Game, Set, Matchpoint

Woody Allen’s movie “Take the Money and Run” changed my perception of the world. It literally had never dawned on me that adults could be funny. There was a divide between my buddies’ age group – we lived for humor - and the square parental generation, who were always trying to settle us down, and who were responsible for hideous things like puns. Maybe that was it. The puns were a way to diffuse our youthful energy and make us nap. I remember sitting in waiting rooms as a kid, reading the Reader’s Digest Humor In Uniform, and just knowing there was something wrong.
Don’t misunderstand me: There was great humor around. My Dad had lots of cartoon books from the New Yorker on down and he was a big Mad Magazine fan, but I never saw this material as something adults created. The books just existed there on their own.
“Take the Money and Run” was revolutionary. I couldn’t believe it. Woody Allen became a huge comedic hero for many years afterwards. And yes, the Soon-Yi situation damaged my respect for him badly. By the way, I wasn’t interested in comedy as a profession back as a kid. But I just seemed to understand it. It resonated with me. And Woody was at the top of my list, and still is. For example, he may have written the best sex joke of all time: Is sex dirty? “It is if you’re doing it right.” I can still remember his essays about the invention of the sandwich and the gangsters with unusual names. I loved his standup album called “The Nightclub Years.” And most of his movies.
I just got back from seeing “Matchpoint” and I won’t discuss it, in case you’re going. Woody wrote it and directed it, and it’s slow. It’s not easy watching heroes fade. He used to fire off brilliance with a volume that was staggering. There was a time when I bet you could have followed him around New York and the dialog he would say in real time, would have been better than most scripts.
I know it’s getting late in the game, but I still always go. Each time a Woody Allen movie comes out, I try and attend out of respect for what he used to mean to me. Woody, I don’t care about the price of the tickets. Take the money and run.