And the Oscar Goes to....

Cate Blanchett contemplating a nervous breakdown....

People sure do different things with their given lives. Today, after five attempts in the past, or maybe four, former Olympian Diana Nyad achieved her (odd) dream and swam 110 miles from Cuba to Miami, without benefit of a shark cage. You just gotta ask: So? And also: Why? And perhaps, This helps anybody how?

Then I saw the new Woody Allen movie, Blue Jasmine. It contains proof that Woody's still got it, even though he is old and tired. More important, his latest leading lady, Cate Blanchett, is possibly the greatest actress who has ever lived. At least that's how I still feel two hours later. Together they tell a story, and it's fiction, and one can also ask "so?" and "why?"-- but somehow watching the film impacts one in mysterious ways, much more so than some lady swimming really far, even if she is 64. Shot lovingly in living color in the cities of San Francisco and Manhattan, both of which look ultra-glorious and foreign, Blue Jasmine is a tragicomedy about a Bernie Madoff-like swindler and his wife who go from riches to rags--and worse. It's about how money isn't everything unless you have a lot of it, and then it's the only thing.

The usual unusual characters that populate any Woody Allen film fill the screen, giving it their all. Superstar Alec Baldwin plays the bad guy with great reserve; in a welcome departure from the norm he does not steal any scenes, and instead is the foil for a number of people you've likely never heard of. But the true star is the script, which is full of pithy lines that will stick in your head long after it's over. This one made me laugh out loud, even though it came at a serious moment in the story: "Anxiety, nightmares and a nervous breakdown--there’s only so many traumas a person can withstand until they take to the streets and start screaming."

That is so true.