Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Directed by Woody Allen
After young playwright, David Shayne obtains funding for his play from gangster Nick Valenti, Nick's girlfriend Olive miraculously lands the role of a psychiatrist—but not only is she a bimbo who could never pass for a psychiatrist—she's a dreadful actress. David puts up with the leading man who is a compulsive eater, the grand dame who wants her part jazzed up, and Olive's interfering hitman/bodyguard—but, eventually he must decide whether art or life is more important.
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What critics compared Bullets Over Broadway to
In Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994), a character asks: if one could save from a burning building either the last known copy of Shakespeare's works or some "anonymous human being," which is the correct choice?
Starring in the Carver production are Mike (Edward Norton), Lesley (Naomi Watts) and Riggan himself, and the endless disasters leading up to the production’s opening make the shenanigans of Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway (from which Birdman borrows a hilarious gag) look like children’s theatre.
Although he has crossed the Atlantic yet again for his latest, “Midnight in Paris” deliberately channels the same deep-rooted fascination with the storied 1920s as did “Zelig,” “Bullets Over Broadway” and “Sweet and Lowdown.”
It’s a charming, fanciful comedy in the vein of “Bullets over Broadway” and “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” the kind of movie I honestly thought Woody had lost the knack for.
John Cusack was fine in “Bullets Over Broadway,” but the usually outstanding Kenneth Branagh was embarrassing in “Celebrity” and Will Ferrell seemed to be sleepwalking through “Melinda And Melinda.”
You know that this is not a work of depth as, say, Hannah and Her Sisters had depth, or even Bullets over Broadway.
His latest, the swell soirée "Midnight in Paris," has it both ways, re-creating the period-piece charms of "Bullets Over Broadway" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo" while spoofing his own infatuation with a world gone by.
A "comeback" film like Bullets over Broadway was possible because he hadn't actually gone anywhere or sapped his wells of inspiration in the years preceding.
It's neither the droll Woody of Bananas or Bullets over Broadway, nor the high drama of say, Crimes and Misdemeanors.
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And thumbs up to costume designer Jeffrey Kurland (Bullets over Broadway) whose outfits for Erin add greatly to our understanding of her.