A package containing a quartet of restocks arrived from Germany today. Among the titles that came are Gregg Araki’s “Smiley Face,” Robert Siodmak’s “Cobra Woman,” Woody Allen’s “Match Point,” and “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?” by Werner Herzog.
Prior to making “Match Point,” Woody Allen was in a bit of a slump. Of his previous seven pictures, only one, “Small Time Crooks,” had managed to crack the ten million dollar mark in domestic grosses (and even that one had barely made back half of its production budget). Things got so bad that Allen, the quintessential New York filmmaker, had to relocate “Match Point” — which had originally been scripted to take place in the Hamptions — to London.
The change of scenery must’ve done some good, as not only was the film a commercial and critical success, but it’s a picture that Allen himself has called “arguably maybe the best film that [he’s] ever made.” So good, in fact, that the picture began a European phase of sorts in Allen’s career, as eight of the ten films that Allen directed between 2005 and 2014 were made in Europe (he’s since made his last two pictures, “Irrational Man” and “Cafe Society,” in the U.S.).