Blue Jasmine

So, Mike, I have no idea what you're about to say about this thing.

Go.

This is like

a remake of Great Expectations, but only Miss Havisham is in it.

She's the only character.

Somebody jilted who's been utterly destroyed has become frozen in time.

And sort of the rest of...

Her notion of time structures everything else.

I mean, I must say, this is one of a few Woody Allen movies that we've discussed doing.

I think the second that we've done that is written and directed by Woody Allen, but doesn't have him in it.

And I have to say that that's a budding genre for me of movies that I find very interesting because I'm not hating on his... earlier stuff, but, you know, he always plays some version of Alfie in every movie that he's in.

That's the persona that he knows how to do.

But outside of that, I mean, this is really, really fantastic writing, and it's even better editing.

I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that was this finely edited.

It's interwoven like two fingers, like if you can imagine putting your hands together with your fingers interlocked.

So all the fingers of this movie are interlocked, but it still has a three-act structure, and each act is, you know, 33 minutes long.

And anyway, it's like technical brilliance with total control that's also not trying to draw attention to itself.

And I don't know how else to say that, except this is a really veteran director.

This is someone who just gets it, who doesn't have to think about it.

It's just like they breathe cinema.

There's so many movies that are like classic downers.

Like if you ask me about a classic downer novel, I'd say read Stoner.

You know, Stoner is just like, it's a technically perfect downer.

And there's so many movies that received more critical acclaim that are in this same genre of just continuous nauseating, just stomach aches for 90 minutes.

But this movie flew under the radar because it's better than all of them.