Midnight in Paris

We saw Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris on Friday and I'm pleased to report it was really fun and a great movie. Sure, it doesn't have the gravitas of some of his more brilliant older work, but it doesn't have the suckitas of much of his recent work.

It's about this movie-writer and his fiance (Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams) who go to Paris and, after midnight, alone, he is transported to his favorite period in time and space: Paris in the 1920s (neatly supporting my theory that our culture is obsessed with Quantum Physics). In his midnight adventures, he finds himself hobnobbing with the likes of the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. If you are not vaguely familiar with the expatriots of Paris 1920s you might be bored out of your mind, not to mentioned annoyed by pretentious a-holes like myself who are like, "Ha! Ha! Ha! Adrien Brody's performance as Salvador Dali was simply divine!" I happen to think half the fun of Woody Allen movies is sitting around with like-minded literary folk who "get" all the Strindberg references.

Shots of Paris are, naturally, absolutely gorgeous. I thought it was fun watching Rachel McAdams play a kind of rotten character for once instead of "America's Sweetheart". Carla Bruni (Sarkozy) is an art guide and unbelievably beautiful. I always like Owen Wilson, I think he's such a charming actor.

I'm only mildly miffed by the poster for the movie which features Starry Night as a backdrop to the Siene, which, as everyone knows, van Gogh painted it while in Arles.