Woebegone Woody

In the chatter about whether Our Cate deserves an Academy Award for her role in Allan Konigsberg’s latest film Blue Jasmine, critical voices have been rare. But Alan Stokes skewers it perfectly: “dull, miserable, one-dimensional Woody Allen”. Oh yeah, for some reason as a young man Allan K changed his name. Already suss? Wow, Allan, Alan and Allen all in the first paragraph.

Our Alan adds the icky factor over Woody’s child molestation scandal, with echoes in the film. I had no empathy for Cate’s character Jasmine, and like Alan, found no redeeming features in her or the story. I’m not a fan of Allen’s work, which is often painfully over-wrought, unfunny, obvious and unenchanting.

Since Annie Hall I’ve avoided his films, with occasional viewings to re-test my objections, but never found reason to change them. I relented this time because of the hype over Our Cate’s performance, but Blue Jasmine’s no exception. Except it doesn’t try to be funny.

Read Our Alan, as he adds it all up to a definitive NO vote for Our Cate’s award.

Apologies for the alliterative woes of Woody, and Winton recently, but KC’s charter is to call them as I see them, particularly if it goes against the flow.