I enjoyed Woody Allen’s very popular fantasy about a screenwriter from CA (Owen Wilson) in Paris with his obnoxious fiancé and her repulsive bourgeois parents. He adores the city, she could care less. They meet friends of hers by chance and they are the kind of pompous, pseudo-intellectual pedants Allen’s been ranting against since “Sleeper” and “Manhattan”. Anyway, he finds that by being in a special place at midnight, he can go back in time to the 1920s, his vision of a golden age. This means a golden age for American artists in Paris, of course, if not for anyone else, but aren’t they the only ones who really matter—at least for Allen?. Anyway, there he meets Scott, Zelda, Ernest, Dali (good work by Adrian Brody), Man Ray, Bunuel, Gertrude Stein (a nice turn by Cathy Blake), Picasso, TS Elliot, etc. He falls in love with Picasso’s mistress. She is in love with “La Belle Epoque” Paris. Each of us says another time was the greatest time. He learns about time and what is the best of times. He becomes a confident, courageous writer (or more so) thanks to Stein and Hemingway. He follows his muses. He begins to live life. The present is always the best of times. It is a lovely, funny little film with fine acting all-round. I am not sure if Allen directed Wilson to act like he [Allen] did in earlier films, but I’m tired of Allen stand-ins ‘being’ Allen. That to me is taking the whole auteur thing a bit far, verbal ticks and all. Loved Paris. Loathed these folks who have no concerns but themselves. Allen is here throwing down a gauntlet that seems to say, “I am a fearless artist and person”. He will never leave his class and his fixation on the artist/the real soul of whatever city he is in. The only time he has ever suggested that academics or intellectuals are anything other than pompous twits was in “Zelig”. This is getting a tad tiresome