The Woody Allen Collection, Vol. 2 (2001)

Shadows and Crimes

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Woody Allen Collection, Vol. 2 on DVD

The second The Woody Allen Collection (MGM/UA Video, $60), features five titles, as opposed to the eight from the previous box. But these five represent a low point in Allen's career. It contains only one unalloyed masterpiece, the great comedy/drama Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Shadows and Fog (1992) is a beautifully shot black and white piece with sporadic funny dialogue, but it never comes together as a whole. Alice (1990) is a complete misfire, a bizarre comedy about a married woman (Mia Farrow) who falls for a musician (Joe Mantegna) and takes Chinese herbs that make her invisible. Of Allen's two dramas from this period, Another Woman (1988) is by far the more accomplished, with Gena Rowlands as a writer who discovers how to live again when she overhears sessions from the psychiatrist's office next door, while September (1987) is dour and unpleasant, following six confused people over a weekend in a country house. But who really wants to see these two serious films more than once? If the box set had gone one film more in either direction, including the masterworks Radio Days (1987) or Husbands and Wives (1992), it would have been wroth trumpeting.

Starring: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Martin Landau, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston, Anjelica Huston, Dianne Wiest, Elaine Stritch, Jack Warden, Gena Rowlands, Ian Holm, Blythe Danner, Gene Hackman, Martha Plimpton, Alec Baldwin, Judy Davis, William Hurt, Joe Mantegna, Cybill Shepherd, Bernadette Peters, Keye Luke, John Malkovich, Madonna, David Ogden Stiers, Donald Pleasance, Lily Tomlin, Jodi Foster, John Cusack, Kathy Bates
Written by: Woody Allen
Directed by: Woody Allen
MPAA Rating: PG/PG-13
Running Time: 450 minutes
Date: June 20, 2001