Midnight in Paris

Released: 2011
Fantasy, Comedy (but not really funny)
Director Woody Allen
Starring: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and a TON of other people you know
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 94 minutes

The breakdown: An engaged couple is visiting France when the man slips back into the 1920's one night and has a remarkable adventure meeting great artists from that time.

Overall, I didn't like it.  Big surprise, again, I didn't know it was a Woody Allen film until I sat down to watch it.  I can't believe he won an OSCAR for writing this?!  Of course, the Oscars are really out of touch with what's good these days.  By the way, I should mention Allen never attends the Oscars, most likely, because he thinks they are too (fill in the blank-arrogant, pretentious, Hollywood).....whether he's nominated or not, win or doesn't, he's not there.  A bit disrespectful if you ask me, but Woody Allen has A LOT of issues.
Anyway, I do not like his movies because out of all of them that I've seen so far, they're pretty much the same idea.  This one's a little different with the whole time travel thing, but the characters are familiar and the relationships work the same as well.  Allen seems to have a penchant for cheating spouses.  Anyway, the plot....
This engaged couple goes along with her father to Paris for a vacation.  The man is a Hollywood screenwriter who wants to crack into novels and the woman doesn't seem to do anything for a living except put her boyfriend down or try to embarrass him in public.  It's obvious from the beginning they are not a good couple.
Her and her parents, or her friends always want to do something that her boyfriend is not interested in doing.  One night after attending lots of stuff with her that he doesn't want to do, he goes off for a walk on his own.  He ends up on some steps alone at midnight and a 1920's era car rolls up with a big party going on inside.  The revelers ask him to join them and off he goes.  It ends up at a posh night club with lots of people and music.  The man realizes he's listening to THE Cole Porter sing live and speaks with Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald in the flesh. 
Over the course of the movie, every night in real life he goes back to those steps and at midnight the car rolls up and he meets new people from the past.  He ends up being really attracted to a woman named Adriana who's dated Picasso, Hemingway, and a slew of other famous people.  She likes him as well. 
While he's traveling between two worlds, his girlfriend is spending more and more time doing things with other people so he continues to go to the past every night.  Eventually he ends up with Adriana on the street, the clock hits midnight, and a horse drawn carriage rolls up.
IF YOU PLAN ON SEEING THIS MOVIE YOU CANNOT READ ANY FURTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


If you've come this far, I applaud you.  The movie's not been that good up until this point.  I really only enjoyed the last half hour of this movie, and this is the point, it should've started.
So him and this woman go into the past together to the 1880's.  She loves this time period and thinks this is the best time to live in, he on the other hand loves the 20's and wants to stay there.  She says she's not leaving the 1880's so he leaves her behind and realizes he needs to live in his own time.
He goes back and breaks up with his bitchy girlfriend.  She never wanted to live in Paris and he really did so he doesn't have to go anywhere.  There was this girl he had met at a record store somewhere in the city and as the closing scenes happen, he's standing on a bridge admiring the Eiffel Tower.  She just happens along the same street walking home from visiting friends and they start talking to each other in the evening rain.  The End.

SO,
I really liked the scenes in the past, those were actually not bad.  I enjoyed the romance between Owen Wilson and the girl from the record shop as well as Adriana from the 1920's.  Adrien Brody is in it, Kathy Bates, etc, etc.  A ton of famous talented people....I don't know how Woody Allen gets them into such bad movies.
The parts I didn't like were where I felt I had seen all the characters before in his past films.  The socialites, living the high life in Paris this time (instead of New York), the snotty know-it-all types that have to put everyone else down and think they are better than everyone else.  Those scenes are annoying and take up too much time in the story.
Seen that, done that, let's do something different please Woody?

He probably should've stopped making films a long time ago.

I give it a 2 out of 5 for interesting scenes and characters from the past.   But mainly, I say skip it.