Customer Reviews

Mighty Aphrodite [VHS]

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

`Mighty Aphrodite', written, directed, and starring Woody Allen seems to be the kind of movie Allen makes after he is worn out doing a strictly realistic, mostly serious movie such as `Crimes and Misdemeanors', `Hannah and Her Sisters', and `Husbands and Wives'. Unlike these excellent seriocomic works, `Mighty Aphrodite' flies off into a world of fantasy similar to the crazy / inventive situations in `Zellig' and `A Midsummer's Night Sex Comedy'.

Allen brings along with him his usual band of big name actors taking off from more remunerative roles to have some fun with this lighthearted comedy. As usual, heavyweights such as F. Murray Abraham, Claire Bloom, Jack Warden, and Olympia Dukakis have such small roles that you hardly notice they are there until they are off screen. In the case of Abraham and Dukakis and Allen stock player David Ogden Stiers, this anonymity is heightened by the fact that they are playing masked members of a Greek chorus, filmed in a ruined Roman amphitheater, in Italy, according to the location credits.

This movie was done for Mirimax and a sizable number of new names appear among the film's executive producers, although I am certain Allen still has his hands firmly on the artistic reins for the filming of the movie. I have no idea which of these new names represents `Sweetland Films', but their only contribution seems to have been a slightly less austere credit crawl at the end of the flick.

Aside from Allen, all of the really heavy lifting on the screen was done by title character actor Mira Sorvino, and it is beyond me how she was nominated for the supporting actress Academy Award and not in the lead actress category, although I suspect it did improve her chances of winning in the lesser category, which she did.

Of Allen's two most important movie subjects, love and death, love is certainly the main issue in this movie, signaled by the fact that Aphrodite is the name of the ancient Greek god of love, represented in this flick by Sorvino's character who is a prostitute and pornographic movie actress who wants to get out of that life and settle down in a more normal setting.

Allen plays a successful New York City sportswriter who gets connected with Sorvino when he and his wife decide to adopt a baby boy, and Allen becomes obsessed with the identity of the real mother, who turns out to be Sorvino. While Allen tries to set Sorvino up with a farmer turned boxer turned farmer, his wife (Carter) hooks up with a business partner (Peter Weller) who threatens to break up their marriage.

While there are a few brief moments of apparent danger when Sorvino's pimp threatens Allen's life if Sorvino quits, the pimp is bought off with nothing more than a pair of courtside tickets to a Knicks game. While the main `realistic' plot is pretty improbable as it is, the real silliness is going on in asides to a full masked Greek chorus very similar to what you would find in productions of plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Thrown into this absurdity is Jack Warden playing a modern blind man named Tiresius encountered on the streets of New York. The joke is that Tiresius is the name of a character in Sophocles' `Oedipus Rex' who makes the prophecy that Oedipus will kill his father. In Allen's version, Tiresius simply clues Allen into the fact that his wife is fooling around with her business partner.

The invocations of the Greek choruses get even more silly as the movie progresses, with the chorus appearing in modern New York near the end of the film, bursting into renditions of Cole Porter and tunes from other modern composers.

Like `Zellig', there is no attempt to avoid straining credulity. Near the end of the movie, Sorvino is rescued from her life of sin by a totally improbable `deux ex machina', which Allen glorifies by simply describing it as such in the voice-over.

This movie is about as close as Allen ever comes after `Annie Hall' to returning to the silliness of early movies such as `Bananas' and `Sleeper'. Unlike the early gag fests, you really feel for the characters in this movie. You don't want Allen to break up with his wife and you want Sorvino to get out of her sex business. And, we are much happier at the end of the movie than we are at the end of `Crimes and Misdemeanors' where a killer escapes justice and the nebbish gets cheated out of his girlfriend.

This is not one of Allen's very best movies, but it is in the upper half. Sorvino's performance is definitely worth the price of admission.

There seem to be three camps when it comes to Woody Allen. (1) People who love his earlier works and villify his most recent films (2)People who love all of his films (3) People who hate Woody Allen, his films, and anything else related to him. I belong to the second group, and like most of his films. Mighty Aphrodite is a great movie, featuring the performance that put Mira Sorvino on the map. This film also contains a great performance by Michael Rappaport, who has gone on to do more stellar work with Allen. Every time I watch this movie I laugh. If anything, see this film for the Greek chorus led by F. Murray Abraham. Like most of Allens more recent works this film is funny and wacky, while at the same time you don't leave the movie feeling as if you've lost brain cells by watching it.

This movie is brilliant. First of all, it purposely follows the structure of a Greek tragedy, and advertises the fact by incorporating a Greek Corus into the flick, which is just so cool. Cassandra appears in the film as does Tyresius (sp?) the blind seer of, ummm... was it Thebes or Troy? Anyway, it's a movie about acts and consequences, revolving around a husband and wife. Yeah Allen writes a lot about relationships, yes disfunction or insecurity are often a aspect, but what some folks don't realize is that he's not writing about "insecurity", or "neurosis" or whatever- he's writing about life and how wonderful, ridiculous, and painful it can be-and how so much of it can thankfully be laughed at. If you want to say he has a shtick, then that's it.

Allen's character in this movie is actually one of his most appealing. The Greek tradgedy model is great, because his character only makes two "hubris" inspired mistakes, one of which is simply the desire to find his adopted son's birth mother. This two "decisions of excess", you could say, are the only "typical" Woody Allen devices his character uses.

Mira Sorvino is incredible. She's not a "hooker with a heart of gold", not by any means. She's not your typical jaded-whore type either, she just lacks any moral squeamishness when it comes to what she does. She's actually a pretty complex character, so many usually discordant aspects live side-by-side, without being cliche.

The ending has a wrap-up from the chorus leader that kind of tells you why the movie is so great, in case you didn't get it. You know, but for the frank sexual talk and situations, this is Allen's sweetest film.

Woody Allen is a comic genius, and he outdid himself in "Mighty Aphrodite." But the real comic treat in this film is Mira Sorvino. Her role as the air-head porn star was hilarious -- she was the scene-stealer of the movie and she deserved every bit of that Oscar.

There are very few movies whose comic timing is as precise as this one. This is a dark comedy that you wouldn't want to miss. It's one of the best I've seen in recent years.

I am a fan of Woody Allen films. Like most people, I got interested in his early comedy films and then appreciated his development into a master of serious film. Occasionally, Allen bring the serious and the comedic together in a film that simultaneously cracks you up while amazing you in his innovative method of conveying a message. "Mighty Aphrodite" is an example of this successful mix. I remember the movie from the 1995 Academy Awards when Mira Sorvino won the Best Supporting Actress Award (and her father's touching reaction). However, I never had the chance to see the movie until it was on the Independent Film Channel last night. I was surprised by the opening scenes but I quickly came to appreciate the somewhat wacky Greek chorus. As the movie moved along, I got a bigger and bigger kick out of the chorus's persistent reappearance.

The basic story line was about a couple who adopts an infant child. The reluctant father becomes more and more absorbed in the many fine qualities of his son. He becomes obsessively curious about the boy's biological mother and manages to track her down. What he finds destroys his image of what she should be. Nonetheless, he can't shake this obsessive involvement in her life.

Mira Sorvino truly earned her Oscar for her preformance. She was so uniquely inappropriate that the comedy had trouble keeping up with her. I usually disdain the profanities of modern cinema but I have to acknowledge that, in "Mighty Aphrodite", the profane and obscene really added to the story. Ultimately the movie comes to an end in which almost all is well. In the process we discover that it is best to leave well enough alone, you can't make silk out of a sow's ear, true love takes commitment, and a variety of other messages.

I rated this movie "4 Stars" mainly because most of Woody Allen's comedies are funnier and most of his serous films are more profound. However, this was well worth watching.

Woody Allen has never made a truly bad film. On the other hand, judged by his own exceptionally high standard of film-making, he can be pretty hit-and-miss. This one is a sure hit. Mighty Aphrodite is a modern myth, ingeniously told through the lens of classical Greek mythology, about a man who sets out on the fabulous quest for beauty. Woody is a father who tries to find the mother of his adopted son, in the belief that the mother of the child he idolizes will represent perfection. As always in Woody's world, things don't quite turn out as planned.

Mira Sorvino is charming, and Woody is - well, WOODY. This also features one of Dick Hyman's best scores (arranged from a number of jazz classics, as usual). And, as ever, one of America's greatest directors skillfully blends fantasy and reality, life and art to create a heartwarming comedy-drama. People tend to perceive Woody as essentially a cynic: In fact, his cynicism is always tempered by a genuine sense of hope; this is keenly felt in one of the director's best nineties films.

This is one gem of a romantic comedy. With all of the delicious allusions to Greek mythology & the props for Greek theatre, one would not be going too far to call it a "cultured" romantic comedy. What really stands out is how the references to archetypal Greek images are tied in so nicely with the storyline.

I must concede I've not seen many Woody Allen films, but he was terrific as a coy and eccentric sportswriter. Likewise, Mira Sorvino is beyond charming as a naive but good natured harlot.

If you're looking for a feel good movie, you can't do much better than this. If you want an RC movie that is funny and yet has more substance than most others, you can't go wrong with MIGHTY APRHODITE. Somewhere above the clouds, I can't help but think that Aristophanes is watching this film over & over again.....and he's loving every minute of it!

Woody Allen has such a brilliantly quirky way with dialog that I am just drawn to everything that he does now, within reason. I am not biased to his films as many have become. I love him, truly, and laud him as one of our greatest working directors, but he is not without misstep.

Thankfully, `Mighty Aphrodite' is not a misstep.

The film tells the story of Lenny, the adoptive father of a genius. Struggling to find himself within his own marriage, Lenny decides to seek out his son's biological mother and what he finds is not what he imagined. Linda, a street-walker, is no where near the genius her son is, but there is a humanity within her that strikes Lenny and endears him. He meets her under the premise of being another `john' but he forms a bond with her that defies the boundaries of her profession. He becomes a father to her; a mature (seemingly) male figure in her life, which up until that moment was devoid of any real strong male influence (positive at least). Lenny is able to then exercise his own feelings of inadequacy with his wife through his relationship with Linda; being to her what he could only wish to be for his wife; interesting.

`Mighty Aphrodite' is expertly written, as are most (notice I said most) of Allen's films. This is one of those movies that knows how to grip you and then subtly move you in ways you may not immediately expect; and Allen's grasp of Greek literature (as seen through his inclusion of a Greek Chorus Line) is intelligent and just adds yet another layer to set this movie apart from most other comedies.

The acting is also very well done, even if Allen and Sorvino are the only two who truly own the film. Woody Allen has an acting style that is love or hate. It's conditional at that, for I love him sometimes and hate him others, even though his style never changes. It all has to do with the subject and context. Here he works very well. Sorvino is even better though, taking that average dumb blonde and giving her a spark not so often seen. Many have attacked her and this performance for winning the Oscar, and while she was not deserving of that little golden man (how Winslet lost that year is just beyond me) she was very deserving of a nomination. She is absolutely lovely here.

The film is not Allen's finest; don't get me wrong, but there is little to complain about. It doesn't feel as deeply complete as `Deconstructing Harry' was or as richly relative as `Annie Hall', but it connects with the viewer, and especially the ending has a twist of humanity and realism I didn't expect but utterly enjoyed.

It's lighter fare for the Allen supporter; so dig right in and enjoy.

She is just the greatest in this movie

"Mighty Aphrodite" (1995), Woody Allen's hilarious yet moving and surprisingly optimistic film can be viewed as a modern retelling of the ancient tragedy "Oedipus". Like Oedipus in Sophocles's play who became obsessed with discovering identity of his real parents which led to the most horrifying results, Lenny Weinrib (Allen) wants to find the real mother of his and his wife Amanda's adopted son Max who turned to be a brilliant and incredibly gifted boy. The search brings him to Linda, a small time porn star and a hooker with whom Lenny becomes friends and tries to persuade her to change her life. Mira Sorvino as a naive dumb blonde with a high pitch voice is mighty fine and she more than deserved the Oscar for Best Supporting role. She is convincing and very sweet, and there is not a single wrong note in her acting. Once again, I am fascinated by Allen's ability to work with his actors and to bring the best in them when they perform in his movies. Allen was hilarious trying to resist Sorvino's advances in their first scene together. Not to let us forget that we are in the realm of Greek tra-medy, Allen employs the characters from Greek mythology who comment on and even participate in the events. Among then, the blind seer Tiresias who can see the developing problems in Lenny's marriage better than Lenny himself, "Miss Party Pooper", Cassandra who was cursed to always predict the truth but no one would ever believe her, and the ancient chorus whose leader (Murray Abraham) desperately tries to stop Lenny from finding the truth by begging him in the best traditions of Greek tragedy, "Lenny please don't be a schmuck!" :)