Wonder Wheel: Wheel of Misfortune

By Pamela Zoslov

The number of films written and directed by Woody Allen is impressive — 48 since 1969, an average of one every year. That prolificity, writes Peter Biskind in the New York Times Book Review, often works against him. “The time when Allen’s every new release was a cause for celebration is long over; now we take him for granted,” Biskind writes, “and the thematic consistencies that are applauded in other auteurs are derided in Allen.” Biskind argues convincingly that Allen is “simply one of the great world-class directors, up there with his hero, Ingmar Bergman, and the rest.”

Kate Winslet as the troubled Ginny.

The volume of Allen’s output also means that some of the films will be less than great, like his latest, Wonder Wheel. But even the least successful of the films will have something thematically and stylistically memorable. Wonder Wheel, a nostalgia piece set on Coney Island at a time described broadly as “the 1950s,” the vintage theme-park setting is the star. Allen has always had good taste in cinematographers: Vittorio Storarro renders the tacky loveliness of the amusement park roller coasters, Ferris wheel, diners and signs in gloriously artificial carbro-print type colors. The story, a rather thin melodrama, doesn’t make as much use of its setting as it might, but what a wonderful setting it is!

Collateral Beauty

By George M. Thomas

Will Smith and Helen Mirren in "Collateral Beauty."

What exactly is “collateral beauty?”

The most I can figure is that it’s the good that comes out of any given situation – be that situation tragic, sad or straddling the two.

That’s what a stranger tells a character in the film COLLATERAL BEAUTY, a movie that remains true to the Christmas spirit in that it’s relentlessly optimistic despite the dark material – coping with the grief associated with a child’s death – it explores.

Sometimes that optimism is difficult to ignore and, as in the case of films that tug at heart strings, viewers won’t be able to resist the urge of being drawn into world of Howard (Will Smith), a grieving father and advertising executive who has put his company at risk because of an inability to confront that grief.