Pronto

The summer movie season of 2012 has begun in earnest.   And, if you've got a brain in your head like me, you will need to look long and hard to find something decent to see.

Waiting for the sequel to "The Dark Knight?"  I can't wait to avoid what will surely be another piece of crap from director/hack Christopher Nolan.

Dying for the remake of "Spiderman?"  Considering the original came out only about ten years ago, these producers can cast their web elsewhere.

Oh, and have I told you that I already managed to skip "The Avengers?"

Yes, folks, I have an IQ over 80. 

But, run I did to see Woody Allen's newest comedy, "To Rome With Love."  Intelligent snobs, unite.  You have a reason to go out and buy yourself a box of Goobers.

Granted that Woody's really best days as a filmmaker are in all of our rear view mirrors.  But, when you want to laugh in the dark (with more than one other person) and you don't particularly find anything with the word "hangover" in the title even remotely funny, the Woodman's lesser efforts will work just fine.  And that's just what "To Rome With Love" accomplishes.

Admittedly, the movie had me pulled in right from the opening credits.  The soundtrack for the typically white-letters-on-black-canvas Woddy Allen titles was an old song from the 50s.  "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu."  Otherwise known as "Volare."  This immediately conjured up a Saturday night memory drawer for yours truly.

My mother had the 45 rpm record.  And, when it was popular on the radio, Mom played it over and over and over on the record player.  And sang along. 

Except the song is completely in Italian.  Did my mother speak that language?  Of course not.  Another isolated moment of bizarreness from the childhood that was uniquely mine. 

Nevertheless, the opening pulled me in with a smile that didn't leave my kisser for the next hour and 50 or so minutes. 

As you probably know, Woody is still keeping up with the pace of making one movie per year.  And, since he's fast approaching the age of 80, that's an ambitious schedule to maintain.  As a result, not all of his films will sparkle.  And, given the fact that he can no longer scare up money in the United States to produce movies, he is making the rounds, film by film, throughout Europe.  England, Spain, and, in his last sterling effort, Paris.  When he's forced to make one in Hungary or Turkey, then I think it might be time for Allen to call it a career. 

In the meantime, he's attacked Rome, Italy for his newest work and the city never looked so good.  The camera wonderfully caresses any old ruin Woody manages to find.  Even without a story, this would work terrifically as one of those old travelogues you see on the Turner Classic Movie channel.  If there's such a thing as Chamber of Commerce in Rome, they need to send a check to the Woodman posthaste.

"To Rome With Love" is episodic as four or five stories are followed concurrently through the streets of the Eternal City.  A goofy Italian and his new bride arrive to meet relatives.  Through a comedy of errors, she gets lost while sightseeing and he winds up introducing a prostitute (Penelope Cruz, natch) to his family.  Meanwhile, Alec Baldwin serves as an alter ego to young Jesse Eisenberg who is smitten with his girlfriend's visiting pal from Malibu.  Eisenberg shines as he channels the same romantic neuroses that the director perfected so early in his career.  As for Baldwin, he got through the whole affair without hitting a photographer, so consider his role a triumph.

Sap-deluxe Roberto Benigni is your typical Italian businessman who, in Allen's homage to Federico Fellini, suddenly becomes a celebrity for no reason whatsoever.  Sure.  Doesn't everybody?  This tale is quite silly, surreal, but, thanks to Benigni's facial reactions, immensely charming. 

The biggest laughs are reserved for the segment that features Woody Allen's return to the screen as an actor.  He and Judy Davis play the visiting parents of a young girl who has fallen in love with an Italian boy.  The kid's dad is a singing mortician who sings wonderful Italian opera, but, only in the shower.  Woody, as the former director of an opera company, sees this talent as a perfect way to revive his career.   Except how do you get around this shower thing?   Well, the way this story plays out is purely ridiculous, but gave me some of the biggest laughs I've had in a movie theater in a long time.  Such hokum is genius in the hands of somebody like Woody Allen.

I loved seeing the Woodman back up on the screen.  And, in a smart move, he is now embracing his advanced age on camera.  At least on the screen, he is no longer horny and lusting after some seventeen-year-old virgin.  He's now a wonderfully cranky old guy and this transformation is not only welcome but hilarious for the audience.  Indeed, perhaps we will see more of Woody again.  How about "Take The Money and Walk Very Slowly?"

Sometimes silly, sometimes too cutesy, sometimes too artsy, "To Rome With Love" is still perfect movie entertainment for a summer's evening.  You could do a lot worse.  Just look at what's playing on all the other screens in your local multiplex.

Dinner last night:  Pepperoni sandwich and salad.