Tagged: Sally Hawkins

2014 Golden Globes Nominees – Who would you like to win?

golden-globes-logo
The nominees for the 71st Annual Golden Globe Awards have been announced and while we all know how the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) doesn’t really deserve to be taken seriously, I still think these awards are fun to watch. They’re entertaining, get you pumped for the Oscars and it’s always somewhat of a good time. Among the top nominees this year there are Spike Jonze’s Her, 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, Captain Phillips and Gravity. The official ceremony will take place on January 12th, 2014 at The Beverly Hilton and is hosted by Tina Fey & Amy Poehler. Take a look at the nominees in the film categories.  Continue reading →

Good: Lust, Caution (2007), Roman Polanski Wanted and Desired (2008) and Blue Jasmine (2013)

I finally made it: I got to see Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine! One of my most anticipated films of the year. It was my first time watching a Woody Allen film in a theater. I’ve only discovered this fantastic filmmaker in 2011 when I watched Midnight in Paris an experience I’ll never forget. So anyway, that was the highlight of my week, in terms of movies, but there were also two others I’d like to discuss.

Lust, Caution (2007) – 7 (IMDb 7.5) – War, Drama, Romance (Taiwan)
lust caution
Ang Lee is one of those directors I should get more into. It seems that everyone loves his films and while I can certainly see why, for some reason I never really love them as much as everyone else. I can’t connect somehow. Lust, Caution is probably my favorite of his so far. I mainly checked it out because it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. To me there are three “authorities” when it comes to cinema: The Criterion Collection, Sight & Sound and the Venice Film Festival. I will literally believe and watch anything they praise.  Continue reading →

Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine (2013)

Blue-Jasmine-trailer
Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) just lost everything. Her husband. Her son. Her possessions. So after a nervous breakdown she packs the last of her Chanel, Dior and Hermès pieces in her vintage Louis Vuitton luggage and flies all the way from New York to San Francisco. Her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) lives there. She is nice enough to take her in, even though Jasmine’s husband Hal (Alec Baldwin) gambled away all of her money on a dubious investment. Jasmine has hit rock bottom. When she married Hal she left school for him. Now she doesn’t have a degree or job experience. She  is forced to take the first job that comes her way, in order to pay for go to computer school so that she can then study interior design online. Drowning her sorrows in cheap alcohol and prescription drugs only makes things worse. Nothing seems to be going right for her, until she meets a dashing and promising young fellow named Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard). To appear more desirable she lies to him about her past, but what if he found out what kind of person she really was?  Continue reading →

First Look at Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen is an unstoppable force, a tireless filmmaker releasing one film a year ever since he started working. As he said himself, he doesn’t believe in the auteur theory, but in the quantity theory, that is: If you make a lot of movies, chances are some of those are actually good. His theory certainly works for him, since the number of classics he produced is higher than most filmmaker’s entire filmography.

Blue Jasmine is Woody Allen’s newest film starring the lovely Cate Blanchett, Peter Sarsgaard, Alec Baldwin and Sally Hawkins. Unlike most of his work which is mostly a mixture of comedy and other genres, Blue Jasmine is going to be a straight-up drama. Not many of Woody’s drama’s have been successful, critically or at the box office, however there have been some great ones like Interiors. Woody Allen himself wishes he was better at it, so I’m glad he keeps trying. I prefer an ambitious failure over something lazy (but still kind of charming) like To Rome with Love, his 2012 film.

You can find the first trailer for Blue Jasmine on YouTube and here are some set photos and stills for the movie. The film will be released in US theaters July 26th, 2013. Anyone else looking forward to it?