Valentine’s Day – February 14, 7 p.m. at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway (plus Annie Hall look alike contest)

Celebrate your Valentine’s Day with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in the Oscar-winning romantic comedy classic that’s guaranteed to make you say “Lah-dee-dah!” Enter our FREE PRIZE RAFFLE for romantic giveaways and enjoy our tasty “Woody Wallbanger” drink special! PLUS: A special prize will be awarded to the best Annie Hall look-a-like, so get those vests and ties ready!

1978 Academy Award Winner! Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress & Best Original Screenplay

One of the greatest, and most hilariously neurotic, screen romances of all-time was unleashed upon the world via a comically mismatched relationship between a nerdy New York comedian and his beguilingly ditzy girlfriend in Woody Allen’s iconic, multiple Oscar-winner Annie Hall. “Annie and I broke up, and I still can’t get my mind around that,” admits Woody Allen’s stand-up comic Alvy Singer, and while Diane Keaton’s charming and tightly-wound Annie Hall stammers, stops and starts, laughs nervously, and “lah-dee-dahs,” he looks back on his sometimes moving, often ridiculous difficulties with women (“Sex with you is really a Kafkaesque experience,” observes one-night-stand Shelley Duvall), narrating his own life story, breaking the fourth wall and directly addressing the camera in the midst of a scene, and standing in the background of moments of his and Annie’s past – all in service of desperately trying to figure out where it all went wrong with Annie.

Along the rocky road to coupling, our screwball couple crack wise on such topics as pretentious New York intellectuals, Los Angeles airheads, endless therapy, movies vs. television, the absurdity of dating rituals, anti-Semitism, drugs, lobsters, and, in one of the film’s best set pieces, repressed Midwestern WASP insanity vs. crazy Brooklyn Jewish nuttiness. Hailed as Allen’s critical breakthrough film – his first (and, many say, his best) attempt to situate real poignancy alongside the laughs – Annie Hall became a box-office blockbuster, started fashion trends (in the form of Keaton’s rumpled menswear look), and became a cultural touchstone for all modern romantic comedies that followed. (Dir. by Woody Allen, 1977, 93 mins., Rated PG) 35mm.

Watch/listen for Allen’s clever line in the movie: “Our relationship is like a shark, it has to constantly move forward or it dies”. I’ve seen probably every Woody Allen film out there, but this is definitely one of my favorites. Not so much for its romantic comedy, but for the witty conversations. But Diane Keaton was his real life love at one point in Allen’s life, so this movie does breathe actual romance.

And if you’re looking for an unusual lunch/dinner date, consider the only Russian restaurant in town, the newly opened Kalina, at 8969 E.Tanque Verde, Suite 209 (just east of Bear Canyon Rd). Chef Natasha is having special menu for Valentine’s Day, a 5 Course Pre-Fixed Menu with a Lindt Chocolate Gift. Website: www.kalinarestaurant.com. I ate there yesterday and was pleased with the delicious Kalina vegetarian eggplant salad, generous portions of bread, and tasty Siberian pelmeni/lamb dumplings, served with a sour cream vinegar sauce. Call 520-360-4040 to make a reservation today.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.