A STREETCAR NAMED PERSPIRE.......WE GAPE IN WONDER AT WOODY ALLEN'S 'WONDER WHEEL'

Wonder Wheel (2017)     Speaking of wheels.........an example of how the wheel turns......

                Way back in 1973, in Woody Allen's "Sleeper", Allen and Diane Keaton mercilessly mocked a scene from "A Streetcar Named Desire".......

                 ......made funny by the fact that a delusional Allen was doing Blanche Dubois while Keaton channeled Marlon Brando's legendary Stanley Kowalski......

                   Simple. Direct. Hilarious.

                   45 years later, comes "Wonder Wheel", the latest Woody Allen movie off his one-movie-a-year assembly line........

                   Speaking of wheels again.......the wheels aren't just wobbling on the Annual Woody Movie Factory.......the nuts, bolts and screws are flying off in all directions......

                    We could spew out endless paragraphs about how ludicrous, tone-deaf and ragingly awful this movie is, especially detailing the utter humiliation of its actors........

                     But who knows how many film critics have already done that.......so we'll spare you.....and ourselves.....

                 Let's put it this way........"Wonder Wheel" is the kind of movie that 1973 Woody Allen would have mocked, lampooned and ridiculed with brutal accuracy.......

                  1973 Woody would most certainly perform a deadly imitation of the role played with non-stop hysteria by Kate Winslet......(a Coney Island waitress afflicted with migraines and lust for hunky young lifeguard Justin Timberlake)

                   Audiences would burst into laughter at the sight of  1973 Woody delivering the priceless, pretentious howlers that pepper Winslet's 'Wonder Wheel' dialogue........(including some our personal favorites....."I'm consumed with jealousy!"  and her description of the husband who deserted her, "...a drummer, whose rhythm pulsated with life....")

                  Maybe this imaginary scene from 'Sleeper; could include a young Diane Keaton holding a tinted spotlight over Woody's head, bathing him in yellow-orange light.........to poke some well deserved fun at Vittorio Storaro's  'get-a-load-of-me' 'Wonder Wheel camerawork.......

                  So it's a sad 45 year journey for Allen..... from the master satirist of 'Sleeper', having some fun at the expense of 'A Streetcar Named Desire'........to the creator of 'Wonder Wheel', a woeful contraption that begs for ridicule.......with its hapless actors, playing working stiffs, vomiting lines that sound they were freshly typed by  Allen with a thesaurus at his side.......

                  Allen may have somehow survived the universal disgust at his marriage to his step-daughter, as well as the accusations of molestation from his one of his daughters...........but with 'Wonder Wheel', he may finally have lost the armies of Culture Vultures who steadfastly championed his art, despite the ugly scandals of his personal life...........

                  Cause there's no getting around this one........."Wonder Wheel"  stinks like dead fish washed up on Coney Island........  Zero stars (0).