Love Letter to Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett is my favorite actor. I can't get enough of watching her.So you can imagine my joy when I heard that not only is she in Woody Allen's latest but in fact gives a performance for the ages and completely dominates the movie. She has been away for a long time and small parts in The Hobbit and Hanna do not count. I'm glad she's back full throttle in this and upcoming movies with Todd Haynes, David Mamet and George Clooney. She's even playing the evil stepmother in the new Cinderella and might pop up in Terrence Malick's next.

I've seen Blue Jasmine 3 times now. And each time I've watched with my jaw dropped to the floor the whole time at the beautiful and precise marvel that is Cate's performance. I couldn't have it said better myself so I am quoting Mick LaSalle's review for the San Francisco Chronicle.

"But when we're talking about "Blue Jasmine," we're really talking about Blanchett, who - and this is no exaggeration - gives one of the greatest screen performances of the past 10 years. To say that she is Oscar worthy would not do her justice, not when we remember what actually wins Oscars. Blanchett's performance is one for the books.

First of all, there's the technical precision of it. Aided immeasurably by Gretchen Davis' makeup and Suzy Benziger's costume design, she is often playing some degree of chemical impairment - the nature and degree of which are always perfectly clear.

In terms of emotion, it's best to keep in mind that Jasmine's story, though told out of sequence, has a sequence nonetheless, one inhabited by Blanchett with preternatural intuition and nuance. We see that Jasmine was weak to begin with. And later, we see the guilt, the disgrace, the pain, the self-delusion, not as emotions in sequence, but as elements ever-present and threatening to bubble to the surface, threatening the magnificent facade. The facade itself is a splendid creation, paper-thin and yet seductive, the manners and references suggestive of all the good things money can buy - and has bought.

Blanchett in "Blue Jasmine" is beyond brilliant, beyond analysis. This is jaw-dropping work, what we go to the movies hoping to see, and we do. Every few years."

It's not a review, its a love letter. I whole heartedly agree. I'll leave with the fashion girl Cate, she was a vision in Balenciaga at the New York premiere.