Excellent reviews for a new film and a new play (both opening in NY)

[gristy]

I read both of these reviews in my print copy of the NY Times today. It looks like Woody Allen's new film "Melinda and Melinda" (opening in Manhattan) and the new play "Monty Python's Spamalot" (opening at the Shubert) get two thumbs up. Allen and Monty Python have never disappointed me...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/18/movies/18meli.html?ex=1111813200&en=a770e555b04cc218&ei=5055&partner=RRCOLUMBUS
The new Woody Allen movie, "Melinda and Melinda," is framed, somewhat in the manner of "Broadway Danny Rose," by table talk. Lingering over dinner at Pastis, four marvelously articulate New Yorkers debate the interpretation of an anecdote, unheard by the audience, involving an unhappy young woman named Melinda.

Two of the diners happen to be playwrights - perhaps the only two left in New York who could afford to eat at such a restaurant, but never mind - and one of them, a maker of serious dramas (Larry Pine) sees the story as a tragedy, while the other, a cherubic author of comedies (Wallace Shawn), claims it for his own preferred genre.

That the tragedian turns out to have a sunnier view of life than his colleague is part of the film's point: in life and in art, funny often keeps close company with sad, to the extent that it is sometimes hard to distinguish one from the other. Mr. Allen does not make it much easier.

As he interweaves two versions of the Melinda story, one meant to be bathed in pathos, the other sprinkled with whimsy, it becomes apparent that his notions of comedy and tragedy do not quite correspond either to scholarly dogma or to everyday usage. You might, for instance, expect the tragic tale to purge your unruly emotions through pity and terror, rather than through bafflement and ennui. You might also expect the comic half of the movie to be funny, in which case the joke is on you.
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http://theater.nytimes.com/pages/theater/index.html
The meeting of the Broadway chapter of the Monty Python fan club officially came to order - or to be exact, came to disorder - last night at the Shubert Theater with the opening of "Monty Python's Spamalot," a resplendently silly new musical.

Favorite routines first created by that surreal British comedy team for the 1975 movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" were performed with an attention to detail found among obsessive history buffs who re-enact Civil War battles on weekends. Python songs were sung with the giggly glee of naughty Boy Scouts around a campfire. And festive decorations were provided in the form of medieval cartoon costumes and scenery helpfully described in the show as "very expensive."
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[AP]

1. I got burned badly by Allen's last movie -- Hollywood Ending

The only reason I didn't walk out was because (1) it was free and I felt I had nothing invested in it, and (2) perpetually, it seemed that it could only have one more scene. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

[gristy]

2. Hmm, I missed that one.

Thanks for the heads up.