By Steven Rosen

Like an answered prayer, "Melinda and Melinda" finds Woody Allen coming through his most fallow period creatively - the curdled, anemic genre spoofs made for DreamWorks SKG - with his storytelling talent and directorial skills with actors intact.

If this Fox Searchlight release is not among his best works - not in the Top Ten, in my opinion - the difference between it and "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" or "Small Time Crooks" is like night and day. Allen is back observing the world of characters that live and breathe the New York skyline in all its sophisticated, articulate, messy, neurotically artistic glory. And he makes them compelling.

THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL

by Steven Rosen

"The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" is as lovely a tribute to America's most beautiful and inspiring city as Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."

In Judy Irving's documentary, this is still a city for dreamers - some 40 years after Bennett's classic song was released. The streets still climb halfway to the stars here. Homes overlook the water, the Golden Gate Bridge is fog-enshrouded, and the friendly Italian cafe owners treat their newspaper-reading patrons like members of an extended family. It's a romantic and intimate vision, a mash note.

As the show's second season begins, creator David Milch shares his vision of the blood-soaked Old West town that struggled for order without law
By Steven Rosen
Newhall Calif.
Sunday, March 06, 2005 -

It's a good day to die here in the Western town of Deadwood, or so it feels wandering through the muddy, chilly set soon after torrential rainstorms have ended. This is where HBO's "Deadwood" series, which begins its second season at 7 tonight, is filmed.

The creek protecting the entrance to the remote Melody Ranch outdoor set 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles has lowered just enough that cars can finally cross the rushing water. But the dirt streets of Deadwood have big puddles. Overall, the atmosphere is inhospitable.