ACTRESS Cate Blanchett is sensational in "Blue Jasmine," a movie that ranks with filmmaking genius Woody Allen‘s greatest pictures. Blanchett could win the best actress Oscar as well as other top awards for her incredible performance in the tragic comedy written and directed superbly by Allen. The film should also wind up high in the awards.
Blanchett plays Jasmine, the wife of a smooth-talking multimillionaire who is a crooked, adulterous financier. He is exposed, stripped of his riches, jailed and leaves Jasmine broke. The husband is played perfectly by Alec Baldwin.
We see their earlier good life in New York in flashbacks. She is forced to leave the mansions, yachts and high-class social crowd and tumble into her sister’s lower-middle-class home in San Francisco because she has nowhere else to go.
Jasmine’s sister, Ginger, is portrayed by Sally Hawkins.
This is definitely Blanchett’s picture but she receives delicious support from Hawkins and Ginger’s string of men: ex-husband, played by Andrew Dice Clay; her fiance (Bobby Cannavale);and another lover (Louis C.K.)
Jasmine’s life is a mess until she meets Peter Sarsgaard, a wealthy guy who hopes to represent California in Congress someday. He wants to marry Jasmine until he learns the truth about her and finds the stories she told him were lies. When he boots her out of his life, Jasmine hits rock bottom and her tragic fall is complete …
THE MAGIC of "Les Miz" has ensnared Gov. Neil Abercrombie. He was on Maui on Saturday and attended a rehearsal of the Maui Academy of Performing Arts’ big production of "Les Misérables." The guv obviously was impressed because academy official Carolyn Wright said he will return for tonight’s opening. The musical runs for six performances over two weekends at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center in Kahului …
SERVICES WILL be held on Maui and in Honolulu for Edna Pualani Farden Bekeart, an educator and important figure in Hawaiian music who died June 17 at age 95 in Kaneohe. Services on Maui are at 4 p.m. today at Holy Innocents Church in Lahaina; in Honolulu they will be held at 9 a.m. Tuesday at Holy Nativity Church. Burial follows at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.
Edna was the 12th of 13 children born to Charles and Annie Farden and the first born in a hospital. Puamana was the Farden family’s Maui home in Lahaina, depicted in the 1937 song written by her sister, Irmgard Farden Aluli, and her father.
After her graduation from University of Hawaii, Edna taught at Kamehameha, Royal and Holy Nativity schools. She sang with The Farden Sisters in the 1950s. One of their hits was "Boy From Laupahoehoe," written by Irmgard.
Edna composed "Aloha," recorded by Irmgard and her group Puamana, Bill Kaiwa, Amy Hanaiali‘i and Loyal Garner. Edna and Marion "Buddy" Vasconcellos composed "It’s Aloha Week Once Again." It won the annual Aloha Week song composing contest in the ’50s and was recorded by Haunani Kahalewai.
Edna taught hula at the Kaiser Hawaiian Village hotel in the ’50s after ‘Iolani Luahine left the position. (The Kaiser later became the Hilton.) She also taught hula at UH for a decade starting in 1970.
In 2008, Edna received a lifetime achievement award from the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts, the highest award given by the academy that sponsors the annual Na Hoku Hanohano Awards.
I am among the many people in Hawaii who will miss Edna. She was a friend I could call on to gather information for some of the stories I wrote. Condolences to her family …
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Ben Wood, who sold newspapers on Honolulu streets in World War II, writes of people, places and things. Email him at bwood@staradvertiser.com.
