Sweet and Lowdown (1999 Woody Allen & scr)

Not seen since 19 January 2009 - why not?? 'Entertaining fake biopic of jazz guitarist with typical Allen turns of events'. Indeed. Such as the moon which falls to the stage, or Sean Penn crashing into a room full of counterfeit money, then buying a car.

Penn is excellent. His smile kept reminding me of Eddie Redmayne, and he really looks like he's playing the guitar. "I had reservations about working with Sean because he had a reputation for being temperamental and difficult... I found him very, very nice, and as so often happens, what you hear about someone doesn't bear out. He was creative, he contributed to the part. I could criticize him without him having any insecurity at all. But again, when I direct great actors and actresses, I rarely have to say anything."

Both Sean and Samantha Morton are great and were Oscar nominated. The way drunken Penn gets on to the moon, for example, and this scene, where we slow track in to Samantha, who's realised what a talent he is - was it an accident that her dress hasn't dropped down properly?
(I love that Woody told her to play it like Harpo Marx - "Who?" So she went away and watched Harpo and returned with a perfect impression. "I don't want you to really act like Harpo Marx, but that's the general idea I'm going for..")

Tons of great jazz guitar of course. Beautifully shot by Zhao Fei. It grossed $4m - one of his flops. He originally pitched it to United Artists after Take the Money and Run - it was then called The Jazz Baby.

Apart from Anthony Lapaglia and Uma Thurman, didn't recognise anybody in the cast. Woody Allen is one of the amusing story-tellers and that is his co-writer of Bullets Over Broadway Doug McGrath as one of the others.

Other little nuggets: the crew waited four months for one shot. And that the ending to Woody references the end of La Strada.