I saw Woody Allen‘s Blue Jasmine last night, but I can’t say anything. Well, maybe something. I can at least say that Cate Blanchett‘s fierce, ragged-edge performance as the Ruth Madoff-y Jasmine, the pill-popping, vodka-slurping widow of a disreputable high-finance finagler (Alec Baldwin), burns into your head minutes after the film begins and all but forces you to acknowledge that she’s an instant Best Actress contender. It’s clearly “one of those performances,” if you catch my drift. (The fact that it’s only July 10th mitigates this somewhat, but it’s balls-out any way you slice it.) Blanchett’s performance borrows a little from Judy Davis‘s neurotic nutjob in Husbands and Wives and then piles on the rage and (self-) loathing and denial like shovelfuls of dirt in a cemetery. I shared my thoughts about the film an hour ago with a publicist but that’s for later. It’s very much an above-average Woody but I can’t go any farther…later.