A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)

Not all of his movies end at 90 minutes, but I've noticed that many of Woody Allen's films end just about at 90 minutes. Maybe a bit less. I wonder if he thought 90 minutes was the perfect length for a film, that he never wanted to be accused of overstaying his welcome.

In this one (run time just 88 minutes), three couple end up sharing a country home together on a vacation. They don't all know each other, really.

Andrew (Allen) and Adrian (Mary Steenburgen) are married, but their marriage is kind of hit a sexual draught.

Maxwell (Tony Roberts), a doctor, is a sort of Cassanova who doesn't believe in marriage -- "Marriage is the end of hope." He asks one woman to go away with him on this trip, but when she declines, he immediately moves on to his nurse, Dulcy (Julie Hagerty), who says yes, and agrees that sharing one room will be just fine.

Ariel (Mia Farrow) and Leopold (Jose Ferrer) are the third couple. They are about to be married. He's a professor and much older than her. And she is every man's dream woman. Again, what is it with Allen casting Farrow this way? I really don't get it. She's not horribly ugly, but she just doesn't come across to me as a sex goddess that turns every man's head.

But as the story unfolds, we learn that Andrew never gave up thinking about her. He had a chance with her before he got married, and he still regrets not taking it. Meanwhile, Maxwell wants to make his move on Ariel, too, but Leopold makes a play for Dulcy. In other words, all of the men see another option and that other option drives them crazy. They have to find out for themselves what these other women have to offer -- or they fear that not acting on their desires will plague them -- as it has plagued Andrew.

Okay, so that's the basic idea. Each guy is trying to figure out a way to get with another woman without the woman he's with finding out about it. Of course, the women play a part, too. They go along with it. Ariel and Dulcy, for sure, are sexually "curious" about different men, and only Adrian is not, although maybe she is, too, as we find out that she slept with one of the other men previously, and she wants to "take lessons" on pleasing a man from Dulcy.

I don't know. The film is supposed to be "whimsical" and lighthearted, I guess. Andrew isn't satisfied in his marriage, which leads him to put the energy from sexual frustration into his inventions -- one being his flying bike, and another being an orb that can see into the past, and maybe the spirit realm.

All said, something happens and the movie just sort of stops. It reaches the 88-minute mark, and bam. No more film.

Rating: 2/5 stars

"Digging for the Truth" Experiment #4 -- The Federalist Radio Hour

I first heard of Sean Davis last week. He created an online magazine called The Federalist in 2011, and he currently has about 500,000 followers on X. It was about last week that he posted something amazing. He suggested if the Supreme Court doesn't rule the way they should, not only should Trump just ignore the ruling, if they keep obstructing the administration, he should just dissolve the Court altogether. And I thought, wow. This guy is saying outrageous stuff like that, and there's an audience for it. So, I decided I'd listen to an episode of The Federalist podcast: April 17, 2025 -- Deportation, Due Process, and Deference to the American People (40 minutes) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deportation-due-process-and-deference-to-the/id983782306?i=1000703904873 In the 40-minute conversation, the host and guest discussed why due process wasn't required for illegal immigrants. The case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was mentioned for a brief second, but...

In Utero

In 1994, I wore my In Utero shirt to college. I’d walk down the hall, and people would look at the shirt. I still remember a professor looking at it, not apparently hip to the scene. She asked, “Bret, is there something you’re trying to tell us?” I had no idea what I was trying to say. Kurt Cobain had just shot his head off with a shotgun. Before that life-changing event, I hadn’t been the biggest fan of Nirvana, but I did recognize the immediate impact “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had on music, or at least on MTV. Nirvana had seemingly killed and buried Hair Metal, and they had done it single-handedly. What exactly was this “Alternative” sound? It was weird, because soon it felt like everything was “alternative,” and that didn’t make any sense. Once everything is the same, how can it be anything but standard, normal? Nirvana was okay, but at least at the time I was wearing the merch, I was much more into Offspring and Green Day and Tool. And that’s about as far as I went into...

I Must Betray You -- Ruta Sepetys

I appreciate the pacing. The author's epilogue includes her mission statement -- historical fiction as a way to keep history alive. Romanis is an obscure place, but she hopes people reading the book will take an interest in its history. She also makes the point that there are no clean endings. So, the evil dictator and his wife were killed, but the problems they created didn't magically go away, the country still had to find its way and move forward, and it was a process.

The Writer's Poke

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