That, my friends, is skill.

Aspiring writers, like myself, struggle writing just one movie, yet here is Woody with the stamina of a thoroughbred racehorse. True. Some of his films don’t quite hit the mark and there’s considerable amount of thematic overlap in his oeuvre, but none of them are worth skipping. I’ve sat through all of them; some of which, multiple times. You know why? Because they’re good! Even when they’re bad, they’re still worth watching.

There should be a reason to shoot a scene in one-take other than showing off a huge action set-piece.

This is part of an ongoing series where I will be doing movie reviews from my original ESSENTIALS Film List.

Controversial by today’s standards, Isaac dates a 17 year old girl.

When people ask Allen about his work, he’s extremely humble and a bit facetious about it, usually saying something along the lines of, “It was an okay gig but now I’m onto the next one.” To paraphrase the great Stanley Kubrick, who was actually a huge Woody fan and considered casting him in EYES WIDE SHUT (I would have paid good money to see that), “Genius is 10% natural ability, 90% hard work.”