Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex… Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask
1972 Directed by Woody Allen
Synopsis
Woody Allen's fourth film, consisting of a series of short sequences loosely inspired by Dr. David Reuben's book of the same name. The film was an early smash for Allen, grossing over $18 million dollars in the U.S. alone against a $2 million dollar budget. The credits at the start and close of the film are played
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this movie gets 0/5 stars for failing the joe gibson test of whether the movie fulfills its titular promise
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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask is one of Woody Allen's earliest efforts (specifically, his fourth one), and it is Woody at his most juvenile and hilarious. Basically a parody of the book of the same name by David Reuben, the film is divided into seven vignettes each depicting a certain story of a sexual nature.
Like I said, this is a very solid, hilarious comedy film, with Woody completly ripping apart this serious sex manual. The majority of the vignettes being these inspired, smart parodies of films like Frankenstein, variety shows, William Shakespeare's Hamlet and italian directors Fellini and Antonioni.
Some of the comedy here is very dated or you'd think it…
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Ostensibly about sex* but it's more about how many jokes and gags Woody Allen can cram into its various cinematic templates - this dynamic is solidified by the fact that the "sexier" the material is, the less funny it tends to be - I don't think Woody's sensibility makes a perfect bedfellow with the kind of ribaldry on display here. But this still has a very high laugh-to-silence ratio, and those cinematic templates are incredibly impressive: My favorite is "What's My Perversion," which replicates the look of an old 50s game show so exactly that it's actually a little bit creepy.
*John Carradine pronounces the word "masturbation" as "mastrabation."
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The very extensively titled Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask is one of Woody Allen's earliest feature films, and it's one of his most juvenile and hilarious. A predecessor to the kind of sketch comedy that would eventually become popular on television or the internet, but never really break through into film, Every Thing is split up into seven different sections each depicting a certain story of a sexual nature. Allen has made his career primarily out of writing his own original ideas, but when book author David Reuben reportedly used one of Allen's jokes from his previous film Take the Money and Run on Johnny Carson, Allen made the hilariously…
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I might be crazy after all. After hearing nothing but mediocre things about this film, I ended up finding it to be the funniest and most enjoyable of the 'early funny stuff' from Woody.
You may (or may not) have noticed my wildly indifferent, half-assed reviews for BANANAS and SLEEPER. The truth is, I just couldn't muster up much enthusiasm for either. Sure, they had some laughs and were fairly clever, but they weren't particularly memorable. Long shots from later Allen films. SEX* isn't a classic either, but it is more clever and more outrageously entertaining.
My biggest issue with BANANAS and SLEEPER were that they just felt too long to keep the joke going. That central issue is gone…
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For a 84 minute film, this feels really long and is not very funny.
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Like Kentucky Fried Movie this is a comedic feature film, made up of short films written and directed by the same person/people (Woody Allen in this case). The difference in this case is that in my opinion all of the segments here are funny, they again show, even in his earlier work that though Allen is an intellectual, he has no qualms with including silliness in his comedies. The oddest thing for me was seeing the credits for the film, as almost all of his films have the same white font over a black sceen, with something jazzy playing over them. I won't ruin any of the segments, but I will say that my favorite is certainly the one involving Gene Wilder and a Serbian sheep which is absolutely hilarious, partially due to Wilder's innate comedic ability, knowing that sometimes it's funnier to play something that's absolutely silly completely straight, therefore making it seem even more ridiculous.
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One of the most ridiculous movies I've ever seen. Definitely teaches you everything you've always wanted to know about sex, but also absolutely nothing you will ever need to.
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this movie gets 0/5 stars for failing the joe gibson test of whether the movie fulfills its titular promise
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For a 84 minute film, this feels really long and is not very funny.
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Ostensibly about sex* but it's more about how many jokes and gags Woody Allen can cram into its various cinematic templates - this dynamic is solidified by the fact that the "sexier" the material is, the less funny it tends to be - I don't think Woody's sensibility makes a perfect bedfellow with the kind of ribaldry on display here. But this still has a very high laugh-to-silence ratio, and those cinematic templates are incredibly impressive: My favorite is "What's My Perversion," which replicates the look of an old 50s game show so exactly that it's actually a little bit creepy.
*John Carradine pronounces the word "masturbation" as "mastrabation."
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If you ever wanted to see Woody Allen as an insecure sperm, afraid of the world beyond the sex organs he lives in or fighting against a giant frankensteinian breast monster this is the right film for you.
You probably won't find a more juvenile film by Woody Allen than Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask but it's entertaining, it's creative and it's a lot of fun if you don't expect an intellectually challenging art house masterpiece.
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The only thing to enjoy here is Woody himself. Whatever the material he is always worth watching. Apart from that this is terribly unfunny. Now on to Woody of the 80's.
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Most of the vignettes wear out their welcome quickly like a bad 'SNL' sketch, actually, a bad 'MADTV' sketch (that's worse BTW). Even the great Gene Wilder couldn't keep my interest after too long. I did, however, really get a kick out of the last segment with Burt Reynolds, Tony Randall and Woody Allen. Allen's performance as nervous sperm is truly hilarious.
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cool