Movies for October 2013: Blue Jasmine and The President's Analyst

Hugh will host for the October meeting. The movies to see are:

Blue Jasmine (2013)

Trivia

This is only the second of Woody's last ten films (the other being 2009's Whatever Works) that was shot in the US.

Louis C.K. originally auditioned for the part played by Andrew Dice Clay. Woody Allen felt that C.K. was too nice to play the role and offered him another part. 

Woody Allen's third film with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, after Manhattan and Anything Else. Unlike those films, which were shot with anamorphic lenses, this was shot with spherical lenses in Super 35. 

The third Woody Allen film in which Alec Baldwin has been cast.

Early whispers about noms for best pic, actress and supporting actress as well as the usual writing and directing ones for Allen are circulating.

---

The President's Analyst (1967) 

Trivia

NBC broadcast the film in the early 1970s and was compelled to remove the picture's punchline.

A not-so secret fact is that the FBR and CEA were originally identified by their real names; apparently pressure was brought to rename them after the film was shot. Thus every line where FBR or CEA is spoken has been redubbed, often very audibly. If you watch actor's lips, they're really saying FBI and CIA.

'Barry McGuire' (Old Wrangler) made his own flowered pants for the movie. During that time they were quite the rage. 

CEA agent Don Masters (Godfrey Cambridge) wears a "Dizzy Gillespie for President" sweatshirt at the beginning of the movie. Legendary jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie actually ran a short-lived campaign for the office in 1964 which, while not entirely serious, appealed to many disaffected voters. 

The head of the "FBR" is named Lux. "Lux" was a then-popular brand of vacuum cleaner. At the time, the director of the FBI was named Hoover. 

During the filming of this movie on the lower west side of NYC James Coburn was being chased by two fellow actors who were dressed as uniformed cops. Shouting "Stop Stop", they chased Coburn around a corner and into a real on-duty uniformed NYC police officer. The officer dropped Coburn with one blow from his nightstick. Coburn had to seek medical treatment which subsequently stopped the filming for a time.

The Grateful Dead were asked to be in this film. They would have been a rock band that Dr. Schaefer winds up hanging out with. Unfortunately the band wanted complete control over that scene.