Cate Blanchett Is A Hot Mess In Woody Allen's BLUE JASMINE

Now playing at an indie art house near you:



BLUE JASMINE (Dir. Woody Allen, 2013)

In Woody Allen’s newest, Cate Blanchett’s Jeanette “Jasmine” Francis is the definition of a “hot mess.” A former Manhattan socialite who was previously married to Alec Baldwin as a millionaire investment banker, Blanchett is now a penniless widow who has no home. This is due to Baldwin’s Bernie Madoff-style swindling that put him in prison, where he committed suicide.

Blanchett’s adopted sister, Ginger, played by Sally Hawkins (HAPPY GO LUCKY), takes her into her humble San Franciscan apartment, ostensibly until the disgraced down-on-her-luck lady can get back on her feet.

In flashbacks we learn that Hawkins was once married to Andrew Dice Clay (yes, that Andrew Dice Clay) as a construction worker named Augie, but they lost their savings because of a deal gone wrong orchestrated by Baldwin. Hawkins is now dating Bobby Cannavale (Third Watch, Boardwalk Empire) as an auto mechanic that Blanchett dismisses as just another version of Clay’s Augie.

Having never completed college, Blanchett takes a computer class while working at a dentist’s office, but she doesn’t appear to have the aptitude for it. Also she has to fight off the advances of her dentist boss, A SERIOUS MAN’s Michael Stuhlbarg (another Boardwalk Empire regular).

Things look up for Blanchett and Hawkins when they attend a ritzy party together and meet new suitors in the form of Peter Sarsgaard as an aspiring politician, and Louis C.K. (a fitting addition to Allen’s cinematic universe) as a audio equipment salesman.

It’s a pleasure to report that Allen’s 44th movie as writer and director is among his strongest films. The fluidity of how he flashes back and forward is flawless, never confusing the viewer as to what happened when, with the dialogue’s naturalistic flow filling in all the information needed.

The frazzled boozy Blanchett, a character that's a cross between Tennessee William's Blanche Dubois from STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and John Cassevete's Mabel from A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, carries it all along, accomplishing the neat feat of making you care about her, yet disdaining her actions often at the same time. It’s an Oscar worthy performance that’s impossible to look away from.

Jasmine's unraveling is often handled humorously, but there’s a deep sadness (hence the title) to her story that will works its way into your psyche and stay there for days.

Equal parts comedy and drama (I hate the term “dramedy”), BLUE JASMINE could be seen as a ballsy breakdown of how one from a lofty background (Hawkins says repeatedly that Blanchett was born with “the good genes”), could end up a street person: A riches-to-rags cautionary tale for our shaky financial times. It also works as a treatise on the development of delusion, and the personal dangers of vainly trying to keep up appearances.

Blanchett keeps romanticizing about how the standard “Blue Moon” was playing when she first met Baldwin, but each time the memory gets hazier. By the end it’s as jumbled as she is.

With such solid performances (aside from Blanchett – Baldwin, Hawkins, Clay, Cannavale, Sarsgaard, and C.K. are all terrific), a superb screenplay, the crisp colorful cinematography of Javier Aguirresarobe (VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA), and the expected yet still pleasing jazz score, BLUE JASMINE proves that the 77-year old filmmaker can still wow us.

Blanchett’s Jasmine may be one Hell of a hot mess, but her movie is anything but messy. It’s simply hot stuff through and through.





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TO ROME WITH LOVE: The Film Babble Blog Review

TO ROME WITH LOVE (Dir. Woody Allen, 2012)

This year’s Woody Allen film is a Rome-set ensemble rom-com, but you could probably guess that from its trite title. It’s a blend of several disconnected story strands, that comes off like Allen is cleaning out his notebooks of jotted down ideas without fully fleshing them out.

There is a bit of the winning charm of Allen’s last film, the hugely popular MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, mainly in a scenario which has a sly Alec Baldwin revisiting his youth through Jesse Eisenberg (a perfect fit for an Allen film) who finds himself in a love triangle with Ellen Pageand Greta Gerwig.

And there’s some amusement from Allen, acting onscreen for the first time since 2006’s SCOOP, as a classical music promoter trying to make an opera star out of his daughter Alison Pill’s fiancée (Flavio Parenti) who can only sing in the shower.

But mostly TO ROME WITH LOVE is a trifle; a fluffy only fitfully funny film. Yet it so pleasantly breezes along with such gorgeous photography of its Italian locales by Darius Khondji, that it’s still a likable lark.

Take, for instance, Roberto Benigni’s storyline - Benigni plays a man who wakes up one morning to find that he’s become the famous person in Italy, but for no given reason. The press follows him everywhere, recording his every moment, much to Benigni’s bemusement.

Throughout his career, Allen has so much better satirized the media’s obsession with meaningless celebrity (see 1998’s CELEBRITY), than this silly go-round, but here Allen seems to be having such fun with it that it’s hard not to chuckle - even if it’s just a few mild chuckles worth.

Another strand, maybe the most sitcom-ish, concern Alessandro Tiberi and Alessandra Mastronardi as newlyweds who have to separately deal with the sexual temptations of a prostitute (Penelope Cruz) and a famous actor (Antonio Albanese). The comedy in this bit creaks more than in the others, and the payoff is extremely predictable, but Cruz, stunning as she’s ever looked on the screen, still makes it pop.

I was happy to see Allen back in his familiar role as the neurotic nebbish, and married to Judy Davis (a veteran of 4 previous Allen movies), but wished he came equipped with better one-liners. It says a lot that the role he gave himself is as underwritten as everybody else's.

TO ROME WITH LOVE is an average later day Woody Allen film - it’s better than SCOOP, TO MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER, and WHATEVER WORKS, but not as good as VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS or MATCH POINT. For a 76-year old film maker who puts out a movie a year, that’s not a bad batting average.

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ROCK OF AGES Left Me Hair Metal-ed Out

Opening today at a multiplex near you:



ROCK OF AGES (Dir. Adam Shankman, 2012)

Back when I was a teenager in the ‘80s, I hated the music this movie celebrates.

When I think of great ‘80s rock, I think of R.E.M., The Replacements, The Pixies, Hüsker Dü, Psychedelic Furs, The Cure, The Smiths, et al.

The bands whose music (sung by the cast) makes up the soundtrack of this movie - Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Journey, Poison, Guns N' Roses, Def Leopard - were the commercial sell-out arena rock enemies to me.

Over time, I started to appreciate some of the output of the latter contingent, but in an ironic way. I wouldn’t listen to this music on my own, but it sure sounded good when it blasted out of Tony Soprano’s stereo.

For a bit of the screen time of ROCK OF AGES, which is based on the 2006 Broadway musical, the gimmick of ‘80s power-ballad-anthems being sung by stars like Tom Cruise (as a very Axl Rose-ish rock star), Alec Baldwin, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Russell Brand, is comically enjoyable.

But before it even got to the half-hour mark, I was more than a little hair metal-ed out.

I can’t complain that the film is cheesy, garish, and utterly ridiculous because it’s purposely packaged to be that way. The cliché-ridden plot is by design too - small town girl (Julianne Hough) comes to LA to become a singer, and meets a city boy (Diego Boneta) - yes, just like the Journey lyrics - and they pine for fame while working at a popular club, the Bourbon Room, which is in danger of being shut down because of unpaid taxes.

Of the cast, only Cruise, who swaggers through the movie, stands out (everybody, especially Baldwin is just peddling their same old shtick), but he’s not given much of a character. In a movie like this, I know that doesn’t matter; it only matters that Cruise can sing.

But the concept’s charm is diluted by the numbing overabundance of ‘80s music video tropes, and whatever fun I was supposed to be having was gets buried under noisy annoying mash-ups like when Zeta-Jones’ Tipper Gore-esque character (whose back story is instantly guessable) and her Christian cronies sing Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” while Brand and the Bourbon Room crowd respond with Starship’s “We Built This City.”

Director Shankman, did a much better job with handling the music and choreography in HAIRSPRAY a few years back. But much like that film, ROCK OF AGES looks like a over-lit television show - it’s not cinematic looking at all. Shankman has had his hand in directing a few episodes of Glee (go figure - he did the “Rocky Horror” one), so that’s no surprise.

All of this would be easier to take if it didn’t run for over 2 hours (okay, only 3 minutes over, but still).

Maybe if they cut most of the crappy dialogue out and kept it to the length of a mix CD (80 min.), then folks not partial to this music, like me, wouldn’t get so unbearably overpowered by the excess of icky ‘80s power-ballad-anthems on glitzy display.

Actually, even then, this would be pretty hard going.





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The Way-Back Machine Movie Of The Month: THE COOLER (2003)

Since all my posts lately have been reviews of current movies, I’m starting this new monthly feature in which I’ll highlight a movie from the past I haven't covered before.

This first entry of this series is a movie that came out in 2003: Wayne Kramer’s THE COOLER (I originally reviewed it here).

THE COOLER isn’t the best of the genre of casino movies set in Las Vegas, but it’s one of the most memorable and touching due to an excellent invested performance by William H. Macy in the title role. Simply put, a “cooler” is someone that is so cursed with bad luck that it’s contagious, so if they show up while a player is on a winning streak – the player immediately starts losing.

Look up the term online, and nobody will confirm that while casinos have, in the past, hired shills to keep games going, the existence of coolers appears to be just a myth or an urban legend.

One of the joys of this film is how well this conceit is pulled off.

Macy’s character, Bernie Lootz, is employed by the fictional Shangri-La casino to reverse the fortunes of high-rolling gamblers just by being next to them when they play. When we first see Macy do this, wearing an over-sized suit with his patented droopy hangdog face, it’s both amusing and convincing.

He strolls through the casino, gently running his fingers along the side of a roulette table as he walks by, then brushing against the backs of a couple playing Baccarat, spreading his bad luck in swift little instances that result in choruses of disappointed ‘awws’ every time.

Alec Baldwin plays Macy’s hard-ass boss, Sheldon “Shelly” Kapow, who is old-school Vegas through and through. Baldwin rejects a young consultant’s (Ron Livingston) ideas about modernizing the Shangri-La, because he considers the Strip to now be a “Disneyland mookfest.”

What with his outlandish work as Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, as well as his suave goofball persona on Saturday Night Live and the Oscars (also those damn commercials for Capital One), it’s easy to forget how sinister the man can be. Baldwin’s “Shelly” is a great reminder of his dark side; his powerful intimidating performance garnered his only Academy Award nomination to date for Best Supporting Actor.

Another often intimidating actor, Paul Sorvino, plays the Shangri-Lai’s house lounge singer Buddy Stafford who is well aware that his spotlight has faded, and that Baldwin is lying to him about women leaving their panties on his dressing room door knob. When accused of this, Baldwin protests: “You’re saying I’m some Buddy Stafford ego pimp?” That’s that kind of spiel Baldwin spews through the whole film – he nails what’s going on by transparently denying it. Another example from a later exchange with Macy: “Jesus, Bernie. Is that what you think? That I would fuck with your happiness?” Yes, Shelly, that’s exactly what he thinks.

So yeah, Baldwin steals the show, but let’s get back to Macy. Bernie Lootz is possibly the most likable of the losers Macy has played throughout his career. He’s a far cry from the sleazy losers from films like BOOGIE NIGHTS or his recent Showtime show Shameless, and the pathetic losers from MAGNOLIA and FARGO, in that Bernie is actually a good decent guy. When Maria Bello as a Shangri-La cocktail waitress who takes a shine to him (something that at first seems more implausible than the whole “cooler” idea) calls him precisely that – “just a decent guy, trying to get back on track” – nobody can dispute that.

Macy and Bello have some explicit sex scenes that almost got the movie an NC-17 because Bello’s pubic hair can be seen, but I doubt that’s anything my readers would complain about.

Macy’s so nice that he gives his skuzzy son (Shawn Hatosy) his savings of $3,000 when the no-good lug shows up out of nowhere with a very pregnant girlfriend (Estella Warren) in tow.

That leads to the film’s most talked about scene, (Spoiler Alert!) in which Baldwin punches Warren in the stomach, revealing a pillow under her shirt - showing that the couple has been scamming Bernie the whole time. In a 2005 interview in the British magazine Uncut, Baldwin spoke about the scene: “First of all, if he’d literally punched a pregnant woman, I don’t think I would’ve done the movie. He punches a woman he knows is not really pregnant. That’s the thing about the man: he has an uncanny, elevated ability to detect fraud.”

It’s a scene that seethes with tension, most of which comes from Baldwin’s unhinged ,yet in-control-of-everything attitude. His dark sarcasm: “Break out the Champagne, everybody. Bernie’s a grandfather!” as he hands a shocked Macy the pillow, is as disturbing as it is funny. I believe it was for this scene alone that Baldwin got the Oscar nom.

Before I visited Las Vegas for the first time in 2009, I didn’t know the difference between the Strip and the Downtown area. On one of 2 commentary tracks that the DVD has, cinematographer James Whitaker speaking about the opening montage of aerial footage of Vegas landmarks at night points out: “It’s a great progression from upscale Las Vegas, then, as you’ll see in a second, we move into the Downtown portion where the film takes place.”

Obviously, the 4.2 mile Strip is the upscale Las Vegas, while the Downtown is the seedier area where all the main action used to be – the original gambling district. As I saw in 2009, the Downtown still looks like it did in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER or just about any other old Vegas movie or TV show. Incidentally, several of the hotels featured in the opening, including the Aladdin and the Sands) have since been demolished. 

It’s this old-school Vegas that Baldwin is trying to preserve with the Shangri-La, but that Macy and Bello don’t care about. They’ve found love, they don’t have to romanticize a dying ideal – they have actual romance, and that’s something Baldwin can’t stand.

Because of Bello’s love, Macy no longer functions as a cooler. His luck has changed and suddenly everyone around him is winning at all the casino games in exaggerated displays of cheers, hugs, and dancing in showers of coins. That’s another thing that Baldwin can’t stand.

It’s going to take a craps table climax for Macy to settle up with Baldwin, and leave the damn town that’s been dragging him down. Sure, it’s a big winning game ending is a sports movie cliché but here it feels earned.

THE COOLER is far from perfect. A scene in which a mafia boss Arthur J. Nascarella nearly beats to death a backwards baseball hat wearing dickhead tourist on the casino floor has a forced GOODFELLAS-feel to it, and gag shots like the one below are maybe a little too obvious.







Also Ellen Greene (who appeared in one of my favorite films TALK RADIO with Baldwin back in '88) is only around to pour coffee for Macy.

These flaws aside, THE COOLER holds up quite nicely. This movie initially seems to be questioning whether you can really tell good luck from bad luck in the long run, but it's more interested in lending a loser a hand.

It so wants Macy to win that it makes some convoluted concessions for that outcome, yet because I wanted that too, I could accept them because, like just about everything else here, they were amusing enough to be convincing.

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Oscars 2010 Recap

In the happiest moment of the evening, the Dude finally abided.

Well, my biggest prediction this year was that I was going to get more wrong than the last few years and I was right about that. I got 13 of 24 which is pretty poor although I did get all the major categories correct (BEST PICTURE, BEST DIRECTOR, BEST ACTOR, BEST ACTRESS, and both of the SUPPORTING ones).



I was way off in all the tech awards but hey it was fun throwing those darts just the same. 



The ones I got wrong:



ART DIRECTION: AVATAR. What I predicted: SHERLOCK HOLMES. I really thought they'd throw HOLMES a bone. Just one.

COSTUME DESIGN:THE YOUNG VICTORIA. I said COCO BEFORE CHANEL because it seemed like the most costumey. I haven't seen either movie actually.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: THE HURT LOCKER

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: PRECIOUS. I said UP IN THE AIR. Seems like a no brainer now.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT: MUSIC BY PRUDENCE. I had picked CHINA'S UNNATURAL DISASTER: THE TEARS OF SICHUAN PROVINCE. This resulted in one of the only surprising moments on the entire telecast: Elinor Burkett pulled what many are calling a "Kanye" Oscar moment mash-up.

MAKEUP: STAR TREK. I thought STAR TREK was going to win one of the 4 awards it was nominated for just not this one. Still it seems deserved.

SOUND MIXING and SOUND EDITING: THE HURT LOCKER won both of these which I really didn't expect. Last year I also chose wrong but made the statement that I should've have known not to vote for the same movie in both sound editing and mixing. Since that's what happened here I guess I really learned nothing.

ANIMATED SHORT: LOGORAMA. I liked LOGORAMA but really thought WALLACE AND GROMIT IN ‘A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH’ had the edge. Sigh.

BEST FOREIGN FILM: THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES (Argentina) Another I haven't seen. I'm brobably going to see THE WHITE RIBBON, which I wrongly predicted, this week since it just came to my area.

As for the show itself, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin had their moments. I agree with Jon Stewart that Martin had the best line of the evening:

"Anyone who has ever worked with Meryl Streep always ends up saying the exact same thing: 'Can that woman act? And, 'What's up with all the Hitler memorabilia?"


Some other highlights included a tribute to John Hughes by way of a snazzy montage and a bevy of the actors who came of age in his films: Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Macaulay Culkin, Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Cryer, Ally Sheedy, and Matthew Broderick.



Shouldn't she be wearing pink?

Ben Stiller had a great deadpan presenter bit - he was made up like one of the Na'vis from AVATAR. Pretty funny stuff.



"This seemed like a better idea in rehearsal."

Okay so I'm pretty Oscar-ed out. Stay tuned for more new movie reviews - a slew of DVD reviews and some major new releases (HOT TUB TIME MACHINE!) that are coming your way.

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IT'S COMPLICATED: The Film Babble Blog Review

IT'S COMPLICATED (Dir. Nancy Meyers, 2009)

 



A recent New York Times Magazine profile of the writer/director of this film opened with this set-up: "Nancy Meyers makes movies set in beautifully appointed, but not opulent, houses about attractive, but not perfect looking, people in which the, unintentionally seductive, middle-aged woman always triumphs."

 

That pretty much nails Meyers' formula especially her previous work SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE which had Diane Keaton in the "unintentionally seductive middle-aged woman" role now inhabited by Meryl Streep. What's nice to report is that the formula fits this film much better as it's a much sharper minded work with less contrived instances of broad comedy.

 

A bubbly giddy Streep is Myers' plucky protagonist - she's been divorced for a decade from the, of course, charming Alec Baldwin, but can muster civility in his presence even when he's accompanied with his young wife (Lake Bell). Streep runs a bustling bakery and has her business life in order, but her friends (Rita Wilson, Mary Kay Place, and Alexandra Wentworth who all act like giggling school girls) all think her love life needs help.

 

Conveniently a nice, also divorced, architect she hires for an addition to her home played by Steve Martin might make for a promising suitor. What's not convenient is that Streep has just started an affair with her ex-husband Baldwin.

 

Baldwin wants to get back together but Streep is filled with doubt - giddy doubt. The giddiness is infectious as the couple hides their fling from their offspring - Hunter Parrish (Weeds), Zoe Gazan, and Caitlin Fitzgerald. John Krasinski (The Office - USA) as Fitzgerald's husband to be, happens to catch sight of the offending party at a hotel and that sitcom-ish detail almost derails the delivery, but the film still breezes along quite convincingly.  Like a witty stage production, the one-liners and earnest declarations of the characters will be what stays with appropriate audiences.





By appropriate I don't just mean the middle-aged woman market - there is much for most men or women who've been around the block a few times to relate to and be amused by.



When Streep describes herself as "the kind of person who makes fun of people who get plastic surgery" as she consults a surgeon and later stops in front of a mirror asking out loud: "Is that what I look like?" it's extremely endearing.



She's one of the biggest movie stars on the planet yet we can sympathize with her aging insecurities like she's our next door neighbor. Her smiling eyes along with Baldwin's longing stares and Martin's sad squinting are warming visages of world weary actors who are still at the top of their game.



"Wow. So that's how grown-ups talk." Streep says after Martin puts his feelings on the table when the complications implied by the title come to light, and for the most part that is true of the film.



Sure, some predictable comic conventions (like the Krasinski subplot) were inevitable in this scenario, but Meyers has played them well here with restrained pay-offs and the ending pulls off a pleasant plausibility. IT'S COMPLICATED is affectionately drawn and a better than average rom com - for appropriate audiences that is.



Oh yeah - Happy New Year's from Film Babble Blog!



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