Pam and I thoroughly enjoyed Magic... Allen's witty dialogue never ceases to impress, well, at least since Annie Hall. I once saw Annie Hall in one of those re-run $1 theaters in Dearborn, Michigan, before the Projectionists Union torched the building, The projectionist mixed up the reels something horrible...and the movie still made sense, and it was funnier. Such were the times.
The topic of Woody Allen prompted my offering up a paper I wrote for graduate school on Woody Allen as Theologian in American Culture. This was some 20 years after Ben Patterson—the editor of the satirical Christian Youth Specialities magazine The Wittenburg Door (and that IS spelled correctly for you Lutheran aficionados out here)—put Woody on the cover of his magazine and awarded him "Theologian of the Year." It seems that more than any other "regular" theologian in 1974 American culture, Allen got people thinking about God, Sex, and Death.
Turns out Ben Patterson, today, is a good friend of my friend. Hi Charlie! Hi Ben! Enjoy California's sun, it's still snowing here in Michigan (April 26).
To the rest of my readers, if you're interested, here's a link to the short paper. On page 7 you'll find an interesting bar chart depicting the sum of positive and negative depictions of religion in Wood Allen Films 1969–1993.
