I’ve really been looking forward to seeing Whatever Works. It’s Woody Allen’s new movie (approximately his 5,000,000th film) and it comes out tomorrow.

Let’s make sure we’re clear about this: I love Woody Allen. He’s the only filmmaker I can think of who has never directed a movie that I don’t like. That’s right, I even like The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, but I may be the only one (even Allen himself has never seemed too thrilled with it, at least not with his performance). From wacky comedy to more mature comedy to straight serious drama, Woody Allen has never once left me feeling unsatisfied.

So, of course, no theater within about thirty jillion miles of my house is running the movie and I won’t get to see it. I realize Woody Allen’s movies don’t make huge bank, but come on! This is Academy Award winning comedy legend Woody Allen we’re talking about, not some flick about lesbian bare-knuckle boxers during the Spanish American War from a first-time director. You’d think it would play in at least one theater somewhere in the state.

There are at least two theaters that bill themselves as “art” cinemas relatively near me, but no luck. They’re not showing Whatever Works. They’re showing Up and The Proposal, which you can see at any old theater. And just in my own town there are twenty-five movie screens. Exactly zero of them are showing Whatever Works, but I’ll bet you when Transformers comes out next week it’ll be on at least fifteen of the twenty-five. And it’ll make a huge amount of money and spawn yet another sequel, and it will be a terrible piece of crap.

I hope that someday intelligent people start going back to the movies. But I’m not holding my breath.

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