Are We Actually Celebrating Woody Allen’s 81st Birthday?

Image by Anne-Christine Poujoulat/Getty Images

By Talya Zax December 1, 2016

The always-nebbishy, sometimes brilliant, frequently self-involved, occasionally trite Woody Allen turns 81 today. Not all will be celebrating; his son Ronan Farrow, for instance, who spoke out this year on the media’s failure to adequately examine Allen’s alleged sexual abuse of his daughter Dylan, is unlikely to be raising a glass.

For those who are celebrating, half- or full-heartedly, revisit some of the Forward’s best Allen coverage. There’s our immortal, strangely author-less celebration of his 80th birthday, “Ranking Woody Allen Lists on His 80th Birthday,” Adam Langer’s “How Woody Allen Lost Me” — are we still celebrating? — and Ezra Glinter’s review of Allen’s latest movie, “Cafe Society,” which Glinter deemed “about as profound as a hairdo.”

So, yeah, mazel tov.

Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re near the end of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO