Alternative monitoring of popular culture ~ broadly defined ~ in the pursuit of deeper understanding
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Blue Jasmine
Cate Blanchett's performance in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine is so rarefied that it is nearly impossible for me to imagine another actress (aside from, of course, Meryl Streep) matching it this year. It is remarkable. This photo is from an alchemical scene in which Blanchett's Jasmine reveals the depths of her pain to her sister's 10-year-old boys who have been left in her charge. Jasmine's life as a New York trophy wife and socialite was capsized by the arrest, conviction and suicide of her unscrupulous husband (Alec Baldwin). Impoverished and addled by fistfuls of Xanax, Jasmine goes to San Francisco to live with her sister, Ginger (a tremendous Sally Hawkins), whose cramped day-to-day existence with a coterie of brutish men pushes all of Jasmine's neurotic buttons. This is Woody Allen at his best. Highly recommended.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Five Chinese Brothers
I start volunteering with a reading program at a neighborhood grammar school this week, and I've been reflecting on my experience with...
-
As you closely read the two photographs above -- Sally Mann's "Candy Cigarette"(top) and Diane Arbus's ...
-
The release of a new Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA) feature film is an event for cinephiles because the decidedly quirky and celebrated auteur...
-
Christopher McQuarrie has directed the four most recent Mission: Impossibles; the earlier installments were directed by a variety of other...

No comments:
Post a Comment