Shadows and Fog

Another mid-career Allen film unfairly dismissed both by critics and (I must admit) myself at the time of it's release. Sometimes with great filmmakers, we get spoiled and anything flawed or less than pure genius gets maligned for being weaker than that filmmaker's very best work instead of being appreciated for being miles ahead of most of the films that get made.

I was shocked at how much better I liked this on a recent re-viewing almost 20 years after seeing it in the theater. Yes, the super-star cameos still seem a bit distracting and self-serving, but nowhere near as much as in 1992. Yes, some plot elements work better than others, the ending is kind of clunky, etc. But this is still a great-looking, visually dense film, that manages to tread (most of the time) a very difficult tightrope of being funny and playful, while still exploring disturbing themes of paranoia, guilt, crowd mentality, religion, etc. Certainly not a great film, but a brave one more worthy of being enjoyed for it's strengths than attacked for its admitted shortcomings.