Blue Is the Warmest Color

After having spent most of two weekends in November at the Landmark Clay for the San Francisco Film Society's French Cinema Now and New Italian Cinema series, I decided to return the day before Thanksgiving to see Blue is the Warmest Color.  Prior to French Cinema Now, the Clay had screened Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine for many weeks.  Blue Jasmine, which has been in distribution for the past 25 weeks and counting, is now screening at the Opera Plaza.  Blue is the Warmest Color is also playing at the Opera Plaza.

Blue is the Warmest Color starring Adèle Exarchopoulos & Léa Seydoux; directed by Abdellatif Kechiche; French with subtitles; (2013) - Official Website

I don't have much to say about Blue is the Warmest Color.  It was a powerful film, I enjoyed it and the much discussed lesbian sex scenes are quite explicit without being exploitative.  Léa Seydoux, whose performance I recalled & admired in Sister, has the supporting role of Emma, the older woman who influences Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos).  By influence, I mean not only introduces to sapphic love but also convinces to subsume her own needs and growth (and even sexuality)  in support of her own.  In other words, the trajectory of Adèle's life would have likely been much different if she had not met Emma as a teenager and that is completely irrespective of her sexuality although the film hints that even that her lesbianism is an aberration unique to her relationship with Emma.

Blue is the Warmest Color is about an intense love affair and the fact that the lovers are lesbians is both incidental and crucial to the story.  I could string together many sentences to explain why I enjoyed this film but others have done so better than I can. 

The lead actresses' performances are strong and the story follows the relationship over several years.  My only comment is that although many have described the film as a romance, I thought it was more a story of Adèle's journey of self-discovery...much of which she discovers through her relationship with Emma.  Blue is the Warmest Color is very much Adèle's story.  I also like that the ending was ambiguous.  Is Adèle better off for the experiences and lessons she took from her relationship with Emma?  I don't know.  It's quite possible Adèle will never have a relationship as intense as the one she had with Emma.  If for no other reason, her experience with Emma will make Adèle "once bit, twice shy."

I notice that Seydoux is appearing in Wes Anderson's next film - The Grand Budapest Hotel.  She is an actress I would like to see more of.

The Puzzle Within the Castro Theater's January 2014 Calendar

The first thing I noticed about the Castro Theater's January calendar is that they are open all 31 days in the month.  On January 4 and 14, the theater is closed for "Private Events."  If not for those private events, there would be no puzzle in this month's calendar.

Joan Fontaine passed away on December 15.  Fontaine was a graduate of Los Gatos High School and longtime resident of Carmel.  She also had a famous feud with her sister, Olivia de Havilland.  In recapping her career and sibling rivalry, the media quoted Fontaine - "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!"

On the calendar:

January 4 - Joan Fontaine.  I immediately recognized her because I had seen many photos of her in the past few weeks.

January 14 - Olivia de Havilland.  I quickly surmised it was de Havilland.  If I had seen either photo a month ago, I'd be scratching my head.  Even as it was, I double checked the photo.

I'm a little surprised Peter O'Toole wasn't pictured on the calendar since he passed away the day before Fontaine.

Other than marking the passing of Fontaine and recognizing the animus between the sisters, I'm not sure what the clues are pointing to.  Perhaps it is today's screenings of Blue Jasmine which features Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins as sisters with an uneasy relationship.

The Stanford Theater has programmed a tribute to Fontaine consisting of Rebecca & Suspicion (January 2 to 5) and Letter from an Unknown Woman & The Constant Nymph (January 9 to 12).

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The first quarter film festival dates have been announced.  The first quarter of the year is jammed with my favorite festivals.  In 2013, I saw one third of the films I watched during the first quarter of the year.

I plan on spending significant time at five festivals during 2014-Q1.  The schedule is as follows:

Noir City - January 24 to February 2
IndieFest - February 6 to February 20
Mostly British - February 13 to February 20
Cinequest - March 4 to March 16
CAAMFest - March 13 to March 23

On top of that, Berlin and Beyond returns to January after a few years in the autumn.  It will run from January 15 to January 21.

I'm not sure how I'm going to fit in watching curling at the upcoming Olympics on television.

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Castro Theater Calendar - January 2014

Blue Jasmine

I saw Woody Allen's latest film at the Balboa earlier this month.

Blue Jasmine starring Cate Blanchett; with Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Louis C. K. & Peter Sarsgaard; directed by Woody Allen; (2013) - Official Website

Well reviewed, I'll keep my comments on Blue Jasmine short.  Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) is a disgraced New York socialite.  Her husband (Alec Baldwin) has committed suicide after being arrested for Madoff-style financial improprieties.  Jasmine is forced to relocate to San Francisco to live with her adopted sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins).  It's quite a step down the social ladder for Jasmine.  Honestly, I don't see how Ginger can afford the SOMA flat she has when she is working as a cashier in a small grocery store but let's not delve into the dynamics the San Francisco rental housing market or rent control laws.

Jasmine attempts to right herself by taking a job with a dentist and dating a diplomat with political aspirations.  However, she is plagued by these glass-eyed dissociative disorders.  She's popping Xanax like breath mints and is a barely functional alcoholic.  She has a lot to be anxious about.  As the film progresses, it jumps back and forth to Jasmine's life in New York to her life in San Francisco.  Baldwin is great as Jasmine's philandering husband.  Baldwin always plays those wealthy scumbag roles to the hilt and Blue Jasmine is no exception.

In addition to dealing with her husband, there is a lot of history between Jasmine and her sister.  A few years earlier, Ginger and her husband (Andrew Dice Clay) won the lottery.  Jasmine convinced them to invest the lottery winnings with her husband who promptly stole it.  Now divorced, Ginger lacks bitterness towards her sister; probably because she is easily and frequently manipulated by her.  Jasmine quickly sows discords into Ginger's relationship with her boyfriend (Bobby Cannavale) and Ginger takes things further by having an affair with a married audio engineer (Louis C.K.).

I'll leave the plot recap at that.  By the end of the film, we learn that Jasmine was a lot more complicit in her own misery than she commonly lets on.  With few life skills and even fewer people who care about her, her future looks bleak.

The cast is uniformly outstanding.  I've read that Clay and Cannavale portray their characters more like New Jersey Guidos than any recognizable San Francisco stereotype but fortunately they don't take up much screen time.  The scenes with Blanchett and Baldwin or Blanchett and Hawkins or Blanchett and anyone else are the ones that really grab one's attention.  Blanchett vividly portrays this pathetic woman.  I went from being annoyed with her to disliking her to pitying her to hating her to being frustrated by her to being exhausted by her which must be what it would be like to actually interact with a woman like Jasmine.  Take all of Annie Hall's idiosyncrasies and insecurities, add in copious amounts of alcohol and prescription drugs, mix with a bastard of a husband, apply to a vaguely amoral woman and you have Blue Jasmine.  A tragedy with moments of comedy, Blue Jasmine is a highwater mark for Allen's late career films.  I run hot and cold on his films but Blue Jasmine was one of the best films I've seen all year.  Cate Blanchett's performance was tremendous.

The soundtrack to Blue Jasmine was very memorable.  The song Blue Moon is repeatedly played throughout.  In addition, Allen infuses the film with his trademark love of jazz and blues which happens to roughly coincide with my taste in music.

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The Balboa's Kickstarter campaign convert to digital is quickly coming to an end.  Having surpassed their $75,000 goal by more than 20%, the Balboa has set an unofficial goal of $100,000 by the end of the campaign (September 26, 2013 at 11:59 PM PDT).  I noticed they have already put metal nameplates on the armrests of the chairs to recognize donors; that's at the $500 donation level.

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Despite an abundance of restaurants near the Balboa Theater, I've always considered the area a bit of a culinary wasteland.  Sometime I go to Little Henry's.  I have always assumed the Little Henry's in the Outer Richmond is affiliated with the Little Henry's in the Tenderloin but the food tastes much better at the Tenderloin location.  Occasionally, I'll go to Americana Grill which despite its name has a fair amount of Asian food on the menu.

On several of my past few trips to the Balboa, I have stopped by Shanghai Dumpling King on the 3300 block of Balboa Ave.  The name says it all.  An order of 10 Shanghai dumplings for $5.50!  I can't say I'm a connoisseur of Shanghainese cuisine but I've Shanghai dumplings elsewhere and SDK's are the best by far and twice as satisfying given their price.  The broth in the dumpling is delicious and not overpowering.  The only downside is there must be a fair amount of salt or MSG in it because I'm thirsty an hour or two after eating them.