Godzilla

Gareth Edwards' Godzilla did something few recent films, especially epically budgeted summertime beasts, have managed to do...it surprised me.  In this increasingly homogenized, made-by-committee-Hollywood-blockbuster-filmmaking-of-now culture, there's become a routine formula of what to expect to see on the screen.  There's running climaxes, the expected strokes of the musical score and the typical beats of propulsion and exposition to keep it going and going and going, hopefully ending with enough of hook so that we will all return for more and more and more.  And then return again for the eventual reboot (what a hideous word.)  The machine keeps rolling, but this latest version of Godzilla, while totally within the franchise filmmaking game, plays almost at odds with the contemporary summer blockbuster structure-- it's almost anachronistic and plays as something not made by committee but by an imaginative, resourceful and singular artist looking to share a bustling and joyful artistic expression.  That this such expression involves monster vs. monster attack scenes matter not at all.

It's rather amazing that Edwards got the gig at all, considering he has but one feature film to name-- the micro-budgeted (approximately $500,000) 2010 import Monsters, but he proves just the right director to be tasked with a $160 million property, infusing a gorgeously rendered, humanistic design to the monster bash.  It would be silly to call his Godzilla a master stroke of artistry, but it sets a high water mark for the impending summer assault season.  It would also be silly to invite cinematic comparisons, but for a film that adorns its influences proudly and mightily, perhaps not as reductive a call as typically.  For this Godzilla of 2014, is in my eyes, the best summertime escapism since 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  The comparison is apt, as both film reshaped and gathered from the dust of properties that long ago were disregarded by the pop cultural mass and surprised with an astonishingly visual ingenuity and uniquely sharpened sense of popcorn utopia.  Both film evoked a child-like sense of wonder and wealth of imagination and glints of awe because they weaved surprising joy amidst all the bombast and (presumed) studio notes...plus they both pretty much (digitally) destroyed the tony city of San Francisco in the process.  Yet, for even greater measure, Edwards cites and rests his Godzilla on the great Spielbergian treats of yore.

Blue Jasmine

The nerve, the twitch that hit the zeitgeist in recent years, that tinge of uproar sparked by the brief Occupy movement, inspired by the corrupt antics of those richer-than-sin is but the blip of the surface that's keenly and acutely observed in Woody Allen's latest-- a rich and potent character study of one woman's riches to rags saga.  It's also inspired the most provocative and surprising drama the filmmaker has tackled in years, decades even, as if Allen was hit by a primal nerve, one in which he sought to create a crowd-pleasing morality fable centered around a once wealthy woman, not just on the verge of a nervous breakdown, by in the full-on throes of one.  Blue Jasmine, a sparkling melodrama, seems to document a sudden and welcome shift, not to mention a glimmer of topicality for the illustrious auteur.  For decades, Allen has held a gilded light on the neurotic and prickly dwellers on the upper echelons of society, at first as noted observer, than as insider-- in Blue Jasmine, Allen retreats and through the prism of a most absorbent character study, he has perhaps given the proletarians the feel good movie of the year.

Jasmine French (Cate Blanchett) is a modern day royal, one of the many superbly coiffed, well spoken members of high society, or she was, now she's tapped out due to the crafty bookkeeping by her high yields husband Hal (Alec Baldwin), and stuck in an eternal existential state of why me.  With no skill set to speak of, the loss of the societal camaraderie she once knew and recent bouts of mania, Jasmine has little choice but to journey west to San Francisco and mooch off her working class sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) with little else but her own snobbish haughtiness to sate her.  Something is amiss right from the start of the film, as Jasmine, a woman so desperate to maintain authoritative civility,  appears lost on the doorsteps of her sister's apartment in one of the very first scenes, as if she's stuck in a nightmare waiting to wake up back at her summer home in Southampton where she can play the consummate hostess, the only role that ever naturally suited her.

"Blue Jasmine" and the Annual Struggle to Maintain Devotion to Woody Allen

"I don't think I can take it.  For some reason my Xanax isn't kicking in."

 

Every year, more and more around this time like clockwork, Woody Allen releases his latest film.  It's insane to think it through, actually, considering the consistency.  It's a minor miracle of sorts, considering all the inanity that comes along with the release of a motion picture these days.  That he can write one off each year whilst still maintaining a top-drawer ensemble and finding funding to boot.  The mixed bag of America's favorite screenwriter is that the last two decades have been a decidedly mixed bag.  To the point that we must meet his next project with such a cautious optimism-- I sort of parental, "I hope he doesn't screw this one up" sort of vibe.  All that being said, his latest-- a dramedy inspired in sorts by the Bernie Madoff scandal of excess gone to stink (which couldn't be more timely, come to think of it)-- Blue Jasmine on first glance looks, dare I say, rather juicy.  Cate Blanchett plays the lead, an unhinged woman whose wealth and marriage have gone down the tube, and she is supported by an eclectic ensemble cast including Sally Hawkins (in a hopeful return to the promise she exhibited in 2008's Happy-Go-Lucky), Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Sarsgaard, Louis CK, Michael Stuhlbarg and most peculiarly, Andrew Dice Clay.  One reason for the hope must surely be presented in the form of Blanchett herself, who hasn't headlined a film in quite a few years, and on first glimmer looks perfectly on cue. 

Even so, it's a bumpy ride in Allen-land these days, as evident from the joyous surprise (and even more surprisingly, Oscar-winning) Midnight in Paris.  He quickly followed the Best Picture contender and his highest grossing film to date with the absolutely negligible To Rome With Love.  And while Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona rank as astounding successes in the last decade-- When You Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Whatever Works, Cassandra's Dream and Anything Else, um, don't.  Examine:

Made in Dagenham

The trailer of what could be a big Oscar contender starring Sally Hawkins, Miranda Richardson, Rosamund Pike and Bob Hoskins.  On a tangent, Hawkins deserves proper awardage for the spectacular snub she received for Happy-Go-Lucky.  My two cents.