Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen) -1994

This is Woody's little morality play wherein he contemplates art versus reality.  John Cusack is the playwright who allows the mob goon (Chazz Palminteri) to change the play ("God of Our Fathers") that is financed by the mob boss (Joe Viterelli 1937-2004).  The movie received seven Academy Awards nominations.  Dianne Wiest won the Oscar for her role as the lead actress in the play.  Her signature line ("Don't Speak!") lives on as a talk radio sound bite.  Ms. Wiest has appeared in five of Woody's movies (September, Radio Days, Hannah and Her Sisters and The Purple Rose of Cairo).  The movie was set in the Roaring Twenties with an all-star cast including Jennifer Tilly, Mary-Louise Parker, Jack Warden (1920-2006), Rob Reiner, Edie Falco and Tracey Ullman. [JAM 5/26/2010]

["I have a very realistic view of myself.  Some people think it's too much or even fake humility when I say I haven't made a great movie.  When I dramatize my observations of life, they say it's cynicism.  But in neither case is it either.  I'm telling the truth.  I don't see myself as an artist.  I see myself as a working filmmaker who chose to go the route of working all the time rather than making my films into some special red carpet event every three years.  I'm not cynical and I'm far from an artist.  I'm a lucky working stiff." Conversations with Woody Allen - January 2000]