So we knew Woody Allen was deserting us for the more burnout-hospitable climes of London, but a report in today's Page Six only intensifies the sad dread all of New York feels at losing one of its favorite sons.

Allen went on the record with Der Spiegel to discuss the possibility of returning to NYC to make a film dealing with the ideas and aftermath of 9/11. Well, maybe "discuss" isn't the right word. Let's try "shrug off with his hard-wrought ethnological eminence and authority":

The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important.

OK, look, Woody, the Beekman's closure has got me down, too, but I think we can work through this. If the vacuum of decent 9/11 films has left the door open to a new movement of puerile horseshit that shall not be named, then it doesn't look like you have much choice. So leave the expat pose to Hal Hartley and come home already. Don't make me beg!