The American Spectator

Kelly Jane Torrance gets Woody Allen on the record on that count at least.

As a fan of Allen's early stand-up comedy and an occasional enthusiast for the very occasional movies of his that actually hit the mark—yes, the predictable, Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors, but I’ll also rank Match Point and Scoop among the mark-hitters—I found this bit of Torrance's story the most revealing:

Mr. Allen is the most prolific American director, making about a film a year since he started four decades ago. And so many of them have been so good that it's impossible to declare one as his "best."

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"I don't find it difficult," Mr. Allen says of his consistent output. Writing the script is "the hard part but the fun part." That takes "some months" and then preproduction takes a few weeks. He shoots for 10 weeks and edits in, say, just six days: "It's all electronic."

Many times when I have found myself sitting through another Allen dud, like someone who watches the sky every night because they saw a shooting star once when they were eight, I have thought to myself maybe if Allen took, you know, two years to make each film instead of one he'd be a smidgen less prolific but his output would also be considerably less uneven. 

Then again, I guess Allen probably feels some pressure to keep his once-sort-of-step-daughter-now-wife living high on the hog. Whatever track record relationships with a 35 year age difference have probably isn't good.

Still, when he's on, he's on.