Blue Jasmine: The Best Movie of 2013 Thus Far

Blue Jasmine opened last weekend in L.A. and New York.  One of the advantages of living in these two cities is, outside of film festivals, you get the opportunity to see all the new limited releases before anyone else.  It kind of sucks that so many film enthusiasts have to wait longer, but that's the way it goes, unfortunately.  I imagine, though, in the near future, things will begin changing, as the way movies open and roll out in the marketplace will change.

I'm pretty difficult to please when it comes to films, those.  My standards are too high for what comes out of the mainstream, but my tastes aren't refined enough as cineastes who can appreciate the most obscure of foreign language directors, and are genuinely excited by each new Terrence Malick film.  I mostly find my favorites in the higher profile projects in the art-house circuit.  But, even then, it feels like slim pickings.  I didn't even do a Top Ten list for 2012, because I felt myself stretching my opinions disingenuously to complete it (as I kind of did in 2011), so I scrapped it all together.  This year has proven to be a bit more promising.  We've had the excellent relationship examination "threequel" Before Midnight.  Mud was a southern coming-of-age dramatic thriller.  And The Conjuring was one of the best horror suspense movies I have seen in a quite a while.  However, it was last weekend, when I truly got my socks blown off by veteran filmmaker Woody Allen.

You never really know what to expect each new year he turns out a new movie like clockwork.  After his penultimate Annie Hall, he quite frequently batted one out of the park for over a good decade.  One classic, memorable film after another.  Pretty soon, his creative juices began leaking just a little, and he was able to provide entertaining, if not dependable material quite consistently.  And, then, for a while, even though one of his "worst" films is better than your average's directors best, he kept hitting brick wall after brick wall.  But, then, ever since he began traipsing across Europe in the mid-2000s, with a new major metropolitan setting each time, he experienced a career renaissance, bringing back audiences and critics into his fold.  Two years, he came out with the crowdpleaser Midnight in Paris, a hilarious and inventive comedy that saw a return-to-form for the writer/director.

Now, with his latest, Blue Jasmine, he has done the imaginable, and topped himself in a very short time.  The movie involves a NYC socialite Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) who has lost everything after her shyster husband (Alec Baldwin) gets arrested for screwing people out of their money.  Her character has not only been compared to Ruth Madoff, but also Blanche Dubois. She's a deluded, entitled woman who, after living a life of obscene luxury built on lies and willful ignorance, must move in with her lower-class sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) in a less posh area of San Francisco's Mission District.  The film, fortunately, isn't an exact parallel to A Streetcar Named Desire, and has plenty of insight in regards to social strata, mobility, and the ugly relationship between the rich and the poor, as the movie oscillates between present day and flashbacks.  Truth be told, the seams sometimes show a little too glaringly between shifts in time, but the payoff at the end really packs a punch.  I've admired Blanchett from a distance for a great while.  She exudes sophistication and intelligence, and is a preeminent Hollywood style icon.  Unfortunately, I've never really cared for most of her films and/or performances.  Her talent on the screen, while apparent, was always difficult for me to appreciate through her bland choices.  But, thankfully, with this film, I can embrace her for once as the real deal and revel in how great she truly is.  While her portrait of Jasmine is mannered (very early on, she begins talking to herself), it's hard not to imagine any other actress giving her character a naturalness.  She is just so larger than life, it's quite forgivable.  And, she's supported by a strong, eclectic cast which includes Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Louis C.K., and Peter Sarsgaard.  Also, we don't get the typical locale shots, but it was still pleasurable to get somewhat of a tour of one of the finest U.S. cities, and by a director of Allen's caliber non-less (I wouldn't mind a warranted revisit).

This movie was packing the houses all week and expanded this weekend, where I hope it will continue to set box-office records.  Last weekend and continuing this week, it opened with the highest PTA (per theater average) for 2013, surpassing that of Midnight In Paris' wildly exceptional debut. Below is a non-spoiler clip from one of the NYC flashbacks where Jasmine accuses her husband of cheating on her.

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Best Actress 2013: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen has put out one film every year since Annie Hall ... which came out in 1977.  That's thirty-five films in thirty-five years.  And many of them great to not half-bad.  Incredible, right?  A few years ago, he stepped up his game by leaving New York City and venturing elsewhere for different backdrops for his stories.  He has paid cinematic visits to London, Barcelona, Paris, Rome, and, now, with his latest, Blue Jasmine, his first American sojourn outside NYC to San Francisco.  Little is known about the plot other than a fashionable New York housewife (presumably played by Cate Blanchett) undergoes a crisis and finds herself living with her sister (presumably played by Sally Hawkins, having previously appeared in Cassandra's Dream) in San Francisco.  Either or both Blanchett and Hawkins are leads.  Allen hasn't earned a leading actress nod in any of his films since the 1970s, though he has collected a series of supporting.  Hawkins narrowly missed out on a nomination in 2008, having won the Golden Globe (Comedy) for Happy-go-lucky.  Blanchett has five nods under her belt, as well as one win.  Having earned four nominations from 2004 - 2007, she hasn't been nominated since, though she was also on the radar in 2008.  Jasmine's eclectic cast includes Alec Baldwin, Peter Sarsgaard, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, and Michael Stuhlbarg.  Helen Robin, who has been with Allen since Another Woman, is producing.  Production Designer Santo Loquasto has been with Allen just as long, having started as a costume designer on some of Allen's earlier films including Stardust Memories.  Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe previously worked with Allen on Vicky Cristina Barcelona.  Sony Pictures Classics is distributing.

Check out more Best Actress 2013 contenders

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Re-Oscaring & Supporting Actress Winners

As I already covered previous lead winners, those who have won both acting Oscars (Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Maggie Smith) or who have won the lead but may have a shot at supporting in their future (Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Kathy Bates) won't be covered here.  Though, with the consistent amount of industry love she has received over the course of her career, with her show Downton Abbey being one of the "it" series of late, a third Oscar for Smith in the next couple of years wouldn't surprise me.  Dianne Wiest, of course, is the modern benchmark in this category, specifically.  The character actress stealthily won hers eight years apart with a nomination in between.  She continues to work in both film and TV, even getting into the pre-release buzz recently for her role as Nicole Kidman's mother in Rabbit Hole.  A third Oscar doesn't seem possible, but I wouldn't rule another nomination somewhere down the line.  While anything can happen, what are the odds that a previous winner will make it back to the Dolby Theater, perhaps even on its stage after the envelop is opened?

Cate Blanchett winning again seems inevitable to me.  She may even eventually collect two more, though one will most definitely be for lead.  After taking home Oscar for her second nod, she went on to gather three more nominations in one calendar year.  She has this effortless ability to choose commercial prospects, while working with the best directors.  She has a tremendous amount of respect in the industry, all the while staying out of the tabloids while raising her three boys with her husband, who serves as co-artistic director with her for the Sydney Theatre Company.  Upcoming films include her participation in The Hobbit series, two Terrence Malick movies, as well as Woody Allen's latest project.  George Clooney will direct her in another World War II film.  She may join forces with Mia Wasikowska in a female-oriented film.  And Barbra Streisand (!) may direct her in the role of famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White.

Vanessa Redgrave is legend.  She has been nominated six times, having won supporting once over three decades ago for her title character Julia.  She hasn't been nominated since Howards End in 1992 (and as an old unsubstantiated rumor has it, she actually did win; see below).  Talk surfaced of possibly getting recognized for last year's Coriolanus, but nothing came of it.  She knows the importance of attaching herself to moneymakers to fuel more passionate projects, which makes me think that she'll be part of the Oscar conversation soon enough.  Next year, she'll appear in The Butler with her Julia costar Jane Fonda.  She'll also star in chilling, tragic Foxcatcher, the baity project that may result in Oscar talk for Steve Carell.

Oscar seems to love Judi Dench.  While they bypassed her for Helen Hunt her first nomination, they quickly made up to her one year later with a supporting trophy and then nominated her four more times.  With a reoccuring role in the Bond franchise, Dench has no intention of her macular degeneration stopping her from plowing forward with her craft.  My favorite performance of hers remains her last nominated role in 2006's Notes on a Scandal, which incidentally happens to be her ONLY nomination out of six, which didn't involve Harvey Weinstein.  It seems she is at least due for a nomination, but can she do it without WTC?  Can Fox Searchlight make it happen for her this year?

Rachel Weisz seems to be going down the road of Jennifer Connelly, but I have faith that she will gather her bearings and get back on track.  She is just way too talented and is probably in a bit of a lull, though some loved her in The Deep Blue Sea. I imagine she will at least make it into the leading category at some point.

Angelina Jolie is currently the biggest star on this list.  It doesn't seem like she will ever be "supporting" anything or anyone again, but her ability to pull a nomination in 2008 for Clint Eastwood's Changeling shows that the AMPAS have no regrets about handing her an Oscar over a decade ago when her star was on the rise.  Although, it's strange to me that they overlooked her the year before for A Mighty Heart, a better performance amongst less competition.

Is it because I see Marcia Gay Harden having a faint resemblance to Wiest that I place her so high up on this list?  She did win a Tony just three years ago.

Whether Angelica Huston is in film or TV, she always seems to be getting a mention for something.  She hit her stride in the mid-80s and kept her momentum going full-throttle for nearly a good decade.  Considering her integral role in the Smash series, she's clearly a force to be reckoned with.

There was that nasty urban legend that Jack Palance read the last name on the screen (Marisa Tomei) instead of the winner's name (Vanessa Redgrave in this instance), which Tomei and the AMPAS have managed to put to rest somewhat thanks to her involvement with In the Bedroom and The Wrestler and the nominations which resulted over the last twenty years.  (Was it too many push-ups on Palance's part?)

Aren't Penélope Cruz and Kim Basinger too beautiful to be rewarded an additional Oscar?  Still, Cruz now has three nominations.

Tilda Swinton's win will go down as one of those rare instances where the AMPAS actually made a cool decision by awarding the best artist in what was an undecided race.  I doubt she will ever win again, let along get nominated, if her mesmerizing performances in 2009 (Julia), 2010 (I Am Love), AND 2011 (We Need to Talk About Kevin), went ignored.  Hello.  We get it Academy, you're not interested in her and her win was a fluke.  But, we're glad it happened.  Juliette Binoche is another international star who doesn't seem like she can be bothered by the dog-and-pony show.  She genuinely thought she was going to lose to Lauren Bacall when she ended up taking the stage for a role that might as well have been a lead in The English Patient.

Renée Zellweger's Oscar felt like a consolation prize, "Now, go away, shoo!"  She went from awards circuit fixture to pariah.  After using up her good-will on the likes of Ron Howard and George Clooney, her rom-coms and Oscar-baiting failed to pan out commercially or critically.  After a long dry spell, suddenly, she's turning to directing.  Zellweger's former costar, the talented statuesque Catherine Zeta-Jones had accumulated her own set of hits before winning for Chicago.  She continued to attract A-list talent for a short while, before she started signing on to franchises she wasn't previously part of like Ocean's Twelve and Red 2.  Jennifer Connelly started to attract big talent right before she won for A Beautiful Mind.  It appeared her win would springboard her to leading lady status, but nothing stuck.  Still, she keeps herself pretty busy in features.

Mira Sorvino built her four subsequent years on her win, until Hollywood learned that audiences weren't going to just show up because she was an Oscar winner.  They still didn't know who she was, and it's not like everyone follows Woody Allen films.  To greater effect, Geena Davis used her win to catapult herself into hits like Thelma & Louse and A League of Their Own.  When she started running out of gas, she tried to reinvent herself as an action heroine.  Over the years, she has tried her hand at TV star. Look for her in 2013 in a film that was written and directed by Lake Bell, of all people.

Consider Yourself Rewarded

Melissa Leo fought tooth and nail for her Oscar.  "Consider" ... many probably have had enough of her off-screen.

Eclectic mix of character actors who were one-hit wonders with the awards circuit once upon a time when the stars aligned and never gained much traction with subsequent roles: Mary Steenburgen, Mercedes Ruehl.  There are those that just come and go like lightning flashes.  Brenda Fricker has a pretty low-key profile compared to the year when My Left Foot came out, although do you remember her as the bag lady in Home Alone 2?  Who knows what the future holds for Octavia Spencer, but I certainly didn't know who she was before The Help.  Singer Jennifer Hudson doesn't appear to be having a very good go at keeping her film career as relevant as the promise of Oscar might suggest.  The diminutive Linda Hunt has a very special set of skills that probably won't see her repeating a meeting with Oscar.

Consider Dancing with the Stars

Some legends have taken their Oscar to television and haven't looked back.  Cloris Leachman and Rita Moreno do quite well for themselves.  Why not Shirley Jones?  Screen legend Goldie Hawn is having a good time getting drunk in Paris, so she doesn't need to work on the small screen, or that silver one.  She needs not be bothered by Oscar.  Estelle Parsons managed an additional nomination a year after winning her Oscar, which comprised most of the extent of her industry recognition.  While she enjoyed a long reoccurring run for her bat-shit-crazy performance as Roseanne (and Jackie's) mother, she logs quite a bit of time on stage.

This category is a bastion for child actors who never quite develop the feature film career as an adult to match their head-start in movies.  Tatum O'Neil hasn't even had the good fortune Patty Duke and Anna Paquin have enjoyed in TV during various points in their life.

Consider Your Own Talk Show

Whoopi Goldberg is one of the few winners who had a commercial career both before and after her Oscar.  After her amazing debut in The Color Purple, she had a series of critical flops, which still made a dime at the box-office.  Her Oscar-winning role in Ghost would lead to the Sister Act movies that would keep her going well into the 90s before she spent all of her film capital on crappy material.  Right now, she looks content sharing the set of The View.  Mo'Nique, on the other hand, has her own talk show, thank you very much.

Eve Marie Saint is still kicking, but she hasn't been part of any awards talk since winning an Emmy over two decades ago.  Lee Grant took to directing, even appeared in Mulholland Dr., but I imagine she may have entirely all-together retired.  Dorothy Malone is done, having taken her final bow with a sly cameo in one of my favorites, Basic Instinct.

Thanks for reading.  I hope you enjoyed this.

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Nicole Kidman: Filling Up Her Face Tank for New Role

My eyes needed a break from that horror show of a face that belongs to Nicole Kidman after checking today's blogs, so I googled for a recent picture of the similarly-aged Cate Blanchett and found this photo with her and her son at an awards show in Sydney.  So classy.  But, then, her interests as an actor include a heavy amount of her time devoted to theatre, so what do you expect?  Not to diminish Kidman's talents, because, as a film actress, she is also all about the craft.  But, then, there's that ambition of hers that undermines her physical state.  Where Blanchett gets her fill playing Hedda Gabler and Blanche DuBois on stage, Kidman gets her fill from botulism and lip injections so she can be immortalized as Grace Kelly on celluloid.  She is convinced there are parts out there below her age she *must* play before she moves on to more mature roles (which, I guess, will happen after Oscar #2?).  Her goals have distorted what she presents before us on the surface, however.  I will probably always love her acting and most movie choices, but her visage is fit for a straight-to-video slasher pic. She has looked this bad in the past, but I think it's now evident that she will never return to any kind of natural glory (why was I so late in giving myself this memo?). She's like a villain from a Miyazaki animated feature, with her face being the front of an aircraft that swoops down to gobble up little children screaming for their parents.  For more pictures (not of this non-existent Miyazaki masterpiece, but of Kidman at the Emmy's last night), click here and here, if you dare.  Who knows, maybe the soon-to-be-filmed Grace of Monaco will be one for the books.  Or perhaps it will be a train-wreck.  I'd put money on the former, of course, as I originally blogged.  But, I'm afraid I'm going to have to reneg slightly.  I am now awfully curious in a skeptical way as to how Grace herself will look onscreen through the skin of Kidman.  But, with the recent announcement of one of my favorites Parker Posey joining the cast, there's going to be plenty to look forward to, cautiously and otherwise.  The $30M production begins filming soon!

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