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| Syd |
 Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2013 7:48 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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The casting of the presidents seemed odd. Also James Marsden as John F. Kennedy. I thought Schreiber did a good job of capturing Johnson's dynamism, though he doesn't really look like him. Cusack was best as the alcoholic mess Nixon, otherwise he's miscast. I did like Rickman reasonably well as Reagan. I kept thinking "Angela Davis" when I saw the son's girlfriend, and another character seemed to be Huey Newton. Whitaker again buries himself in a performance. I forgot it was him for a while. It looks like he lost the 50 pounds he gained to play Idi Amin, and maybe a bit more.
I thought the movie was best when it concentrated on the generation conflict between father and son. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:44 pm |
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I just got back from seeing Blue Jasmine.
I am certainly on the side of Ghulam. A very good movie. Up there with Woody's best, though in my opinion he has double numbers in his best list. I was transfixed from beginning to end. And the two leading actresses were exceptional. Another thing about Woody's handling of the movie, he doesn't drag out scenes that shouldn't be dragged out; he cuts them where they need to be cut, and goes right along to the next one.
Sally Hawkins' role is played without a flaw and Blanchett's role is also flawless, but contains a wild ride of mental and emotional swings that Cate does so convincingly that one has to think that she'd be scary as hell if you ever met her in real life. (I'd take that chance anyway).
Is she single?  |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 8:14 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| Gary--Didn't you even wonder whether Dwight had ever heard of Google? Obviously Woody hasn't. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 8:20 pm |
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| Who's Dwight and what has Google got to do with anything? |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 8:49 pm |
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| Ah, now I know who Dwight was, but why would he use Google to get info on Jasmine? He believed what she told him. And Google may not have had much info on Jasmine French if she wasn't known by that last name anyway. We never even know Hal's last name. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 6:29 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| The World's End was enjoyable as you might expect from a movie in which a bar crawl turns into a battle against alien-produced replicants. Sort of like combining Sideways with Invasion of the Body Snatchers and casting Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The movie also reveals the true purpose of the Internet and iPhones. There are some big laughs, but also a lot of action with moves borrowed from professional wrestling. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 6:37 pm |
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| Thanks Syd, now I have another movie I plan to see, |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 10:01 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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marantzo wrote: Ah, now I know who Dwight was, but why would he use Google to get info on Jasmine?
He has political ambitions. Why would he propose to a woman he knows so little about? |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 10:13 pm |
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He was in love with her and as is common in men, they believe that a woman they are falling in love with and who is falling in love with him, will be honest about herself. This may be a problem with women also but I never fell in love with a man so I have no idea, except that many of the women I got involved with were liars.
Dwight had money coming out of his ears, and he was a very nice fellow, so even if he did run for office, having a screwball for a wife wouldn't be a big problem.
P.S. He thought he knew a lot about her. Sadly, she just made up his past. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 8:46 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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Saw Blue J last night and mainly enjoyed it for the actor's showcase. Agree with some of the remarks here about improbability. Jasmine and Dwight running into Augie seemed like astronomically small odds in a big city. Or, as Billy noted, Ginger just happens to see Hal and a mistress kissing while her cab is stopped and Augie is asleep - right. But I've come to expect that as part of Allen's method of storytelling, quirky, a bit surreal and improbable. The city as a realm of strange coincidence: pure Woody.
Like Gary, I can accept that Dwight was just experiencing the impaired brain function that men sometimes experience when they are smitten. My film copain wondered, at first, if he, Dwight, was some kind of con artist (you know, the bullshitter gets a taste of their own medicine thing) and I also wondered if the plot might take that twist, but was glad when it didn't.
Really loved Bobby Cannavale as Chili, the imperfect but goodhearted BF, and I don't think I've ever liked Sally Hawkins more (and I've certainly liked her a good deal LESS). She really stands out in this movie, as others noted. Louis C.K. also perfect in the brief time he had onscreen.
Really, the big flaw in this film, for me, was simply the way Allen tried to drive a Message into my brain with a jackhammer - the moral bankruptcy of the rich, the innate decency (and, with Hawkins, near infinite tolerance) (or was that more just passivity?) of the lower socioeconomic classes. The angst of the trophy wife. Blanchett simply goes OTT in the quest for an unthinkably selfish rotten mess of a woman, the fallen aristocrat whose bubble has burst....yeah, yeah, we get it Woody. The problem with caricature is that.....well, it's caricature, and you cease to believe.
In Jasmine's big confrontation with her husband (played so perfectly by Alec Baldwin; my god, I've seen the Dark Doppelganger of Jack Donaghy!), are we to believe that someone so out for herself couldn't absorb his statement, "Don't worry, I'll take care of you," and process that sufficiently to realize that she does not want to run to the telephone and sic the FBI on him?? That sort of woman has a better sense of self-preservation than that. She may be going nuts, but she's not stupid. I just didn't buy the scene. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 9:37 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| I've only been skimming these posts because I have yet to see "Blue Jasmine," but I have to say that New York City produces some odd coincidences--some of which encourage my belief in mind control. When I was involved with the only guy I really cared about--I hesitate to say I was in love with him, but after 30 years I still miss him--we ran into each other on the same subway car in the middle of one workday afternoon, both of us on unexpected errands that took us from the office. Highly unlikely, which I would scarcely believe in a movie. And after we broke up, I saw him once standing on a corner waiting for a light to change, and snapped his picture; when I showed it to a friend, he asked why I took a picture of Hiro, an old girlfriend of his. She was standing near my ex, obviously just another pedestrian waiting for the light. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 9:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Carol--Those are the exceptions that prove the rule, but though life may be stranger than fiction, outlandish coincidences are not dramatically viable.
Hadn't even mentioned the outright insanity of Jasmine calling the FBI. This kind of woman would never ever do that.
She would probably call her lawyer. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 11:52 am |
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Jasmine, as I saw her was off balance right from the beginning, including when we see her living the good life. She's living in a fantasy world and when she's not living the good life anymore, her fantasy world is gone and her insanity comes to the surface like a volcano. She'd played the role of the wife who didn't know or even think about what her husband did when at work. She lied about it and may even had believed it herself. Her personality was split in a number of ways. I think it was realistic when she called the cops. She was furious and crazed by what her husband told her. She was out of control, not something that was unusual for someone like her. She wanted to punish her husband as strongly as possible, completely clueless about what it would do to her. Let's face it, she was unbalanced!
I also loved the performance of Cannavale. He's damn good. He was wonderful in The Station Agent also. I'd be shocked if he isn't the nice guy that I know he must be.
Bart, I never felt jack-hammered in the least. I rolled with all the punches. And not unlike carrobin, I've run into people I know in unusual places. Many were in NYC. I've also seen men I knew, who were cheating, in places that were unusual. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 11:58 am |
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| I'd put money on Blanchett getting the Oscar for Best Actress. She deserves it. What a performance! |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 5:29 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| I've always admired Cate Blanchett, but, unlike her fellow countrywoman, Nicole Kidman, she rarely gets asked to carry a film on her own. It could be because she exudes a slightly cold, fiercely intelligent aura. I find it attractive, but I don't think it invites sympathy. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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