To: TH who wrote (102457 ) 12/6/2000 12:07:12 AM From: Neocon Read Replies (1) | Respond to "LA Story" was surprisingly lovely, considering how broad a lot of the humor was. "Crimes and Misdemeanors" attempts to be realistic, and then stretches plausibility too much. The contempt heaped upon Alan Alda's character, leading up to comparing him to Mussolini, was morbid, and the outrage at the choice of Mia Farrow was fatuous, as if she had committed a sin by losing faith in the utter rightness of Allen's character and choosing to be happier with the more charming, less driven, more successful Alda character. I love Martin Landau, he should have worked more, but the character he played would not have killed his girlfriend merely to protect his reputation, unless in a fit of passion. Even supposing that he had done so, he would have gone through the rigors of the damned as his conscience worked on him, not just had a couple of bad nights. There is such a thing as character and habit. Everyone might be capable of anything, but not in the same circumstances. It would have taken much more for such a man to have hired a contract killer. In all, it made little sense, and was finally a sort of libel of the upper middle class, as if it were full of secret homicides.
