talk about baseball forever, even a father and son who argue about everything else; Billy Crystal's summation at the beginning about a life span; the legendary arse crack shot of that cab driver and Crystal's associated expression.

Billy Crystal is in excellent form and his baseball references weren't that annoying then; he works well with Bruno Kirby and Daniel Stern, who each are allowed a chance to shine. Helen Slater is bland as the sole girl but at least is pretty and Jack Palance is excellent as Curly.

The segment where they rescue the calf went on too long (it was like a typical 90s action set piece) and the comedy schtick involving guessing flavours of ice cream seemed pointless. Touching father-son stuff involving the black cowboys. Jake Gylenhall has hs first role as Crystal's son.

Movie review - "Parental Guidance" (2012) **1/2

An attempt at the family film market which Meet the Parents proved was still highly lucrative with the right concept and stars, this is a half success. It's got a strong central idea - forgotten grandparents look after some kids for a spell and create havoc - plus some likeable stars in Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and Marissa Tomei. But despite some funny and touching moments it never quite works.

For starters it never seems to get its central concept right - Crystal and Midler are a bit wacky but not that strange and their ideas to raise kids aren't really out there or massively different from Tomei's even if Tomei is a bit PC. The film is reluctant to get too stuck into new methods of parenting - and Crystal has such a nice guy persona there's not much fun in the culture clash involved in his methods, the way that say there was with Robert de Niro. (Arnold Schwarzenegger would have been more fun, for instance because he's more clearly a fish out of water.) So the humour proceeds in fits and starts instead of having a clean line.

And it's not very well directed, with awkwardly staged scenes, or written, with moments thrown together - like the little kid recovering his voice. Having said that, there are great bits - it's like it was doctored by a good writer, but he or she only did bright bits: Tomei complaining about being forgotten while waiting then being forgotten, a late night talk between Crystal and Tomei.

Other debits: Bette Midler is wasted, there is no real villain character (the film needed perfect grandparents say), Tom Everett Scott has nothing to do, there's far too much mugging, Crystal looks really old. But it does have something to say and has a certain charm.

Book review - "700 Sundays" by Billy Crystal

Billy Crystal seems one of the nicest, most likeable people in show business - he comes across well in his hosting gigs, always interviews engagingly, constantly deals with problems of marriage in his screenplays in a way few (filmed) writers do. So it's no surprise that his memoir is a charming one - you can really imagine it working on stage. I had no idea Crystal came from showbiz stock, his dad and uncle were genuine big names in jazz promotion; other stuff is a bit more familiar from Jewish memoirs: holidays at the Catskills, discovering sex, wacky relatives. It is full of warmth and love and humour - Crystal really loves his family.

Movie review - "Deconstructing Harry" (1998) ***

A weird sort of vomit of a movie - all sorts of ideas and bits thrown cobbled together with the unifying device of Woody playing an author who drives north to accept an award. You can't help think at times he's just gotten together left over bits from other films - I know for a fact the scene in Hell was used in an early draft of Annie Hall - but it does have a sort of point, i.e. the importance of an artist using real life in his work and how it the work is often better than real life.

The ending is surprisingly moving; the stuff about Woody making caricatures of other people then somehow making up for it by having characters call on him making them caricatures during the movie beginning to get a little tired (David Williamson uses the same tactic).

The cast is another one of Allen's all star efforts but everyone suits their roles, from a young Jennifer Garner in the elevator to hilarious Kirstie Alley and Judy Davis as shrews, Tobey Maguire as a young Woody. 

One clunky bit was Elisabeth Shue: I know the point was she's young, but she's a bit too young and beautiful for Woody who was starting to look a bit old by now. (This was during that period in Woody's films that he seemed unable to act unless it was opposite a younger co-star: from the time of Husbands and Wives [when the Soo Yi stuff broke] until the present, he played against someone his own age in Manhattan Murder Mystery and Small Time Crooks but against an ingenue in Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says I Love You, this one, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, and Hollywood Ending.)  

It might have been better with Dustin Hoffman in the lead, maybe Elliot Gould. Still, for all its flaws, this is a film that has some meat on its bones, and that's something you couldn't really say about any of Woody's films for around the next decade.