Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Woody Allen hasn't been fairing well in the past decade, maybe audiences don't get his intellectual witt or maybe he's made so many films that he's running out of ideas. I lean towards the latter, his plots almost always feature a New Yorker (often a writer or minor celebrity) finding and losing love somewhere and discovering themselves in the process (Annie Hall, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, Mantattan, Sweet and Lowdown, thats just a few, the IMDb credits him with 47 directing, 68 writing and 42 acting credits) as well as Jewish identity, jazz, philosphy and those silly looking glasses of his. Of what is already being called Allen's "Late Period" Vicky Christina Barcelona is the best, it has Allen's reliable direction and writing as ever, but also a terrific cast, in particular Javier Bardem (won an Oscar for No Country For Old Men, heck he was scary in that) and Penelope Cruz who won an Oscar for this role. She is fiery and scary and probably bi-polar or at least a bit mad. She is also sympathetic and very funny at points such as bluntly stating that she thought of killing the character Christina and then carrying on as usual. The other strength is the beautiful Spanish locations (photographed by Javier Aguirresarobe), however the characters are unrealistic fanasties. Such people do not live in the real world. No-one refuses to release their poetry their whole life (except Henry Darger) or speak of killing people to their faces and are treated as such. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is not Allen's best film, not as good as Annie Hall, but its better than most.