The Woody Allen Collection (2012)

To revisit the eight titles of The Woody Allen Collection set is to recall Woody Allen's artistic blossoming during the '70s, his most fertile decade: from his smartly silly early films (Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Sleeper, Love and Death) through his Oscar-winning comic romance Annie Hall, to the bittersweet dramedies (Manhattan, Stardust Memories). Rounding out the collection: the severely serious Interiors. Culled solely from Allen's United Artists years, this set omits such later triumphs as Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanors. But when the package includes both Sleeper's slapstick futuristic satire (Allen's robot impersonation is some of his most inspired physical comedy) and Annie Hall's sublimely rueful romanticism (stumbling through the stages of an all-too-fleeting love affair, Allen and Keaton were never better together), why complain? B+