Capital Celluloid 2014 - Day 8: Wed Jan 8

Blue Jasmine (Allen, 2013): Kensington Roof Gardens, 7pm



The key here is the experience as much as the film. Here's the introduction to the night's entertainment:

The Rooftop Film Club is back in an exclusive marquee situated 100ft above Kensington High Street tucked away in the tranquil setting of 1.5 acres of themed gardens. On arrival at The Roof Gardens please give your name at the reception area. Doors are open from 6pm, with your screening starting at around 7pm

Tickets include a glass of wine or a bottle of beer (soft drinks available) and a freshly prepared hot snack (a vegetarian option will be available) grilled on the outdoor coal fire barbecue. We suggest arriving early so that you give yourself plenty of time to enjoy your snack and wander around the gardens before the screening begins.

N.B. All screenings are indoors in a heated marquee in The Tudor Garden area of the Kensington Roof Gardens. 


The bonus is the chance to see one of last year's best movies. 

Time Out review:
For Woody Allen fans, watching his recent films has been like prising your eyes open after an earthquake. Will everything be just as it once was? Or will it look like ‘Cassandra’s Dream’, his 2007 low, starring Colin Farrell as a London mechanic? For now we can breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Blue Jasmine’ is Allen’s strongest film overall since ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’, but you have to dig deep in the New Yorker’s back catalogue to find a single performance­­ as affecting and well-judged as the one Cate Blanchett delivers.

Her brittle, shivery Jasmine is a Manhattan socialite whose world crumbles after the collapse of a Ponzi scheme run by her bigger-than-life fraudster husband, Hal (Alec Baldwin). Broke, with nowhere else to go, Jasmine moves in with her down-to-earth sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins) in San Francisco. As she tries to get back on her feet, Allen gives us flashbacks to the high life she once shared with Hal in New York.


Some of Allen’s strongest films – such as 1978’s ‘Interiors’ and 1988’s ‘Another Woman’ – have put the gags on hold and found richness in troubled women. ‘Jasmine’ doesn’t steer clear of comedy, but its best humour is of the black, squirming sort, such as when Jasmine’s new dentist boss comes on to her (‘Have you ever got high on nitrous oxide?’). Or when, in the good old days, Ginger and her then-husband (Andrew Dice Clay), a builder, pay Jasmine and Hal an excruciating visit at their luxury home. But there’s no disguising the trauma of its final shot and the interest at its heart: a sad woman in freefall.
Dave Calhoun

Here and above is the official trailer.


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