Woody Allen is a one-man creative factory. But the 73-year-old acclaimed director who made the 1977 classic “Annie Hall”cannot please the critics with every new film. Now, reviewers are accusing him of an artistic breakdown over his newest movie ”Whatever Works,” a comedy opening in limited U.S. release on Friday.

It is Allen’s first movie set in his native New York since the 2005 “Melinda and Melinda,” and it tells of a misanthropic man, portrayed by Larry David, who marries a younger woman.

Allen’s last film, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” was a hit with critics and at the box office, earning $23 million in the U.S. and Canada and another $70 million internationally, where the director has a more ardent fan base. It was his biggest success in years, although the 2005 philosophical thriller “Match Point” came close with a worldwide gross at box offices of $85 million. The question is, will Allen sustain that success with his latest film?

The critics don’t think so.

“‘Whatever Works’ feels like something out of time and, worse, out of step,” Peter Travers wrote in Rolling Stone magazine.

Writing in Entertainment Weekly magazine, Lisa Schwarzbaum said, “The fact that Allen wrote the script in the ’70s explains something about why his newest film feels so old.”

Review aggregator Rottentomatoes.com reported as of Friday afternoon that only 7 percent of its top critics gave the movie a positive review.

Among the critics throwing a monkey wrench in the gears of “Whatever Works” are Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, who calls it only “sporadically amusing,” Rex Reed of the New York Observer, who quips that “nothing works,” and A.O. Scott of the New York Times, who follows up with “None of it works. Or it works too hard. Whatever.”

Larry David, of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame, told Reuters that he was reluctant to take the part because he “didn’t want to be the guy to screw up Woody Allen’s movie.” David, who in some ways is Allen’s on-screen doppelganger, said that he thinks the film succeeds. It remains to be seen what the public thinks.

But given that movie audiences tend to give more credence to critics before seeing a Woody Allen movie than they do for a big budget Hollywood event movie, it looks like the director may be hard-pressed to match last year’s successful “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

American Apparel founder Dov Charney will likely come face to face next week with the man he says he has “deep respect” for who is suing his U.S. clothing company for $10 million.

At a trial starting in New York on Monday, Woody Allen is suing American Apparel, which is known for its controversial ads, for displaying on giant billboards an image of him taken from his film “Annie Hall,” in which Allen is dressed as a rabbi. The image appears in the ad next a Yiddish caption that translated as “the holy rebbe.”

After putting Allen’s wife Soon-Yi Previn, his ex-companion Mia Farrow and Allen’s sister on an initial witness list, the company’s lawyer now says they won’t be called up.

Some might be breathing a sigh of relief saying New York does not need another legal airing of the 73-year-old director’s personal life, but documents suggest there will be at the very least some discussion of Allen’s reputation and personal history.

Court papers say Charney, who contends the ads were a bit of comic satire, came up with the idea after feeling anguished over several sexual harassment lawsuits he was subject of.  Then, when he was at home one night watching Allen’s hit movie, he had “an epiphany” and realized he felt a kinship with Allen’s character in the film who was being negatively perceived.

Not only that — but Charney says he identified with Allen himself, because of the director’s own public scandals. So surely those scandals, and Allen’s reputation he says is damaged, will receive examination. Both Allen and Charney are expected to testify.

Highlights from day 3 of the Cannes film festival. 

Spoiler alert: We give away one detail of Woody Allen’s new movie, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” so if you don’t want to know, don’t read on. But it’s too irresistible to keep hidden, and soon somebody will spill it.

For months, ”Vicky Cristina Barcelona” has been shrouded in mystery. What it is about? Woody, shooting in Spain and not New York? Were co-stars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz romantically involved during the shoot? Are they still?

We still don’t know — for certain — about Penelope and Javier, but if the beautiful Spanish actress and her Oscar-winning co-star were in fact locking lips during filming in Barcelona, then he wasn’t the only one she was kissing. Her other co-star, Scarlett Johansson, felt the touch of those pouty lips herself.

That’s right. In ”Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” which had its first press screenings on Friday night at the Cannes film festival, Cruz portrays a high-spirited painter and Bardem is her former husband, also a painter. The pair have split up when Johansson’s character, a young American tourist, enters into a relationship with Bardem. When Penelope returns, well, things happen. And in one brief scene, Cruz and Johansson engage in a sensual kiss — or two. Where it leads and what happens after that, we won’t tell. But one thing is for certain, that Javier, he’s a lucky guy.

UPDATE - At Saturday’s Cannes news conference for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” Penelope was asked if she had any qualms or enjoyed the kiss scene and she completely dodged it. “I got that question four times today already, and I didn’t give any answer because I didn’t have a good answer,” she said. “And I was thinking every time, ‘what would Woody say if he was me in that situation.’” She looked at the director, and he didn’t answer, either.

“And I’m still not inspired to give a good answer,” she said.