Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

23 September 2003

Woody Allen's Trading Range

The comments that some critics have made about Woody Allen's latest movie sound like the business page excitement for a 5% gain in a stock that's still some 80% down for the decade. A sampling of the positive blurbs on Rotten Tomatoes shows that Anything Else looks best when compared to Allen's recent movies: "Allen's best movie in years," "a return to the Allen of old", "a very welcome sense that Allen is back on track," "throwback to Allen's heyday," "nice rebound," etc.

But David Denby writing in the New Yorker is thinking long-term: "Waiting for Woody Allen?s movies to return to form has become steady work. It doesn?t help very much to say that Anything Else is better than his last two feature films, Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Hollywood Ending, because it?s still not very interesting."

Why do so many critics seem to have such an interest in tracking the minor ups and downs of Allen's career? I suppose because many of them believe that he's capable of much more, and they can't help looking for ways to explain his mediocre output or be hopeful for signs of recovery. His regular release schedule makes it easier to check his progress. Where most filmmakers lacking ideas might disappear for a time then spring back when we least expect it, Allen has managed to tread water.

Even Denby closes his review with this: "Woody Allen appears to be terrified of not working. But most of his recent movies lack the many, and the many different kinds of, good ideas that went into Bananas and Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors and Husbands and Wives.?

I'm glad a few people are enjoying Anything Else, but it's already starting to slip from my memory. I sold a while back, you see.

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