Shadows and Fog (1991)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Too much of everything

good back-story, and good acting

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Over his career, Woody Allen has been hit or miss with the artistic expression that starts off on the page with the benefit of the doubt that he'll come up with something fantastic. Often, his films are unique in style, but empty in substance. "Shadows and Fog" is a mediocre mixture of Allen's best and worst comedies, sometimes stopping dead in its tracks, yet never completely falling into the muck its characters must in this really foggy film.It appears that there is a serial killer about, and Woody, a nebbish paranoiac, mixes up with carnival sword swallower Mia Farrow who discovers her partner boyfriend cheating on her with gypsy fortune teller Madonna. She ends up in Kathy Bates' brothel, eventually meeting up with Woody who ends up being a suspect for being the killer.A film should be more than just art for art's sake, and the way this flows ends up being massively mixed up. There are far too many characters, stunt casted with Allen regulars and one time featured stars, such as Lily Tomlin and Jodie Foster as hookers. You spend more time identifying what celebrity has just popped up and how they fit in. I enjoy the shadowy and foggy photography, as well as the bouncy carousel music. Allen provides just too much of everything, and it ends up just being a messed up piece of art where canvas seems to be holding too much. the

It isn't just Bergman and Fellini that Woody is hung up on. In 1991's "Shadows and Fog" he spoofs not only Fritz Lang and 1920's German Experessionism but also Franz Kafka. Shot superbly in black and white by Carlo Di Palma, (though you might feel Sven Nykvist would have been more appropriate), and with a phenomenal cast headed by Woody and Mia Farrow, this is a lot funnier than I remember it.Woody is the Joseph K character briefly mistaken for the Peter Lorre character in "M" since a serial killer is lurking in the fog and the vigilantes are out to get him. If it feels more like one of Allen's short stories and if there isn't a great deal to get your teeth into, it's still very likable and certainly didn't deserve the critical kicking it got on its release, including a fairly negative review from yours truly.

Life is illusion. Shadows and Fog is a delightfully bizarre and absurd tale, with vivid theatrical images, the visual atmosphere perfectly complemented by the background music mostly by Kurt Weill. For once Allen's schmuck is merely the perfect contrast to the rest. Allen's presentation and philosophy work far better in this indirect and enigmatic setting than in the more direct New York settings he uses too often. This film is why I keep watching Allen's movies despite the many which are generously described as missteps -- this one is right up there with The Purple Rose of Cairo, Alice, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Sweet and Lowdown, Hannah and her Sisters, and Manhattan.

This so-called comedy is a rethinking of Woody Allen's own short play 'Death' (published in his 1976 collection 'Without Feathers'), transplanted to a weird, Kafka-like Middle European setting and mercilessly padded (at the expense of the humor) to allow room for several high profile guest stars, most of them in roles too small to be noticed. The effect is not unlike a student film parody of a Woody Allen comedy, following a hapless nebbish (who could only have been played by Allen himself) pressed into service by urban vigilantes hunting a shadowy killer. The familiar one-liners and stale meditations on God, sex, and death are all camouflaged behind some beautiful (if hokey) black and white photography, with transparent references to more than one film school idol: Bergman, Murnau, Fellini, and so forth. What's left is the novelty of seeing Kathy Bates playing a prostitute alongside Lilly Tomlin and Jodie Foster, and John Malkovich cast as a circus clown opposite Madonna. It wasn't meant this way, but the casting is the funniest thing about the movie.