POOR WOODY - A quick post on my current poll question...We're only seven votes in, but so far five of those seven have said, "When was Woody's last good film?" Being a huge Allen fan -- 'Annie Hall' is not only the definitive romantic comedy, it may be the funniest movie of all-time -- I can't tell you how much it pained me to include that as a possible answer. But I had to admit it. Woody's criticism of Hollywood (one I ultimately agree with) would be more palatable if the quality of his recent films was a little higher. You can go right down his filmography: 'Hollywood Ending', 'Curse of the Jade Scorpion', 'Small Time Crooks', are all three bad movies. The next three: 'Sweet and Lowdown', 'Celebrity', and 'Deconstructing Harry' aren't much better, but each have something I can appreciate. 'Sweet' expresses very well some of Woody's dominant themes -- the artist's struggle to achieve greatness (Penn's character can never be as good a jazz guitarist as his foreign counterpart, Django Reinhardt, much like Woody constantly defers to Bergman and Fellini among others); intellectualism vs. emotion (the egghead Uma Thurman character vs. Samantha Morton's mute). I never could quite get past the fact that Penn is obviously not playing the amazing guitar lines his character is improvising. Admittedly, I play the guitar so I have some idea what it would look like to play those notes, but I'm still surprised that Woody, an accomplished jazz musician, would film such obviously fake playing. 'Celebrity' is great for Kenneth Branagh's Woody impression, something that most critics were turned off by. And 'Deconstructing' shows us Woody's vulgar side and an amazing capacity to poke fun at his own public persona, not to mention those artsy jump cuts that Woody hasn't used since the mock documentary 'Husbands and Wives.' But the bottom line is that Woody probably hasn't made a very good picture since 1994's 'Bullets Over Broadway'. His last truly great movie? 1989's 'Crimes and Misdemeanors'. Before that, 'Hannah and Her Sisters' (1986). As much I respect his prolific ouvre and the fact that he continues to make a movie a year, I don't get that rush of excitement I used to get in anticipation of his next movie. Judging from the poll response, neither do most of my readers...if they ever did to begin with.

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