Wild Man Blues

A documentary of Woody Allen's 1996 European tour with his Dixieland Jazz band, Oscar-winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple's Wild Man Blues offers a behind-the-scenes look at the much lauded and loathed icon that is its subject -- but what really fascinates is its glimpse of "the notorious Soon-Yi Previn," as Allen himself introduces his 21-year-old wife and stepdaughter of former lover Mia Farrow. Their relationship seems an odd case of role reversal, with Soon-Yi a chiding, nurturing mother figure and Allen the needy, wisecracking neurotic of his films. Going a long way toward restoring Allen's image after his recent, scandalous court ordeals, Wild Man Blues also explains that image -- a concluding lunch back home with the folks is not to be missed. At the Avon.

-- Peter Keough