
“Blue Jasmine,” February 26, 2014 (2013), DVD, home. Woody Allen’s best film in two decades. This “Streetcar” for our time chronicles the collapse of Jeannette/Jasmine—a brilliant, Oscar-worthy performance from Kate Blanchett–from N Y socialite to SF psychotic and homeless woman with the fall of her corrupt financier husband – Alec Baldwin. A fascinating flip on Williams’s Stanley’s cruelty builds two excellent and very credible working-class men as the sister Ginger’s (Sally Hawkins) husband/ex-husband Augie—a superb Andrew Dice Clay, and her new beau, Chili, wonderfully played by Bobby Carnivale. It’s also the first time in a long time that Allen hasn’t forced his actors to play him on-screen by incorporating his ticks into their characters. This is a film worth watching.