Blue Jasmine and Philomena (both 2013)

In “Blue Jasmine” and “Philomena,” Best Actress Oscar nominees Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench respectively play very different women in life-altering upheavals. Tip of the hat to Ms. Blanchett as best of the duo. 

In Woody Allen’s pitch black satire/drama “Jasmine,” Blanchett is a NYC high-society Wall Street wife who sees her diamond dreams bust after hubby (Alec Baldwin) is jailed Madoff style by the FBI, and his womanizing ways uncovered. 

A high chip even among the 1 percent, Jasmine – not her given name – crashes to earth and the San Francisco apartment of her sister (Sally Hawkins), who bags groceries for a living and squeaks by with a mechanic boyfriend (Bobby Canavale) and a handyman ex-husband (Andrew Dice Clay) with a righteous -- and rightful -- ax to grind. 

Jasmine, on her way down, suffered a nervous breakdown and now drifts off, pops pills, and cries over the indignity of a paycheck. Allen – working on multiple levels – shows a woman who has lost her grasp of reality and yet has always been deep down delusional and a chronic liar, faking her way up to Park Avenue, and perfectly fine with the deceit and lies of Wall Street, as long as she herself remains untouched. 

How very Ayn Rand. 

That the lower end of America offers no more comfort seems to break Jasmine. (With all of Allen’s own contradictions, one wonders if he’s ever turned such a cutting knife on himself. I can’t say.) 

This is solid, darkly funny work from the man who gave us the sweet trippy “Midnight in Paris.” The man writes marvelous women, and truly scummy men –- Baldwin is wretchedly conceited, and I mean that as a compliment. 

Dench plays the title character in “Philomena,” a woman devout to God, but carrying a life of heartbreak after the Irish Catholic Church damned her for having an out of wedlock baby as a teenager, and giving -– selling for cash –- that baby 50 years ago. (If she aborted, then what?) 

Philomena desperately wants to see that grown son, and worries he is sick or homeless. An out-of-work journalist turned government PR hack (Steve Coogan, who co-wrote the screenplay) takes on Philomena as a snide expose to bust the Vatican, which as a left-wing atheist snob, he loathes. 

Philomena, for her part, is near a mirror of the sister in “Jasmine,” scrapping by, prone to junk TV and books. Not a 1 percenter. Conversely, one could easily see Jasmine hitch onto Coogan’s vulgarly rich writer. 

Director Stephen Fears sends the duo to America, where the son was taken decades ago and lets the old lady and the uppity writer needle each other movie style. The result is cute and fuzzy: Philomena talks endlessly, journo rolls his eyes; she won’t open the hotel door, he panics. 

But it’s a solid true-story that, yes, rips the church and GOP anti-everything conservatism -– justly so -– but also shows that life can be enriched by forgiveness more so than wealth or talent. Whether you go for God or not. Dench is amazing. Right and left busted, church faithful and not, as well. Fair game.

Jasmine: A- Philomena: B+

The Great Gatsby (1974 and 2013)

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel “The Great Gatsby” has spawned roughly six filmed versions. I have seen only two, and it seems a movie version that equals the book is far and forever out of grasp. That is a reference to the book, which if you have not read is a shame. Because I’m skipping the plot re-hash. Read the book.

The 1974 version comes with high pedigree: Francis Ford Coppola has his name on the screenplay, and the top-line stars are Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, both at career highs, as the deeply unknowable titular character and the possibly soulless Daisy, she the woman of his desires/obsessions/ past. Sam Waterston is our hero/narrator, Nick. Redford as the make-you-swoon Gatsby? Cannot go wrong, right? “Well, of course you can.” This is a dud. My wife loves it. I don’t. The book zings with jazz and satire, hidden meanings, the notion that on your third read you catch new-to-you symbolism and connections. Never has an attack on excess come off as empty. Redford -– great actor -– is stiff and wrong as Gatsby, with Farrow over-acting the hysterics. Director Jack Clayton nails the look of the era of loud jazz, loose morals, and great wealth -– Gatsby’s house is the Rosecliff House in Newport, Rhode Island, and my wife and I have been there -– but it trudges along slow and empty. That moment at the end comes not as tragic and sickeningly ironic, but just tepid as … pool water. Dig, though, Scott Wilson as a wronged man. C

Baz Luhrmann’s version is all excess, an ironic eyebrow raiser as the novel attacks the very notion of flash and glitter as suffocating. Recall the absinth kicks of “Moulin Rouge!”? This “Gatsby” is all about that, in 3D. We open with narrator Nick (Tobey Maguire) as a novelist/patient inside a sanitarium, a wrecked shell encouraged to write of the incident that derailed his life: His dealings with mysterious Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), waif cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and her husband (Joel Edgerton). Yes, McGuire is playing Nick as Fitzgerald. How quaint. Luhrmann smartly mines deeper, fuller emotions, and DiCaprio nails the role of a delusional man who drops the term “old sport!,” but has no idea what it means, and does not know his life’s goal is a dead end. In a flip from the ’74 version, it is Maguire who is miscast, giving a “Spider-Man”-era wide-eyed, gawky performance that looks ridiculous on a man his age. The hip-hop fueled parties staged by Luhrmann drown satire, while the visual barrage of Nick’s written words floating in air reminded me of the quiet of reading a book. There is no quiet here. Only noise. C+

Sleuth (1972)

I saw the original “Sleuth” ages ago, whilst in college, and remember it as highly entertaining, a wild cinematic shape shifter, turning in on itself repeatedly as a cuckolded old man of wealth (Laurence Olivier) invites the hairdresser (Michael Caine) sleeping with his wife to his home for a cruel game of psychological torture. But the tables turn, and the characters onscreen one-up each other, as do the actors, classic theater thesp versus young hotshot sex symbol. I also recall it being painfully overlong, just one damn parlor trick too much. And, damn it, I hold at exactly that. Seriously, watch this film if you love acting, the way people play at bouncing off each other on screen, revealing -– and more importantly, holding back information -– until exactly the most painful or ludicrous moment. But beware, past the two-hour mark, you as I did, may get antsy and there’s 20 minutes to go. Based on a play, Anthony Shaffer’s screenplay desperately needs shortening. Olivier and Caine are beyond great, I can barely imagine the thrill of being on set. So watch. But squirm. Avoid the remake. B

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

I need to get this out: “The Philadelphia Story” opens on a gag of a man shoving a woman to the ground, and the joke she got “socked” runs throughout. That shit is not funny. Not then or now, or ever. That said, I do dearly love this deserved classic, the writing, banter, delivery, and cast: Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Ruth Hussey, and the child actress Virginia Weildler, can you top that? Plot: Philly society divorcee Tracy (Hepburn) is up for marriage No. 2, but her ex (Cary Grant) hangs close because Tracy’s family loves the guy unconditionally, and in an elaborate plot he has two gossip mag reporters (Stewart and Hussey) in tow to record the surely doomed nuptials. See, the ex loves the bride, and as hijinks, misunderstandings, and boozy drinks flow, soon so does Stewart’s wordsmith. I shall not divulge more, just watch. This is comedy romance at the tallest order, it makes you swoon for everyone on screen, with Stewart pushing charm, Grant smoothness, and Hepburn brass and brains. Yes, many plot ideas are way past sexist and stagnant, but this film shines. Love the journalism jokes, too. A-

El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel) (1960)

One of the great gags in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” has a direct reference to Luis Buñuel’s acid-to-the-face classic satire “The Exterminating Angel,” a nasty little tale that makes “The Lord of the Flies” seem quaint and targets the privileged class of Europe. The gist is wildly “Twilight Zone” simple: The servants at a lavish mansion are inexplicably leave their stations and the home just as a lavish dinner party begins, and never ends. For the same spirit, or psychological block, keep the guests trapped in one room. Food and water runs out, hygiene turns ugly, a man dies of a heart attack and his body rots, the hosts and guests – Sivia Pinal is the lead actress – go quite mad. Into animals, the kind these hoity-toity blue bloods described the working/lower class as in the film’s opening. Incest, drugs, witchcraft, demons, suicide and sheepacide (is that a word?) – nothing is off limits to Buñuel who saves his final daggers for The Church and The Military. It’s a dark, nasty, scathingly funny slab at the powers that be, the elite folks who place themselves on higher moral ground, closer to God, because they hold more wealth. A timely movie for sure. A