My Review: Blue Jasmine (7/10)

"Who do you have to sleep with around here to get a Stoli martini with a twist of lemon?"

Woody Allen has returned to the States for this film after experiencing some extended vacations over Europe (To Rome with Love, Midnight in Paris, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and this time the story takes place mostly in San Francisco, although we do get several interesting flashbacks in New York (Allen's favorite filming location). I mention these locations because in most of his films these cities are actual characters and sometimes even main ones. There were two general criticisms I had read about Blue Jasmine before watching it, one was that this was Woody Allen's return to form and the second was that Cate Blanchett's performance was magnificent. I agree with the second statement because Blanchett delivers one of the best performances of the year and she is the main reason why this film actually worked for me. As for the second statement I have to differ because I thought Midnight in Paris was his best recent film and I enjoyed it much more than Blue Jasmine. I do have to say that Woody Allen's capacity for writing and directing these films in such a short period of time (he's directed one every year for the past decades) impresses me. He has a unique voice in all of his films that sometimes make me picture him talking through each one of his characters. I remember something similar happening to me during college when I would be reading over my notes as I studied for a final exam actually listening to my professors unique voice in my head as I read. This is what happens to me often during a Woody Allen film as I imagine his head popping over one of his characters. It happened during this film as well, except for Blanchett's character who managed to bring her unique style which took a voice of its own. She deserves all the accolades she's been receiving from her peers and critics alike. It was a wonderful performance and an affecting one as well.

Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) was a New York socialite who lived a happy and blessed life with her husband Hal (Alec Baldwin), until he was sent to prison for fraudulent business acts. We get to discover some darker secrets about their past as the story unravels through flashbacks, but the film opens at the present as Jasmine is returning to San Francisco to live with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins) and her two sons, completely broke. She has experienced several mental breakdowns due to her traumatic past, and despite being estranged from her sister during that time, Ginger takes her in. Jasmine imposes on Ginger who wasn't as blessed as she was and is working at a grocery store while dating Chili (Bobby Canavale). Jasmine and Chili don't get along too well as she has interfered in his plans to move in with Ginger. Jasmine is always telling her that she should find someone better like she did (which wasn't really the case) and that is the reason for the constant friction between them. In San Francisco, Jasmine meets another wealthy man named Dwight (Peter Saarsgard) who she begins dating, and which gives her hope that she will recover her past glory, but her constant lies begin catching up with her affecting her relationship with him and her sister.

I wouldn't say this is a character driven story because I felt a lot of them were one dimensional characters, with the exception of Jasmine of course. The people in Woody Allen's films don't tend to feel real or authentic at times, and they usually are just cartoonish caricatures from a bubbled world. Allen's films aren't the laugh out loud type either, I find them funny in a rather witty way. He is slick at times and the scenes put a smile on your face, but they don't have you laughing hysterically. Blanchett does manage to portray Jasmine in a more authentic and believable way, showing her flaws and inner struggles with her mental illness. It's a character that we find hard to sympathize with, but also feel sorry for as her life begins falling apart. She's the type of person who cannot be on her own and is always depending on someone. I also liked the way in which Woody Allen told the story and let the past unravel smoothly through flashbacks revealing several things about her character. This along with Blanchett's performance is what saves the movie and makes it entertaining, but I wouldn't agree with the critics who are saying this is Allen's best work in years. I do agree it is perhaps his most tragic and darkest comedy in recent years.

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My Review: Men In Black III (6/10)

¨I promised the secrets of the universe, nothing more.¨

It`s been 15 years since Barry Sonnenfeld directed the first Men in Black film paring up the unlikely duo of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. This concept wasn’t entirely original as we`ve seen these sort o pairings in films like Lethal Weapon with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover playing similar characters. What I do remember about the first MIB is that it was very entertaining and had some incredible effects for the time. Now we have grown used to seeing these special effects, but I still enjoyed this movie thanks to the performance from the cast and it also brought back a nostalgic feeling. I remember that I started falling in love with movies during the 90`s and MIB was one that I enjoyed very much along with Independence Day so Will Smith was one of the first actors I actually knew by name. Of course today after seeing thousand of films I see those movies and I don’t find them to be as great as I first experienced them. I`ve grown into a more grumpy critic who expects more from movies, but MIB III brought back some of those nostalgic feelings so I ended up enjoying this movie despite it not being perfect, and rather silly at times. It`s been four years since Will Smith had last starred in a movie so I really was glad to see him back in action. He is a great actor and brought a lot of comedy to his role with his big loud mouth. Both Sonnenfeld and Smith were able to make a better film than the first MIB sequel, and it lives up to the original one thanks to a clever script from Etan Cohen.

Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) are still working together guarding Earth from all the dangers of the Universe. They face a new threat when a villain from K`s past named Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) has escaped prison and is looking for revenge after K shot his arm off and imprisoned him over 40 years ago. J had never heard about Boris until now and when he tries to do research about the event that happened that day he isn’t authorized to dig any further. Boris gets his hands on some sort of time device and goes back in time to kill Agent K. J wakes up the next day with a feeling that something has happened to K and when he arrives at work and asks about his partner nobody knows who K is. At first Agent J thinks it`s all a prank, but when Agent O (Emma Thompson) tells J that K has been dead for 40 years he realizes that Boris managed to go back in time and killed K. Now times have changed and Boris`s race is invading Earth to destroy it. Agent J is sent back in time to try to save K. He ends up back in 1969 where he runs into a younger version of K (Josh Brolin) and together they try to stop Boris once and for all in order to save the planet once again.

The highlight of the film is probably Josh Brolin`s performance since he plays a very believable young Tommy Lee Jones. His facial expressions and voice is really on the note and it is just so fun to see him imitate Jones`s character. This was really my favorite part of the film along with some of the cameos and the clever jokes and cultural references of the 60`s. Another highlight was Michael Stuhlbarg`s (from A Serious Man) performance as Griffin. He got most of the laughs in the movie. Tommy Lee Jones didn`t have a very big role in this sequel and he is getting very old, but he`s still fun to watch on screen. Men in Black III is not a perfect movie, but it`s entertaining and brings back some memories. I liked the whole back in time concept and it reminded me of other great films like Back to the Future. If you are a fan of Will Smith or the MIB franchise than you will really enjoy this movie, if not you might find it too silly. I really enjoyed Brolin`s comedic turn in this movie and he is the highlight of the film. MIB III is an enjoyable and well made sequel.

   

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My Review: A Serious Man (7/10)

¨You can`t understand the physics without understanding the math. The math tells how it really works. That`s the real thing; the stories I give in class are just illustrative, they`re like fables, say, to help give you a picture.¨

(7/10) Those are the words professor Larry Gopnik tells one of his student`s who is trying to bribe him in order to get a better grade and that is perhaps what the Coen brothers were trying to tell us about this movie. The entire plot serves as just an illustration to something they don`t have all the answers to. Just like the story one of the Rabbi`s tells Larry about the Goy`s teeth which doesn`t have a resolution, but nevertheless that doesn`t mean it isn`t a good story. Larry seems so preoccupied in this film to discover the meaning of all the tragedies that he is going through that we are expecting to find an answer, but what the directors are telling us is that sometimes there isn`t an explanation for things that happen, they just do. This is the Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan also known as ¨The Two-Headed Director¨ because they tend to work together) latest film after their Oscar Award winning No Country for Old Men and their dark comedy Burn After Reading. A Serious Man is more in the line of Burn after Reading except that it doesn`t count with the big names and most of the actors in this film are unknown. It is a much more personal movie for the directors who themselves are Jews who grew up in Minneapolis. The humor in this film is dark and it isn`t a laugh out loud film, but it does have a lot of comedy in it that mixes well with the depressive mood the main character is in.

The story takes place near 1970 in a Minneapolis suburb. The main character of the film is Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg who had a small role in Body of Lies and is mostly known for working in plays) a Jewish Physics professor who explains most everything through mathematical equations. His life begins to turn upside down when his wife asks for a divorce because she has fallen in love with one of his best friends, while at the same time one of his students is trying to bribe him in order to get a better grade in his exam or sew him for defamation if he says anything, his son and daughter are a major headache, and to make matters worse his immature and unemployed brother is living in his couch. Things begin to unravel one by one for Larry and he seems to be falling into one debt after another due to the different lawsuits and problems he faces. Comparisons with the Biblical story of Job can`t be ignored at this point as he seems to be falling deeper and deeper into disgrace. Sari Lennick plays Judith, Larry`s wife who is tired of her marriage and is ready to live with Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). I didn`t know either of these actors, but they both did a great job, especially Fred who was probably the funniest character in the film. Larry´s son, Danny (Aaron Wolff, also a newcomer) is studying Hebrew because he is about to have his bar mitzvah, but he gets into trouble for listening to Jefferson Airplane in class and buying weed from one of his classmates. Larry`s troubled brother, Arther (played by Richard Kind from Spin City) who lives with him and always seems to be getting into trouble with the law, gives him as much headaches as his son. Everywhere Larry turns he seems to be getting himself into trouble so he decides to go visit the Rabbi, but he can never get a hold of Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell) so he first has to settle with young Rabbi Scott (Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory) and later with Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner), but neither of them have the answers he`s looking for.

If we actually pay attention to the small clues that the Coen brothers leave we know that Larry will not find the answers he`s looking for. At first I wasn`t excited about the ending of the film, but after I thought about it I really loved it. It would have been so easy to end the movie a few minutes before it actually did and we would think that Larry would end up fixing his life, but the final parallel sequence between him in college receiving a phone call from his medic and the one with Aaron in his Hebrew class is just great and really has the Coen signature all over it. The movie is very entertaining although I wouldn`t say it is among my favorite Coen films. I think Fargo is by far their best movie to date. Anyways it is always a lot of fun to watch their movies and most any actor would work for them for free. The opening sequence only served as a mere illustration as did the story of Goy`s teeth. Rabbi Scott would say that both are simply different perspectives which don`t have a real purpose; you`re better off if you let it be. I recommend this movie especially if you are a Coen fan.