Ageneration ago, the twinning of two concepts, “Woody Allen” and “Amazon”, would have conjured a picture dear to Woody¬philes worldwide. A bespectacled nebbish lost in the jungle; up a river without a paddle: thoughts towards a Woody movie called — what? Piranha Memories? Hannah and Her Tribe?
Since then much water has passed under many bridges. We are in a darker, weirder world. Humorists are slaughtered; the word Amazon has gone digital; and Mr Allen himself has passed through scandal and not yet (say some) come out the other side.
Yet this is the moment Amazon Prime, the online retail giant’s video streaming service, chooses to fish the filmmaker from the flow of his big-screen productivity — still a film a year — to commit to a small-screen series. It is still vague. Ten (probably) 30-minute (definitely) episodes about, well, anything.