Cassandra's Dream
by Woody Allen
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Actor: Clare Higgins, Colin Farrell, Ewan McGregor, John Benfield, Peter-Hugo DalyDirector: Woody Allen
Brand: WELLSPRING/GENIUS
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Running Time: 109 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-27
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Weinstein Company
DVD Reviews of Cassandra's Dream
DVD Review: Masterpiece! Neo-Nazi's need not read! Review is protected under the Constitution!
Summary: 5 Stars
Most people aren't qualified to give an opinion as to whether or not Soap is a cleaning product. Roger Ebert is a proud anti-semite. Hollywood and their Rags hate Woody Allen as they make no money from his films. I have known Mr. Allen for over 35 years. He is the ONLY Bona Fide Genius making films today.
Cassandra's Dream is a Masterwork. It's cast is 2nd rate with exception to Ewan. If you are simply angry that this film is not Annie Hal, you have been out of touch for almost 2 decades. This is a wonderful Morality Play and it is executed as perfectly as Allen could make it (due to lack of acting talent). His finest films - Shadow's and Fog, Crimes and Misdemeanors and Deconstructing Harry received no praise. Neither did this beauty. Woody does not care!Buy it and enjoy the last truly Brilliant American film maker (Best since another JEW, Chaplin).
DVD Review: Choices
Summary: 4 Stars
"Cassandra's Dreams" is an interesting Woody Allen film. It has a lot of the elements of "Match Point" but it does not quite rise to that level. The essential reason for that is that the audience is asked to buy into two successive choices that our lead character has to make. The writer/director has certainly done a good job of making his case for those two choices. However, many might buy into the first one but the second one may have been a choice too far. As a result it will, for many, end up as a film that does not fully relate to the viewer.
The acting is very good, the directing is excellent and the movie approaches the level of a thriller. After the movie was over, I was left quite impressed with the irony of the ending. As I thought about it the next day, I realized the depth of the irony that I hadn't comprehended the night before. This might be just the movie for a person who has fretted long and hard over a bad choice they made in their past. Perhaps things could have turned out worse? "Cassandra's Dream" really is an excellent film except for the reason I stated. It may not be "Match Point" but it's certainly better than "Scoop".
DVD Review: Still Looking For Woody
Summary: 3 Stars
Okay, so Woody goes overseas (to London)in his role as director this time, gets two nice young working class brothers to commit to helping out dear old rich Uncle (he is family, after all) get rid of (for good, get it) a pesky member of his organization. The trials and tribulations (to speak nothing of the dialogue) are a little bit much as the two members of the gang who couldn't shoot straight are too far from Jersey to make this work, especially when one brother gets a little too remorseful for uncle and brother . What this film reminds me most of, in one sense, is that Woody is still conceptually conflicted about how Martin Landau got away with murder in Crimes and Misdemeanors and he wants to right the situation here. Given the material here the two brothers do okay but this is certainly not in the same league as C&M, which is arguably one of Woody's best works.
DVD Review: An "Interesting" Woody Allen
Summary: 4 Stars
Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake
I love the films written and directed by Woody Allen. Comedy or drama, even when he's not on top of his game, his pictures are, at the very least, "interesting".
Admittedly, CASSANDRA'S DREAM (2007) is not one of his best, primarily because it's a bit too long and the story's focus wanders off into unnecessary tangents. On the other hand, the performances are uniformly gripping and Allen's simplicity in staging his scenes is always refreshing.
CASSANDRA'S DREAM, filmed in England, is a drama about murder that re-visits moralistic issues Allen first dealt with in one of his best pictures, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989), except that in this new film, the outcome is different.
Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor are cast as working-class brothers, each with big dreams and even bigger money problems. Gambler Colin owes a bundle to vicious loan sharks and Ewan, in love with an overly ambitious actress, wants to buy into a California hotel chain with money he doesn't have.
Their only hope is their rich uncle, Tom Wilkinson, who agrees to help them if they do him a favor. He wants them to murder a colleague whose testimony can put him into prison for shady business dealings.
Wilkinson rationalizes that they are "family" and if he can't count on family to help him out of a tight spot, then he can't count on anything.
I'm not sure if it was Allen's intent or not, but the scene in which Wilkinson asks his nephews to commit murder, and their unbelieving reactions to his proposition, almost plays like "black comedy" in this otherwise, very serious and generally intelligently-written film.
After the initial shock wears off, Colin and Ewan ponder their options and, at least in McGregor's case, develop a rationalization that killing this person would be no different that killing your enemy in a war.
Now, all they have to deal with is their consciences.
? Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (available December 2008)
DVD Review: Leopold and Loeb redux
Summary: 3 Stars
***1/2
Whenever he turns to drama, Woody Allen always seems to wind up
channeling either Ingmar Bergman ("Interiors," "September") or Fyodor
Dostoevsky ("Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Match Point"). "Cassandra's
Dream" finds him in one of his Dostoevsky moods (with traces of
Hitchcock thrown in for good measure), once again making the case that it is
both impossibly difficult and ridiculously easy for the common man to
engage in cold-blooded murder.
Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor star as two working-class brothers who
have fallen onto financial hard times (one is a compulsive gambler, the
other a frustrated cipher with dreams of rising above his station both
economically and romantically). Desperate for some immediate cash, they
reluctantly agree to knock off one of their wealthy uncle's business
rivals who has some secret knowledge that, if it ever got out, could
send the old man up the river for a very long time.
Set in London, "Cassandra's Dream" is not as sharp and cutting as some
of Allen's previous works in this genre, but thanks to strong
performances by Farrell, McGregor and Tom Wilkinson as the uncle, this
latest update of the Loepold-and-Loeb story manages to keep our
interest most of the way. The themes, which have been played out in
literature and movies for what seems like eons now, understandably feel
a trifle old-hat at this late stage in the game, but Allen's generally sharp dialogue,
canny insights into human nature, and smooth direction help to freshen
them up a bit.
It may not be Allen at his finest, but the ancillary rewards of script and acting make the
film well worth seeing.
Description of Cassandra's Dream
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 09/30/2008 Rating: Pg13Scottish Ewan McGregor and Irish Colin Farrell play two Cockney brothers who get in over their heads when a wealthy relative asks for a favor. Woody Allen's sleek thriller Cassandra's Dream begins in innocent times: Ian (McGregor) and Terry (Farrell) buy a sailboat and name it Cassandra's Dream. But soon Terry falls afoul of gambling debts and Ian falls head over heels for a sultry actress who doesn't take him seriously, leading them to ask their uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) for money, which he's happy to give them--if they'll get rid of a man who's going to testify against him. The first half of Cassandra's Dream zips along with short, concise scenes and charismatic performances by the lead lads. Newcomer Hayley Atwell (Brideshead Revisited) is alluring as the actress, while Sally Hawkins (Persuasion) brings warmth and sympathy to the underwritten role of Terry's girlfriend Kate. The second half--as with many of Allen's later films--seems to run out of steam, though there's still much to admire about Allen's clean, unfussy filmmaking. Regrettably, he seems to have lost the ability to sustain his imaginative spark. The weakness is in the writing; too many of the characters are barely sketched and clumsy lines of dialogue jar the ear in otherwise well-shaped scenes. But just when you're ready to throw up your hands, there's a moment of understated grace, in which Allen's simple visuals capture something with crystalline clarity. Cassandra's Dream is a frustrating movie, but it has its rewards. --Bret Fetzer
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