I just finished watching Barcelona. Amazing little film. Great script and very well acted. I also love Last Days of Disco very much. Great characters in each film.

No.

I've seen Barcelona, Metropolitan, and Last Days of Disco, in that order.

Metropolitan was ok, went downhill from there. Barcelona I started getting to irritated by the nuerotic guy. It was Woddy Allen-esque, but without the proper stroyline to assimilate that nuerosis chatter box into. Here its pretty much just a character sketch of bored people, and so didn't hold my attention. I had to force myself through caring for the end. Last Days was even worse. Because it didn't maintain tone. It started ok and quickly descended, so I didn't actually even finish the last 20 minutes of the movie.

Whit's characters certainly aren't the most likeable. I'm guessing he feels that is the set of people he knows the best and can therefore write about, just as John Sayles is best writing about the common man.

I can easily understand your feelings about the characters and the films. The story of Barcelona isn't all that compelling. Really it feels more like the background for Whit to share these odd characters he created. I do love the characters, though. Ted's speeches on selling blow me away. You can tell Whit is speaking through his characters. Great point about Woody Allen. Both Whit and Woody preach to their audience about their take on the world through their characters. I like that (I'm a big Woody fan).