Tag Archives: Blue Jamine

New York City Blog Annex: Oct. 5 – Oct. 12

We returned to NYC yesterday. On the Delta flight I watched two movies and one documentary. There are movies and then there are the ones you watch when you’re in the air. Blue Jasmine is a flight flick. Cate Blanchett looks like a tired swan who sweeps through her scenes talking in her Katherine Hepburn accent. At times I thought I was watching A Streetcar Named Desire. Veronica Mars is an awful, homemade movie. It’s not even a flight flick. Then, the documentary, Nixon on Nixon. Usually, I can’t wait to get off a plane. Many people tense when landing approaches. Not me except yesterday when I was so enthralled by the late and ex President Nixon’s comments that I wanted the flight to continue. I can understand in a Machiavellian way why a paranoid and powerful person would have people secretly recorded. What I cannot understand is why Nixon, knowing he too was being recorded, would not have been more circumspect in his comments.

I’m in a movie frame of mind. In Amsterdam we went to the Tuschinski theatre. It’s a massive 1921 movie palace. If you sit in one of the private booths, drinking champagne, you can imagine the days when Marlene Dietrich appeared there in variety acts. Otherwise, you can sit in the comfortable seats and stare at the beautiful balconies and ceiling. We saw Gone Girl, based on Gillian Flynn’s wonderful novel. It’s an engrossing adaptation,  but the ending was rushed, as if the director had another project in the wings. Rosamund Pike was perfect. Ben Affleck was a big mistake. He’s a movie star, not an actor.  But what a theatre. Oh, yes, the movie is subtitled in English.

Tushinski Balcony
Tushinski Balconies
Entrance to the Tushinski
Entrance to the Tushinski