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| Ghulam |
 Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:48 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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A different take from Billy and Mark. "Blue Jasmine" is Woody Allen's tribute to Tennessee Williams and is as good in its way as "A Streetcar Named Desire". The screenplay is more meticulous than it may appear, and the coincidences are no more than happen in real life. Cate Blanchett easily holds a candle to Vivien Leigh. One of Woody's best.
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 4:25 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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| I'm interested in seeing it, but Woody takes so many shortcuts in his plots and characterizations that most of his films for the last decade plus are disappointments. I wish he'd make a good film once every two years instead of a quick slapdash film every year. He has a good deal of other stuff going on, and I think it shows in his end product. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 6:45 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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Allen is clearly going for Streetcar. I'm pretty sure Billy noted that, and so have others. But to claim that Allen's movie is anywhere near as well-written, tightly plotted, or insightful into the ways of human nature as Williams' masterpiece is...ridiculous.
Yeah coincidences happen, but do well-off men with political careers in their future marry women who are complete strangers with no family and no proof of the lives they claim to have lived?
And how about the whole creepy dentist thing. Eww...I couldn't tell to what extent Allen wanted us to laugh at Blanchett's near-rape, but my impression was that he expected us to find it hilarious and inoffensive. Very disturbing. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:22 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Coincidences happen in real life, but in drama they are less acceptable when used as easy shortcuts. And here we have two--count 'em, two. It will not wash--at least not with this cookie.
I echo Joe's comment on Jasmine's near-rape. This was not handled well, though Blanchett and Stuhlbarg both did their best.
As for Joe's comments on the impending Dwight-Jasmine nuptials, word, word, word.
The movie is getting undue praise because Woody Allen is iconic and critics love to see him avoid falling on his face. Blue Jasmine has just enough quality to make it a "masterpiece" in the eyes of fawning reviewers. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:05 am |
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| I'll be seeing Blue Jasmine. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:07 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Ghulam--Of course I noted the fact that Jasmine is a Streetcar riff. What you may not know is that it's not the first unofficial remake of Streetcar. Back in 1951, the same year that the original movie was released, there was a film called Storm Warning which uses more or less the same story told clumsily but with a starry cast. Ginger Rogers was the neo-Blanche. Steve Cochran stood in for Stanley, Doris Day for Stella, and Ronald Reagan for Mitch. Cochran's character was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and Day wound up dead for the first and only time in her screen career.
It was a terrible movie but worth checking out for its weird status. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 8:13 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| Speaking of Jasmine/Streetcar, fewer people have noted that Match Point, the Woody Allen movie from a few years ago, was practically a scene-by-scene rewrite of A Place in the Sun, another 1951 movie. Allen seems to have been stuck in a 1951 loop for a while. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 9:23 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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I haven't taken "Blue Jasmine" off my priority list--the arguments here just make it more interesting.
Speaking of coincidences in movies, our film professor told us something once that stuck with me (maybe because it's so obviously true that I realized I knew it already). A movie can and often does begin with a coincidence, but it can't end with a coincidence. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:22 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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| The corollary to this coincidence issue is the one where picky people say things like (apropos of We're the Millers) "Would a drug lord interrupt his decision to kill all the leading characters just to watch Jennifer Aniston do a striptease?" The answer to this is easy: "Would As You Like It's Orlando really mistake Rosalind for a boy?" There are certain circumstances, usually in comedies, where impossible-to-believe events are acceptable. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:22 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| Elizabethan times were different, of course, where they had no females on stage. So in As You Like it, you had a boy actor playing Lady Rosalind playing a shepherd boy. The gender bending was transparent and common, and everyone played along. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:46 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Upstate NY
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| Billy, cinema screenplays today (especially in European movies) have a breezy and whirlwind quality compared to the plays or novels of 1940's. Perhaps the attention span of today's audiences is different. Would more depth to making that diplomat's behavior authentic a la Dreiser or Fielding have added much to our appreciation of Jasmine's story of impending disaster? I am not sure. I shall certainly try to see Storm Warning. Thanks for the tip. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:04 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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billyweeds wrote: Ghulam--Of course I noted the fact that Jasmine is a Streetcar riff. What you may not know is that it's not the first unofficial remake of Streetcar. Back in 1951, the same year that the original movie was released, there was a film called Storm Warning which uses more or less the same story told clumsily but with a starry cast. Ginger Rogers was the neo-Blanche. Steve Cochran stood in for Stanley, Doris Day for Stella, and Ronald Reagan for Mitch. Cochran's character was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and Day wound up dead for the first and only time in her screen career.
It was a terrible movie but worth checking out for its weird status.
I've always wanted to see it because Larry McMurtry references it in The Last Picture Show. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 10:22 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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(Lee Daniels') The Butler is a very good movie--not great, but very good--with qualities which elevate it enormously. Chief among these is the way it tells its story. Forest Whitaker plays (exquisitely) a character modeled after the real-life man who served as a White House butler from the Eisenhower administration through Reagan. He begins the story as someone who wants to stay far removed from politics and civil rights but for various reasons becomes gradually more invested. It's the gradual nature of the story that commands most respect. There is no white-light moment in this man's life. He evolves almost by osmosis, and it's the beauty of Whitaker's performance that he lets you see the changes without pushing or indicating a thing.
He's helped by the supporting performances of Oprah Winfrey as his loving, chain-smoking, alcoholic wife and David Oyelowo as his radicalized son. Playing various presidents are Robin Williams, Alan Rickman, John Cusack, Liev Schreiber, and others. The movie is beautifully directed by Lee Daniels and--if never exactly a dramatic thunderbolt--it's interesting throughout. "Never boring" is a real asset in a movie like this. And the great Forest Whitaker is an asset to any project. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 8:55 am |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 4:50 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| It's my belief that Oprah Winfrey is a born actress who concentrated on the wrong profession. Granted, being a talk show host/mogul has made her wealthier and far more influential than an acting career ever would. But she always inhabits her characters so completely. I don't believe I've ever seen her give a bad performance. |
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