Well, just maybe that doesn't work anymore. Fingers crossed. Now if we can only figure out how to get that lowest common denominator from voting in major election, then this country might have a chance to last more than twenty years.
But, I digress....
In the summer of 2013, people with brains don't necessarily have to avoid their local cinemas as if they are infected with bird flu. Nope, there has been a glimmer of hope. I wrote a while back about the wondrous "The Way, Way Back" by first-time director Jim Rash and Nat Faxon. But, there is now another reason to go to the movies, provided you're not a video game nut and somebody who likes to watch shit get blown up.
And it's from the always dependable Woody Allen. Now 77 years old and decades older than the aforementioned Rash and Faxon, the Woodman's latest "Blue Jasmine" brings you another ray of sunshine in a sky full of CGI-created smoke and clouds. So, as you can see, it's not an age thing. With these two movies, it's apparently easy to entertainment a smart audience when you realize that the folks out there in the dark actually have a brain.
I've always been a big fan of Woody Allen. Regardless of what's going on in his life, he's still managed to come out with one movie every year for the past four decades. And some of them merit true film classic status.
Annie Hall.
Manhattan.
Bananas.
Hannah and Her Sisters.
Radio Days.
Broadway Danny Rose.
Sure, there has been some mediocre and borderline bad offerings. One would argue that even a bad Woody Allen film is ten times better than the latest installment of "The Hangover" or any crap that comes out of Judd Apatow's ass. But when you're Woody Allen and you write and direct 44 films over the course of 40 years, you're not going to be cooking on all four burners every single time.
The good news is that his latest, "Blue Jasmine," simmers just nicely on the stove. And the resulting cinematic meal is purely sumptuous.
What makes this latest Woody Allen concoction sing is the creation of a main character that everybody in the audience can identify with. Well, just those of us with a brain. Wait, that's everybody here. The idiots are next door watching Denzel Washington and Marky Mark in "2 Guns."
Oh, I have digressed again. See what a good movie can do to me? It makes me scattered and unfocused. Very much unlike "Blue Jasmine," which gives us a lead character that we all know. That self-destructive friend...or enemy...who creates every problem imaginable for themselves. And then blames the world for all of it. A remarkable look at somebody all of us have had in our lives just once.
Jasmine is one of those Manhattan cafe society wives, married to a big Wall Street mogul and shuttling between Central Park South and the Hamptons. When we meet her, she is getting off a plane in San Francisco, having just talked the ears off some poor, unsuspecting old lady who happened to be in the plane seat next to her. Jasmine is already in the process of mental breakdown, but she's the last person to know it.
She comes to San Francisco to crash at her sister Ginger's small apartment. Well, they're not really sisters. Both were adopted. I guess you can say they're first sisters, DNA approved. Ginger's at the opposite end of life's spectrum, working in a supermarket and having been married once to a slug played by Andrew Dice Clay of all people. Jasmine and Ginger are not just oil and water. They're like Valvoline and Pellegrino. Yet, their misfortunes bring them uncomfortably together and you know this will get ugly.
That's the fun of the movie.
Flashbacks are interspersed through the movie and you learn that Jasmine's husband has gone to prison and ultimately committed suicide there. Since he's played by Alec Baldwin, you secretly hope that this film is a documentary and that news is true. But it's not and you slowly and methodically learn why Jasmine is the mess she is. In a performance that will most certainly get her an Oscar nomination, Cate Blanchett as Jasmine comes apart one pore at a time. And we get to deliciously watch this destruction.
Because, as I said earlier, we all have known a Jasmine.
About two years ago, I wrote about my own Jasmine. A Hollywood writer/once-friend I called here "Joe." He, too, has been on a self-destructive course. He would spend the day ranting and raving about his problems to anybody who could listen. And, in a lot of cases, "Joe" would attribute the source of his many woes to a potpourri of people, places, and things. From George W. Bush to the traffic light at Fairfax and Beverly to the price of potato chips at Ralph's, it was never "Joe's" fault. The last person "Joe" ever wants to see in the mirror is "Joe" himself.
The same goes for Jasmine and, as you watch Woody's work unfold, you realize that he has a remarkable finger on the pulse of his audience. Most certainly he himself knew somebody like Jasmine. Just as I knew "Joe." People who never ever can get out of their own way.
All the performances in "Blue Jasmine" are spot-on and organic. Beyond Blanchett, there is no reason to call out the names of the superlative performers. The entire cast is phenomenal. But you come to expect that from a Woody Allen production, don't you? And, oh, by the way, how many actors will be Oscar-nominated from "Pacific Rim?"
So, yes, there is another reason to go to the movies this summer. One where you don't have to cover your ears or ultimately your eyes. All you need to do is bring your friend, your popcorn, and, oh yeah...your brain.
LEN'S RATING: Three and a half stars.
Dinner last night: Sirloin steak and salad.
1 comment:
Woody Allen continues to amaze, an aging artist whose productivity and high quality are a standard to emulate. His career is all the more impressive because he did not have the studio system that was essential to earlier directors - John Ford, Hitchcock, Minnelli, Capra.
That he writes, directs and acts with equal skill is pretty much unique in movie history. Few do one of those well.
I've been going to Woody Allen movies since the seventies. Keep 'em coming, Woody.
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