I don’t read reviews or production notes before I see films, so it wasn’t until almost the end of Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine that I realized it was inspired by A Streetcar Named Desire. Allen has done a number of homages to other filmmakers or based his movies on classics, but this is a jazz riff so accomplished that it transforms a disturbing meltdown into a pleasant experience.
THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW
by James Killough
Killough ponders Cannes and Kidman, dreads the new Gatsby, pokes at Bladwin and Anderson, and finds a Fantasy Cellmate.
THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES
by James Killough
There is something highly comical about cosmetic surgery of any kind, whether it’s just botox treatment or a full facelift. Vanity is amusing. The vanity of middle-aged people is even more amusing; there is nothing funny about aging gracefully, but fighting it kicking and screaming with excessive nip and tuck and plump and freeze and augmentation can make for some visual slapstick.
Regrettably, transgender icon Amanda Lepore isn’t nearly as interesting as a person as she looks. In fact, she’s rather dull and kinda stupid. But maybe that’s just her reaction to me.
There are instances when plastic surgery is heroic, when it reconstructs a body after an accident or a birth defect. But that isn’t the bread and butter of the industry, although if I were a surgeon, I would find the reconstructions and the defect corrections far more interesting and challenging than the fountain of youth stuff. It goes without saying that, Amanda Lepore’s character aside, I consider sexual reassignments corrective surgery.