Sweet and Lowdown (1999)
Directed by Woody Allen
In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.
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What critics compared Sweet and Lowdown to
The kind of performance Penn delivers in "I Am Sam," which may look hard, is easy, compared, say, to his amazing work in Woody Allen's "Sweet and Lowdown."
Despite eliciting unavoidable comparisons to Dustin Hoffman's performance in "Rain Man" - a decidedly different film in story and tone - Penn's ("Sweet and Lowdown," "Up at the Villa") take on his higher functioning character is quite impressive, but I can see why some viewers might have problems with it.
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.”
In fact, the film that thus opens is Allen's best, or at any rate by a considerable margin his most pleasurable, since at least Sweet and Lowdown , which perhaps not coincidentally was also a loopy, desperately romantic tribute to the glories of the Jazz Age.
But considering Allen hasn't made an unqualified success since 1999's Sweet and Lowdown, it's easy to shrug off Midnight in Paris' occasional fumble when weighed against so much cleverness and canniness and, bien sûr, irresistible charm.
Like Sean Penn in Sweet and Lowdown, Wilson delivers Allen’s lines without being trapped in an Allen imitation.
He doesnt even have the redeeming musical grace that Sean Penns even more loathsome guitarist had in Sweet and Lowdown.
This essential cowardice of Allen's, even more off-putting than the clichéd but vociferous artist-as-cad theses of Sweet and Lowdown and Deconstructing Harry , also helps to explain his enduring fascination with Johansson, an actress who lately forebears from doing any acting.
The last great Allen movie was 2005's " Match Point ", before that you'd have to look back to 1999's underappreciated " Sweet and Lowdown ".
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By comparison, the modest pleasures of a Hollywood Ending or Sweet and Lowdown are gravy.
The move not only suits Allen’s subject matter, but also marks his first truly great film since 1999’s “Sweet and Lowdown.”
There has been an occasional diamond in the rough, such as 1999's excellent Sweet and Lowdown, but most of his films have remained forgettable, with a few (Celebrity, Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending) bordering on entirely unwatchable shtick.
Sometimes this worked, like the embittered jazz guitarist in 1999s Sweet and Lowdown.
"Match Point", Mr. Allen's finest film since 1999's "Sweet and Lowdown" , takes place entirely in and around the city of London and, once you get past of idea of a Woody Allen movie without the Manhattan skyline, it works surprisingly well.