So there will be plenty of shelf-stocking with past material as Shared Darkness finds its legs. To wit, this fairly in-depth DVD review of Melinda and Melinda, originally penned and published for another outlet upon its release last fall:
Upon re-watching Melinda and Melinda, Woody Allen’s latest film,
I was struck by the thought of a largely undiagnosed paradox as it
relates to his movies, certainly of the last six to eight years. Having
moved into the canon of American filmmakers so respected that virtually
any established actor and every up-and-comer will drastically slash
their fee just to work with him, Allen has become like a great cover
band plowing through a litany of radio hits with automaton
craftsmanship — entertaining enough to remind you why you really liked
all the original material but a step or three behind something special,
seemingly serially incapable of not just recapturing some idealized
notion of past glory (who wants only that?) but also of staking out any
substantive new ground.
 <b>frequently wrecks the delicate chemistry of said<br />
movies</b>. With a premium placed — particularly in the latter-Allen era —<br />
on a wide, diverse ensemble of up-and-comers, and little eye for<br />
synergistic specificity, there is no sum greater than the whole of its<br />
parts. <b>Characters exist in bubbles hermetically sealed from one another<br />
because the actors are given collections of three-page sides instead of<br />
entire scripts when being asked to sign on. There’s precious little<br />
sense of interconnectivity</b>.</p>
<p>This is especially obvious and problematic in <i>Melinda and Melinda</i>,<br />
which, launching off from a dinner party conversation between two<br />
playwrights, examines two theoretical realities of the same basic<br />
premise, one from a more overtly dramatic perspective and the other<br />
from a comedic point-of-view. In each, a frazzled, suicidal Melinda<br />
(Mitchell, above) shows up at the New York apartment of her married friends<br />
(Ferrell and Peet in one interpretation, Miller and Sevigny in the<br />
other). Crashing for a few weeks, Melinda tries to get back on her feet<br />
and establish a relationship — one interpretation includes a budding<br />
romance with jazz pianist Ellis (Ejiofor), the other finds the smitten,<br />
married Hobie (Ferrell) orbiting around her — while her friends’ lives<br />
are thrown into characteristic professional and personal disarray.</p>
<p>Mitchell (<i>Pitch Black</i>, <i>Finding Neverland</i>) sparks to<br />
the wide-ranging demands of her role and Ferrell mines some great<br />
moments of dry, conflicted humor from probably his most realistically<br />
human film character to date. Allen’s wordplay and tossed-off jokes,<br />
meanwhile, still hold some delight (Peet’s character, a director, is<br />
prepping an independent film called <i>The Castration Sonata</i>). But<br />
<b>the usual narrative alleyways — the troublesomeness of communication,<br />
the fragility of love, personal neuroses, the burdens of occupational<br />
expectation, marital infidelity — here feel like scattered puzzle<br />
pieces</b>. The film feels misaligned, lacking a natural, graceful balance.<br />
<i>Melinda and Melinda</i> doesn’t have the quilted complexity of<br />
Allen’s best work, but unfortunately that’s nothing radically different<br />
from what we’ve recently seen from the esteemed writer-director.</p>
<p>Presented in a flip disc, one side of <i>Melinda and Melinda</i><br />
features a 1.33:1 full screen presentation and the other side a 1.85:1<br />
anamorphic widescreen transfer. While it’s arguable that anyone would<br />
want to watch the film in the former format over the latter, it doesn’t<br />
wreck scenes on a par with most compacted versions, as Allen shoots a<br />
wide enough interior frame that the pan-and-scan doesn’t become too<br />
obtrusive. The picture, meanwhile, is clean and clear throughout,<br />
capturing some typically rich production design; the scene when Melinda<br />
first confesses her suicide attempt offers nice, deep frames with no<br />
trace of pesky artifact.</p>
<p>Audiophiles will be disappointed, since English, Spanish and<br />
French mono tracks are the only options here. But again, the bummer of<br />
this choice is mitigated by the type of film <i>Melinda and Melinda</i><br />
is (talky) and the manner in which Allen stages his works. In most<br />
interior scenes, this matters little. The restaurant sequence that<br />
serves as the film’s wraparound and the racetrack sequence with Melinda<br />
and Hobie, however, are but two examples of where a more dynamic<br />
surround mix could have been put to good use. English and Spanish<br />
subtitles also appear.</p>
<p>I spent hours scouring the disc, but there’s nothing to be found. <i>Melinda and Melinda</i><br />
is again presented on a single flip-disc in an Amray case, but there’s<br />
no superficial making-of featurette, no theatrical trailer, nothing.<br />
Realistically this isn’t a complete deal-breaker (the movie is after<br />
all still the thing), but it’s still rather unforgivable for a new<br />
title from a major director. Cinema enthusiasts know all too well<br />
Allen’s distaste for audio commentary tracks, but the stepchild<br />
treatment for <i>Melinda and Melinda</i>, in my mind, only serves to<br />
highlight its inadequacies. It will some day receive a better handling<br />
as part of another Woody Allen boxed set. Until then… <b>C (Movie) C- (Disc)<br /></b></p>
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