Thighs Wide Shut

Blue Jasmine
I Left My Heart Has Nothing Left In San Francisco
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
PG-13 | 98 min

Woody Allen‘s recent movies have ranged from unforgettable (Midnight In Paris) to forgettable (Whatever Works) to juss plain forgotten (had zero recollection as to what You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger was about).  And his latest – Blue Jasmine?  As a whole, it’s neither of the three, but of course you should see it, cause it’s a Woody Allen movie, but anyone who does see it will never EVER forget the performance that Cate Blanchett hands in as the title blue-stress.  Oh man, the screen burns with every fiery ember of Cate as Jasmine and her smoldering at-the-ready Chernobyl-level meltdowns.  HOT HOT HOT!!!  She’s a woman scorned, broken, battered, but trying to bounce back.  Will the world let her, or will she burn herself down into pile of alcohol-soaked black ashes?  We’re rooting for her at every (mis)step she takes, even though she’s one of the least rootable characters of 2013.  GO JASMINE!!

So how did Jassy Jasmine bottom out to such a low match point?  She turned a blind eye to husband Alec Baldwin‘s madoff-ing with other people’s monies & philandering all over New York, and before it was too late to open her eyes, she lost everything.  Now she’s begging at the door of Sally Hawkins, her adopted sister who Jasmine could give three sh$ts about.  But times are tough and any family is family when yer down and out and now in San Francisco (new Woody locale, yeah!!).  Hawkins has enuff stuff on her own plate, like trying to feed two kids she sired with ex-husband Andrew Dice Clay (not playing for nursery rhyme laughs, and it works!), and a non-stop yapping greasy new beau in the form of Bobby Cannavale (although his yawk-y character doesn’t seem like the kinda guy who’d be living in the Bay Area).  Of course Jasmine complicates matters for all parties involved, as anything she (or Woody) touches turns into instant-neuroticism.  Things eventually do get better between the sisters, and then they each meet a dashing new man – Jasmine + Peter Sarsgaard and Hawkins + Louis CK, but the likelihood of the forecast staying perma-sunny in a ‘blue’ movie is about the same as the chances that dentist Michael Stuhlbarg or dopey mustachio Max Casella have of scoring with Cate Blanchett

Wowsers Cate Blanchett!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Are you the best actress alive?  Dare we say possibly even bester than the grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat Meryl Streep?  Time will tell for some, but we may be ready to make and stick by such a bold claim.  Streep of course coulda played a perfect Jasmine, and has even worked with Woody before, but I just don’t see a Streep Jasmine giving me movie memory neurosis for time eternal.  Burn baby burn!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers

Blue is golden currently in NY & LA, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

To Rome With Love
Amore or Less-a – 4 Mini I-talian Woody Allen Movies
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 102 min

Woody Allen‘s latest has four I-talianish stories that have nothing to do with each other, or really anything in general.  here’s a breakdown of the 4 stories…

story 1 is about average schmo Roberto Benigni, who one day, for no reason, becomes famous for just being himself.  this story is more stoopid than a typical Roberto Benigni movie (not talking bout Life Is Beautiful here).  Woody should have just made him re-enact his winning an Oscar zaniness or maybe the two should juss remake Jerry Lewis’ never released The Day The Clown Died.  anywho, story 1 is a good story… to run out of the theater if you need to take a giant dump

story 2 is about a pair of newlyweds (Alessandra Mastronardi & Alessandro Tiberi) who come to Rome with big job prospects from relatives, but they first must impress them.  The wife gets lost in the city, and for no reason a prostitute (Penélope Cruz) arrives at the husband’s door, right when his relatives show up, so the relatives think that the hooker is his wife, so the husband pretends that she’s his wife, and hilarity doesn’t ensue.  Meanwhile, the wife gets more lost, and eventually locks arms with some bald movie star and yadda yadda, who cares, whatevs.webs

story 3 is about Woody (BACK IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA BIZNITCHES!!!! AHHHH YEAH!!!!) meeting his daughter (not muse, but solid Allen player Alison Pill)’s about to be in-laws.  New Yorkers meet Romans – hilarity kinda mildly ensues, cause future in-law mortician papa (opera tenor Fabio Armiliato) is a diamond in the rough opera tenor superstar, but is only a blammazin singer in the shower.  Woody wants to make him a star, but how can he be a star without a shower????  We’ll juss leave it at that, as the what happens next stuff (WHICH YOU ALREADY PROBABLY ALREADY FINGERED OUT, ALREADY, CAUSE YOU SO SMART)  is one of the bettererer parts of the movie, sorta

story 4 is about Jesse Eisenberg who falls in love with his girlfriend’s (non-actress Greta Gerwig) actress best friend (Ellen Page), all while getting sage imaginary advice from Alec Baldwin.  This is the typical, watchable, enjoyable Woody Allen movie story plot thing that happens to be trapped in a movie with half crap and 1/4 of semi-amusingness

moral of the story – for a movie set in Italy, it’s kinda odd that all the bits and pieces that don’t work mainly have to do with the Italian characters and actors in the film.  our thinking like this is nots causes we’re American and only like American stuff (you’ve been to our older sister-site, NonUSHotties, right???), but it’s a fact, as proven by we, by saying so, and we juss said so, that the Italian parts need more spicing in the a meatballs

Verdictgo: acceptable low end Jeepers Worth A Peepers

To Rome gets a lil Love in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

not about last night…

Michael & Kirk Douglas kiss, while Burt Lancaster watches at the 57th Academy Awards, March 25, 1985

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whooooppppppppppie!!!