Woody Allen

Now, it's time for the heavyweights.Oh sure, 1999 already has seen the return of a galaxy far, far away in "The Phantom Menace," Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman naked in "Eyes Wide Shut," some unlucky film students in "The Blair Witch Project" and films starring everyone from Michelle Pfeiffer to Bruce Willis.But now things get serious. Over the next four months, all manner of Hollywood royalty will be featured on screen, including Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Sean Penn and Winona Ryder.

Last week at a Queens, New York auction, fans of filmmaker Woody Allen acquired their own stardust memories. Hundreds of props from his many films were sold off because there was no more room for them in Allen's movie warehouse.Among the interiors and other treasures purchased were shoes from "Deconstructing Harry," mahogany radio consoles from "Radio Days" and a few gaudy sofas from "Bullets Over Broadway."Surprisingly, in a time when "Antiques Roadshow" yokels are told their Charo napkins are worth a mint, none of the cinema tchotchkes required astronomical bids.

NEW YORK -- For four years, Woody Allen has been deeply estranged from his son with Mia Farrow. Father and son have not seen or spoken with each other.But the boy, whom Allen proudly named Satchel 11 years ago, has emerged as an extraordinarily gifted child -- a prodigy so smart that he is already attending college.Today, Satchel is known as Seamus Farrow, lives with his actress mother in Connecticut and is enrolled at Simon's Rock College, in Great Barrington, Mass., a small school for gifted high school students that is an annex of Bard College.

Woody Allen as an insect -- now there's a piece of casting that begs a few jokes.And that reliance on star power is where much of the problem lies with "Antz," a fitfully entertaining piece of animation from DreamWorks that shows off strengths that also manage to be weaknesses.Admittedly, using a roster of distinctive (and well-cast) voices for the film's six-legged creations gives the film marquee value. Besides Allen, there's Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Sylvester Stallone, Christopher Walken, Danny Glover, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin and Anne Bancroft.

Maybe it's the appearance of a gun in the first act that tells you "Deconstructing Harry" is going to be a little bit edgier than your typical Woody Allen film. Or maybe it's Allen's jarring use of jump cuts during the movie's first moments. Or his experimentation with shifting time periods and realities. Or the script, which is among the most angrily vulgar of Allen's career.In any event, none of these departures adds up to much in the way of substance. For all its bite, "Deconstructing Harry" is a disappointment, providing an unsettling portrait of an artist whose gaze remains monotonously self-absorbed, even when it's fixed on a dizzying ensemble of characters.

What do actors, models, presidents, the pope, Elvis, Hollywood madams, plastic surgeons, ACLU lawyers, skinheads, teen-age obese acrobats, Joey Buttafuoco, Donald Trump, former CIA operatives, real estate agents, transvestites and Charles Manson have in common?They are all guaranteed their 15 minutes of fame in a post-Warhol world, and they all make an appearance in "Celebrity," Woody Allen's fitfully funny, elegantly rendered musing on American culture's curious relationship to fame."You can tell a lot about a society by whom it chooses to celebrate," one character says in this slight but often droll commentary on the voracious maw of post-modern media culture, which swallows everyone in its path regardless of merit or morals.

Conventional wisdom used to have it that movie theaters weren't safe for adults until well after Labor Day, but the summer of 1998 gave the lie to such thinking.With fare like "The Truman Show," "Out of Sight" and "Saving Private Ryan" - not to mention the gross-out comedy "There's Something About Mary" for the inner 13-year-old boy in everyone - grown-ups had their share of diversions while the kids feasted on "Madeline," "Mulan" and "The Parent Trap."Still, a look ahead confirms the tradition of autumn as the back-to-basics movie season, with new films from such beloved veterans as John Frankenheimer, Woody Allen, Jonathan Demme, Ken Loach and Terrence Malick, not to mention young Turks like Todd Solondz, Gus Van Sant and Bryan Singer.

"Wild Man Blues," Barbara Kopple's documentary about Woody Allen's 1996 European tour with his Dixieland jazz band, is a fascinating film, not only for the truths it reveals but for the problems it presents.For one thing, "Wild Man Blues" is produced by Jean Doumanian, Allen's producer and good friend. Kopple has shown herself to be a highly principled filmmaker in such films as "Harlan County, U.S.A." and "American Dream," both about the contemporary American labor movement. But Doumanian's imprimatur raises troubling questions about control and objectivity.

Now and then, even the best of us get to phone one in. That's pretty much what Woody Allen does in "Everyone Says I Love You," a movie that seems to lose both its way and its convictions as it wanders along.Not that it's bad. In fact, it's frequently quite amusing as a bunch of charming but over-matched movie personalities uncertainly warble the music of Cole Porter, and others now and then essay a brave little sally into the world of dance. But it'll never make you forget "Singin' in the Rain"; it won't even make you remember it!

The genius of Woody Allen is amply displayed on TCM tonight."Groundhog Day" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- Bill Murray brings an unexpectedly light (for him) touch to this comedy about a man destined to re-live the same day over and over and over again until he gets it right. And what does getting it right mean? That's what he has to find out. Murray's very funny, especially as the realization dawns that this sort of immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be. ABC."Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13)

THURSDAY HIPPIEFEST: Peace, love and good music, man. Flash back to the '60s with musicians from bands such as the Turtles, Badfinger, Three Dog Night and the Rascals. It'll be like Woodstock all over again (sort of) at Pier Six Pavilion, 731 Eastern Ave. The gates open at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $25-$55. Go to piersixpavilion.com FLICKS FROM THE HILL: Woody Allen's classic 1973 comedy Sleeper screens at this week's Flicks From the Hill at 9 p.m. at American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Highway.

Starring Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz. Written and directed by Woody Allen. Released by the Weinstein Co. $28.95 (Blu-ray $34.95) *** 1/2 Who would have thought Woody Allen would find a new muse in Spain? With Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Allen, that most American of filmmakers, the man who never seemed comfortable setting foot outside New York City, has made his friskiest, most delightful movie in more than a decade. Not that any new territory is trod. Allen still is a chronicler of relationships that result in little genuine happiness; the human heart, he continues to insist, is the most vexing, inexplicable, insatiable of creatures, one humans trust (or even listen to)

Vicky Cristina Barcelona **** ( 4 STARS) The first time this space highlighted this movie - Woody Allen's best in a decade - it hung in for several more weeks at its original location and then began hopping around town. It returns to the Landmark's Harbor East today for the repeat pleasure of fans and the ecstasy of novices who haven't yet savored the most pleasingly mellow and original romantic comedy of the year. It stars Javier Bardem as an artist and Penelope Cruz as the ex-wife who create an enriching sort of chaos in the lives of two young Americans, Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall.

It used to be said that Woody Allen's best movies were about "sex in the head," as if his characters simply had to relax and let it travel through their bodies. In Allen's affectionate, enlightening and, best of all, blissfully entertaining Vicky Cristina Barcelona, he shows how much residue sexual desire or experience leaves in the brain and gut and heart. It's a summery idyll: his most entertaining picture since Bullets Over Broadway (1994) or maybe Sweet and Lowdown (1999). Scarlett Johansson plays Cristina, an artist looking for an art; Rebecca Hall plays Vicky, a grad student studying Catalan culture; and Javier Bardem plays Juan Antonio, a painter with romantic and critical reputations.

CONVERSATIONS WITH WOODY ALLEN: His Films, the Movies and Moviemaking -- By Eric Lax Knopf / 416 pages / $30 Woody Allen biographer Lax has been conversing with the elusive, beloved film director for 36 years, and here's the proof: transcripts of their detailed shop talk distilled into chapters covering seven elements of filmmaking - writing, casting, shooting, etc. - and Allen's career as a whole. Despite a reputation for being odd and unapproachable, the man revealed in these dialogues is likable, forthcoming and even humble: "It's just not in me to make a great film; I don't have the depth of vision to do it."

Of Woody Allen's recent films, both Anything Else (2003) and Match Point (2005) showed welcome signs of life, hints of virtuosity and resources yet untapped. So let's assume those, not the tired and resolutely uninvolving Cassandra's Dream, represent Allen at the dawn of the 21st century. Allen's latest, his 42nd effort as a director, is the work of an artist devoid of ideas and energy. Perfunctorily staged and lazily written, it comes to life in only the briefest of spurts, usually when the ever-reliable Tom Wilkinson is on-screen.

FRANK CAPRA JR., 73 Worked in films, like his father Frank Capra Jr., who never wanted to go into his father's business but found in the end he could not resist its pull, died of prostate cancer Wednesday in Philadelphia. A film and television producer, Mr. Capra was a son of the noted Hollywood director Frank Capra, whose best-known film, It's a Wonderful Life, was released in 1946. During the past two decades, the younger Mr. Capra was known for helping to make North Carolina into an important center for film, television and commercial production.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's father liked to quote the Woody Allen line that 90 percent of life is just showing up. In fact, George H.W. Bush's signal achievement in Middle East diplomacy came from persuading leaders and representatives from Israel and much of the Arab world to show up for a peace conference in Madrid at the end of October 1991. It wasn't easy. Then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III traveled and negotiated for months to remove obstacles blocking this face-to-face meeting of longtime enemies.

ICAN'T listen to too much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland," said the perspicacious Woody Allen. (Just had to use that, although it has nothing to do with what follows except it's about music.) I am one of those old softies who did and still do love Motown! Now, coming on Nov. 13, Boyz II Men, one of the most successful R&B groups of all time, will return as a threesome - Nathan Morris, Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman - with a new CD called Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA. Motown returns these guys to the limelight, features songs that turned us all on in the past and even includes a track produced by Brian McKnight.

She takes -- and makes -- a good picture. And now, at the steep age of 22, Scarlett Johansson will find out if she can open a romantic comedy. The Nanny Diaries, based on the best-selling novel by two former Manhattan nannies, opens in theaters today. Johansson plays a college graduate who shirks the corporate track to become a Park Avenue nanny. There are snooty parents. There is the precocious kid. There is the hunky love interest. There is Scarlett Johansson. A born New Yorker, Johansson is a glamour girl who once lounged on the cover of Vanity Fair with nothing on but her makeup.