Crisis in Six Scenes

I have missed Woody Allen acting in his own films.

This Amazon project brings him back to the screen " cause the dough is good" as his character tells his hairdresser. In that opening scene Allen gives his testimony of this for him unique project.

If you like the earlier films of Woody Allen, in which he always acted in the leading roles, you will like this.

It's the continuation of the New York laid-back humour and wise cracks like in the film "Small Time Crooks". This is not a politically correct series and I appreciate Amazon didn't censor its content too much.

Still, I think this series will be generally better received in Europe, where Allen's biggest fans are, strangely enough concentrated in Italy, France and Spain (countries where all his movies are dubbed).

Standing ovation for Crisis in Six Scenes.

"Crisis in Six Scenes" is a lot of fun.

Woody is just as sharp and hilarious as he's ever been (today, in our embattled world, we need his genius and wit more than ever), and he's ably abetted by another legend, Elaine May, who is also in top form. Miley Cyrus, also turns in a wonderful performance: Allen's trademark dialogue is great when he's saying it himself, but it can sometimes sound a little stilted when it comes from other actors, but Cyrus totally sells it and makes her proto-Patty Hearst-esque character believable and real.

If there's a problem with "Crisis," is that it's a hilarious ninety-minute Woody Allen movie that's been stretched out to two-and-a-half hours, to equal the running time of a six-episode streaming series, and it kind of peters out somewhere around episode four. The fault, I think, isn't with Woody Allen, but with the Amazon streaming service that required him to add unnecessary length, and to wit, the show is padded out with a few dialogue scenes that seem long and/or repetitive.

(The script also has some anachronisms in it, and in that regard, maybe Allen should have given it one more pass through the typewriter: Elaine May invites her friends over to participate in her "book club," but the series takes place in the late '60s before book clubs became popular, and these women would have probably been more inclined to play bridge or mah-jongg; Woody and Elaine's house is alarmed, but this wouldn't happen in those days, because people back then used to routinely keep their doors unlocked; there's also a scene in which Woody pitches an idea to a network, but I'm not sure if this kind of pitch meeting was commonplace back then; and in another scene, Woody and his agent dine at a deli, and the agent has ordered a taco, which I'm pretty sure you wouldn't see in NYC in the late sixties.)

On the trite "1 to 10 scale," I give "Crisis in Six Scenes" a six, because it's got a lot of filler in it, but if Allen ever decides to whittle it down to ninety minutes, there is definitely a solid "9" or "10" hiding inside of it.

From word go this series read as pure satire to me. This isn't about the sixties. It's about today set in in the sixties. I've read several other reviews and apparently I'm the only one who focused in on this. In fact, no one else even mentioned it. Am I really the only one? Half the dialogue is, yes, shout-outs to the sixties, but half the dialogue is also straight out of our recent presidential primary and election. I think if people approach this show as a political commentary rather than a comedy it will read much funnier. Just a suggestion.

Woody Allen feels as clunky as always and certainly this is not a comfortable venue for Allen in storytelling. Still, they're hitting us over our heads with quotes straight out of the Bernie Sander's campaign speeches and everyone is talking about less-than-subtle parallels with Salinger. We get the Salinger connection but not the Bernie Sanders ones? Were it many months or years past this monstrous political year we just experienced (and are still experiencing,) I might understand this. In our current political space in time, however, I'm surprised to see this element dismissed.

If that's really the case, then personally, I think we need a lot more headbanging. Anything but subtle correlations with just how far backward we have gone in this country should be the only thing allowed...if it's a satirical political commentary you're after, that is.

Probably, that's not what anyone was expecting from Woody Allen, including Allen. But that's how nearly every scene of this series read to me.

Tishacp

I absolutely loved this. Everything starts a little slow, but the pacing increases up to the last episode, where everything becomes really fun and with a great rhythm (really laughing out loud in the end... I don't remember the last time I did like that watching a comedy)... like one of the most messed up movies of Allen from the 70s, but with less nonsense. I can't understand the bad reviews. Maybe it's because I'm an Allen fan (but not an "hardcore one"), maybe it's because I'm 40, maybe the italian dub was way better than the real actors (it was good, but not amazing...)... I don't know. It's not a movie, so you won't find that kind if production values. It's not a huge series with hundreds of episodes (game of thrones, breaking bad...). It's a sort of "theatrical" movie. I registered on IMDB just to post this review.

I'm a Woody Allen fan, but I wasn't sure what to expect when I read some of the reviews. Now that I'm finished, I honestly can say that I don't understand why this got slammed by the critics. Is it on the level of Annie Hall? Of course not. But I thought it was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. Woody Allen's character is very Woody Allen and fun to watch him fumbling around. Elaine May and her gaggle of book club friends are amusing, but the funniest scene is with Trooper Mike in the last episode.

I think the weak point is probably Miley Cyrus. I just didn't buy her as Lenny.