Annie Hall (PG, 1977)

Woody Allen plays an obsessively-worried comic and writer named Alvy Singer. Alvy talks right to the viewer whenever he feels like it, and he feels like telling us about his latest romantic meltdown, a breakup with a woman named Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). Alvy is Jewish, twice-divorced, addicted to psychotherapy, and his idea of a date movie is a four-hour Holocaust documentary. Annie is none of these, but they're instantly attracted to each other's quirkiness. Alvy nurtures Annie's singing career and gets her into night classes and therapy herself, but on the downside, he refuses to commit and soon becomes jealous of her night-school instructor. Annie, meanwhile, thinks Alvy will always look down on her for not being as intellectual as he is. Alvy and Annie go through a cycle of splits and reconciliations. The final breakup occurs when Annie's vocal talents get the attention, both romantic and professional, of a music producer (Paul Simon) based in sunny Los Angeles, a place that New Yorker Alvy loathes. Much later Alvy and Annie meet again, but only as friends, and Alvy is left to conclude that love affairs are worth the trouble and losses that, for him anyway, seem inevitable.

This was the movie that beat out the original Star Wars the Best Picture Oscar. Do a thousand martyred Obi-Wan Kenobi action figures cry out for revenge? No, because ANNIE HALL really is a masterwork, and even a more impressive one when you consider it didn't trigger of flood of Lucas-esque copycats (except in a fad for Annie Hall-inspired mismatched-wardrobe ensembles). Woody Allen's sophisticated take on relationships is lively and fleet enough (complete with an animated interlude that parodies Disney) to amuse adolescents in particular, as well. Doubtless, though, it would be PG-13 -- a rating that did not exist in 1977 -- were it to appear today.

Woody Allen's long career has had different stages. Around the time Annie Hall was made was when Allen was transitioning from broad, slapstick-heavy spoofs like Sleeper and Bananas and more toward personal, introspective comedies and dramas. Annie Hall may not have giant chickens or silly robot costumes, but it retains a plethora of one-liners and hilarious, attention-getting narrative devices, such as flashbacks that allow the adult Woody to sit in on his elementary-school days and argue Freud with the exasperated kids in his old homeroom. As a moralist, Allen -- too obviously -- has few solutions. But he asks many pointed questions. In one of a series of person-on-the-street interviews Alvy asks a couple who are content with each other what their secret is. They declare that they're shallow and stupid. The late musician Frank Zappa also held the opinion that the smarter you are, the unhappier. You could discuss this notion with kids; hopefully it won't provide them with the best excuse yet for failing grades.