Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook
You know, I have to hand it to David O'Russell.  There are not a lot of good dramas out there.  Oh, there are some that are diverting enough, I suppose, but nothing to write home about.  And most are sappy, formulaic, cookie cutter messes.  And then here comes David O'Russell (fresh off the equally excellent The Fighter) with his terrific adaptation of Matthew Quick's novel, Silver Linings Playbook.

Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) suffers from bipolar disorder.  As the movie begins, he is being released from the mental hospital, where he was sentenced after almost beating his wife's lover to death.  Now living at home with his parents (played by Jacki Weaver and Robert DeNiro), Pat is trying to get his life back in order and hopefully convince his wife to get back together with him...of course, that would involve finding a way around that darn restraining order.  The solution to his little problem presents itself in the form of Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a young widow who knows Pat's wife.  And she will pass on a letter for him if he agrees to help her with her dance competition.

So this sounds like a serious drama until you read the dance competition part of my synopsis, which makes this sound like just another one of those formulaic romantic comedies.  Well, yes and no.  There is a bit of a formula here, sure, but when it is so superbly acted, written and directed, you can still find yourself surprised by what you are seeing on screen.  And make no mistake, Silver Linings Playbook is superb, full of heart and humor and a lot of crazy. 

O'Russell supposedly wanted to make this film because his own son is bipolar.  He tackles the subject with a great deal of heart and wisdom in both his directing and writing.  But his greatest strength is the way he depicts family.  I don't think anyone working today is as adept at creating a real family dynamic as he is.  He showed this skill in The Fighter, too.  There are no neatly defined family "roles" here like in other films; this is family and it is messy.  They love each other, they hate each other, they talk over each other, play little manipulative games, bicker and feud, and then hug it out.  These scenes are among the most heartfelt and funny in the movie.

And the acting is excellent!  This is the first film in a long time that has received an Oscar nomination in all four acting categories, and deservedly so.  Cooper, Lawrence, DeNiro and Weaver all develop fully formed human beings, with both good qualities and bad.  Cooper shows a true depth and maturity in his performance that you would not have imagined from his other films like A-Team or The Hangover.  Let's give this guy meaty roles like this!  And as for Jennifer Lawrence...between X-Men: First Class, The Hunger Games, and Winter's Bone, I am beginning to wonder if there is anything she can't do.  All the supporting players are all terrific, as well, including Julia Stiles and Chris Tucker.  And where the hell has Chris Tucker been anyway?  He hasn't made a movie since 2007's Rush Hour 3.  And while I was growing tired of his shtick by that sequel, I forgot how effective he can be when he is used in the right way!

There is one thing that bothered me in the movie...it's a small thing, but it kept nagging at me.  The police are pretty clear that if Pat has one more bipolar outburst, he is going back to the mental institution.  He proceeds to have a bunch of violent and destructive outbursts (in public even!), and yet he is never sent back.  He just keeps getting more warnings.  But poor harmless Chris Tucker keeps getting dragged back for no reason.  Okay, this is a small complaint, but it bothered me.  Silver Linings Playbook is a great film, funny and touching, and I definitely recommend it.  Go see it!

MVP:
I know I should say O'Russell, but I just can't.  And here is why: Red Lights, Righteous Kill, Being Flynn, Little Fockers, Stone, Freelancers starring 50 Cent, for crying out loud!  Not DeNiro, but 50 Cent.  What has Robert DeNiro been doing the last few years?!?!?  It has been a long time since I have seen DeNiro knocking the ball out of the park in a good movie.  I don't know if it is the roles being offered or if he is just on a bad streak, but it's been far too long since I have seen him in something great.  And one of life's great pleasures is to see the arguably greatest actor of his generation do what he does best.  And he vanishes into the role of Pat, Sr., who has a very complicated relationship with his son.  It is a good part and there might be some under-the-table nature vs. nuture stuff going on here, because you can definitely sense some of Pat's violent tendencies coming from his obsessive compulsive father as opposed to just his bipolar disorder.  Pat, Sr. has a lot of anger and a lot of regrets in his life.  But at the same time, when he looks at his son, you see such love in his eyes, no matter how sick he is or how disturbed he can be.  Pat, Sr. could have been played for laughs, a one dimensional, walking OCD joke, but DeNiro captures the heart of the role.  He is terrific and I was so happy to see him back in all his glory.  MVP!

BEST LINE:
Pat, Sr: I gotta rethink this whole thing.  I didn't trust it before, but I gotta say, now I do.

TRIVIA:
Lots of interesting casting trivia on this one!  Russell originally wanted to make this film with Zooey Deschanel and Vince Vaughn.  Then Mark Wahlberg was in the mix.  Russell came to Cooper in a different way.  The two had been in discussions to collaborate on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  I think it was a good decision to make this instead!  For the role of Tiffany, Anne Hathaway was actually cast, but filming for The Dark Knight Rises interfered, so Russell looked elsewhere for his leading lady.  I think this all worked out for the best.  Cooper and Lawrence were both excellent!

X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class

I have mixed feelings about the X-Men movie franchise.  Maybe I was just picky because the X-Men were my favorite comic team when I was growing up.  And while I felt Bryan Singer did a fairly good job with the first two X-Men movies, they never truly soared like say Spiderman 2 or The Dark Knight.  They were just two really solid comic films.  And then the third movie came out, a horrid, ill-conceived mess, and I became very worried about the direction of the franchise.  When they announced First Class, I was wary.  I did not think going back to do a prequel was a very good idea.  I wanted the studio to fix the mess they had made with Wolverine, Rogue, and Storm.  I didn't want to go back and see why Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr became Professor X and Magneto.

But the studio was smart, bringing a crew together that wouldn't hack a movie together.  Matthew Vaughn (Kick Ass) was a fine choice as director, with a fun style and strong visual flair that generally enhances his storytelling instead of distracts from it.  Vaughn went on to assemble a remarkable cast, including James McAvoy (Atonement), Kevin Bacon (Footloose), Rose Byrne (Troy), January Jones (Mad Men), rising star Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games), and my favorite up-and-coming actor Michael Fassbender (Prometheus).  Together, they really put together a stylish and fun flick.

During the height of the Cold War, Erik Lehnsherr (Fassbender) is a Holocaust survivor, traveling the world and using his mutant abilities to control metal to hunt and kill escaped Nazi war criminals.  His primary target is Sebastian Shaw (Bacon), the German scientist who killed Erik's mother and performed horrible experiments on the boy in his concentration camp laboratory.  But Erik is not the only one seeking out Shaw.  Special agent Moira MacTaggart (Byrne) suspects Shaw is playing the USSR and the US against each other in an attempt to jumpstart World War 3.  Once she discovers she is dealing with mutants, she asks for help from the world's foremost mutant expert, telepath Charles Xavier (McAvoy).  The stage is set.  Let super heroics ensue! 

There is a lot to like here, but what I like the most is that the film really gets to the heart of what the X-Men are all about – how can the world deal with the existence of mutants?  Vaughn and Company touch on with some of the smarter issues from the comic, such as the debate of assimilation vs. segregation.  Some mutants can “pass” as normal; some look too bizarre to ever really join the rest of humankind.  I also like how they play off Xavier and Erik's opposing philosophies.  Xavier is a man of peace and acceptance.  He fights for a world where mutant and man can live in peace and harmony.  To Erik, that is a load of crap.  He lived through the Holocaust and he knows the horrors that mankind is capable of, and he will not forgive them for that capability.  The X-Men were always an allegory for prejudice and discrimination, and First Class does a terrific job of making that struggle central to its story.  

Not that the film is all serious.  It still has fun.  Vaughn has created a cool retro vibe, successfully recreating the 1960s with a fun James Bond feel.  The sets have iconic Ken Adams' influence all over them.  And that is super cool.  The actors all put in terrific work, especially McAvoy, Bacon, and Fassbender.  I will say the movie is not perfect.  There are some things that keep it from achieving the greatness of the BEST comic movies...at times, I found the scenes with Xavier's young mutant recruits a bit superfluous.  The actors are all fine, but their scenes occasionally drag.  Besides, the heart and the meat of this movie are both firmly with Magneto and Xavier...the actual "First Class" is almost a distraction.

I also HATED the makeup for The Beast.  He looked like a giant blue Ewok.  I just couldn't take most scenes with him seriously because of this.  Kelsey Grammar's Beast makeup in the previous X-Men film was much better, and I was surprised to see these kind of effects taking a step backwards.

But these are small complaints, right?  Overall, the movie was really quite good and I definitely recommend it.  Not only did they make a smart and fun super hero movie.  They saved a franchise.

MVP: 
McAvoy is superb, so the choice is not as easy as I would have thought, but this is still Fassbender's movie.  He gets my MVP for playing Erik.  He puts in superb, conflicted work as a good man at heart who is understandably twisted into eventually becoming the villainous Magneto.  I like how seriously Fassbender embraced the conflicted nature of the character.  And while the rest of the movie is good, the first half hour features the best sequences of the film, by far – and I am referring to Erik's ruthless hunting down of Nazi criminals.  I seriously could have watched an entire film called Magneto: Nazi Hunter.  So that makes for a decisive MVP win for Fassbender. 

P.S. Between his performances in Inglourious Basterds and X-Men: First Class, it is clear that Fassbender should be the next James Bond.  Daniel Craig is terrific and I am in no rush for him to retire, but I hope Eon has their eye on Fassbender for taking the mantle when the time comes.

BEST LINE:

Xavier: We have it in us to be the better men.
Erik: We already are.

TRIVIA:
Once cast as Charles Xavier, James McAvoy immediately shaved his head...only to learn that the film intended to feature Xavier with a full head of hair.  For the first month of filming, he had to wear hair extensions.  Oops.   

The Hunger Games

Hunger Games

Sometimes, I think I must live in a cave.  Harry Potter was a phenomenon that I understood, but I was still trying to wrap my head around why the Twilight series was so popular, and then suddenly they announced that a movie was being made based on some book called The Hunger Games.  The world went crazy.  And I thought, "huh, where the heck did this come from?!"  Apparently, this trilogy of books came out and became an instant blockbuster, and I completely missed it.  And now that the movie was coming out, everyone I knew was really excited.

When I finally read the plot synopsis for the film, my initial reaction was that it was a ripoff of Battle Royale, the Japanese cult classic that pits teenagers and pre-teens against each other in a brutal fight to the death.  Now, that I've seen the movie, I am happy to report The Hunger Games is no ripoff of Battle Royale.  If anything, it evokes the old Greek myth of Theseus, with a small dash of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Running Man thrown in.  But the blend works.

I'm sure everyone knows the plot of the film by now.  But for the five of you who have not heard of The Hunger Games, here you go.  Every year in the futuristic nation of Panem, two teenagers are selected from each District as both tribute and punishment for past rebellions.  These kids are brought to the capital, trained to fight and then thrown into battle against each other until there is only one survivor.  The battle is, of course, watched by everyone in the country.  From District 12 comes Katniss (Winter's Bone's Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson, Zathura).  She's tough, resilient, independent, and a killer shot with a bow.  But is she going to be good enough to survive this brutal game and bring hope and glory to her downtrodden District?

There is a lot to like in this movie.  The cast is superb and surprising.  When I think a dystopian future, I do not think of Lenny Kravitz, Donald Sutherland, Wes Bentley, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, or Stanley Tucci.  Not at all.  But every single one of them pulls off their role with panache and skill.  This cast is probably the most pleasant surprise of the film.  The art direction is also top notch.  The film does a nice job of combining Greco-Roman influences with a truly futuristic look and feel.  I also like what writer-director Gary Ross (Sea Biscuit) brought to the film.  Granted, I have not read the books, but I thought the script and the direction had heft and weight to it, giving the film an importance that most studios wouldn't usually give to a young adult franchise (ahem, Twilight, cough cough).

But while the film was good, there were some issues that kept it from being great.  For one thing, Gary Ross depends WAY too much on shaky cam in a mistaken belief that it will add grittiness and realism to the economically depressed District 12.  Really, Gary, do we need shaky cam when we are looking at an old guy on a rocking chair?? What does that add to the movie????  It gave me motion sickness and I know I am not alone.  A lot of people seem to be complaining about this, and GOOD.  Shaky cam is overused and generally used poorly.  It certainly is completely unnecessary here and burdens the movie.  And it is a surprise to me because I've never seen Ross use this technique in his other films.  Oh, well.

There are also some minor complaints.  SPOILERS HERE.  I thought Cato was kind of a lame bad guy and nowhere near as menacing as the vicious little brunette who gets killed off in an unsatisfactory way.  I didn't like that Peeta seemed to somehow have a really complex paint and makeup kit with him in the forest...and I'm not sure where he was hiding it for most of the game.  I didn't think the relationship between Katniss and Rue was set up very well.  So when their story arc reached its conclusion, I certainly didn't feel the emotional wallop that the movie wanted me to feel.  I also thought the final fight involving Cato and the CGI wolf things was underwhelming.  And I have to wonder - if in this future, they can make flesh and blood wolf things appear out of nothing, then why do they need all those resources, like simple coal and oil, from the other districts?  Can't they just materialize coal out of thin air, too?  Seems like it would be easy to me...

Anyway, The Hunger Games overall was a pleasant surprise.  It was not a great film, but it was a pretty good one.  I'll be curious to see how this trilogy develops.

MVP:
Can there be any doubt?  Jennifer Lawrence takes this film and kicks its butt.   She is fantastic here.  She is the real winner, showing that she not only can hold her own in dramas, but can also carry a franchise on her shoulders.  She is a clear MVP.  I can't wait to see what she does next.

Side note: In a weird sort of way, I could imagine this as a sequel to Winter's Bone.  District 12 is an awful lot like the bleak Ozark setting of that film.  And there are definite similarities between Katniss and Ree.  Both are resilient young women who have to care for their siblings because mom has checked out after the death of their father.  Katniss and Ree are both good hunters, have a clever head on their shoulders, and are absolutely determined to do what they have to do for their family.  It's almost like Winter's Bone is about Katniss finding out what happened to her father and his meth lab, and then she gets picked as tribute for the Hunger Games.  And please, realize, I am completely joking about this.  But I couldn't help thinking and chuckling about it when I was watching the movie.  The similarities are there!!!

BEST LINE:

Peeta: I keep wishing I could think of a way to show them they don't own me.  If I'm gonna die, I wanna still be me.  Does that make any sense?

Katniss:  Yeah, I just can't afford to think that way.

TRIVIA:
The setting for The Hunger Games is the fictional country of Panem.  The name is derived from the Latin expression, "panem et circenses," which means 'bread and circuses.'  Basically, this was the old Roman expression for how the emperors controlled the people of the Empire - by giving them bread and violent games like gladiator matches.  It's a clever and accurate name given the subject matter of the film.  Also, to me, it also sounds similar to Panam, implying 'PanAmerican' and some sort of future where North and South America merge into one huge super country.


  

Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone can be summed up easily in one word. BLEAK. I can really think of no other word to describe it. Set in an extremely poor area in the Ozark Mountains, Winter's Bone is the story of Ree (Jennifer Lawrence), a 17-year old girl who basically runs her household, caring for her sick mother and acting as parent to her two young siblings. Her father, a drug dealer, has gone missing. The bigger problem is that he was actually out on bail and the family had put the house up for collateral. If he doesn't appear at his hearing in a week, then the family could lose the house - as dilapidated as it is, the house is the only thing the family has. Without it, they literally have nothing and no place to go.

Desperate, Ree visits her neighbors - many of whom are cousins - to find out where her father is. Everywhere she goes, the answer is the same. Mind your own business. Even her uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes) insists that she stay out of it. But she persists. And things get violent - and even more bleak.

I don't mean to make the film sound depressing. On the contrary, Ree is a terrific heroine, resilient, determined and clever, and her struggles are life-affirming and inspirational in a way. Ree is just a child who has been thrust into acting like an adult before her time, and not only accepting the role, but thriving in it. She is the most mature character in the film, including all the so-called adults around her, who are mostly petty and vindictive. It is a career making performance for Jennifer Lawrence who shines on the screen. I hope she has a long career ahead of her.

The other standout performance is John Hawkes as Teardrop. I don't know what I was expecting from this character, but he was constantly full of surprises. Even if the Teardrop's storyline is a familiar one, I was suckered into it. It's an excellent performance, certainly worthy of the Oscar nod, and I really hope I get to see Hawkes in more films and soon.

Winter's Bone is an excellent film. The pace is slow, but your patience will be rewarded. And I don't care how bleak it is, I definitely think it is worth checking out. I really liked it. 

MVP: This is a really tough call for me. Jennifer Lawrence is so good, and carries the entire film on her back. But the MVP is my personal favorite thing about the movie, and I really took to John Hawkes as Teardrop. All too often in other films, characters like Teardrop make certain decisions not because it makes any sense, but because it is convenient for the plot. Everything Teardrop does makes sense and feels real. This is partially thanks to the skillful script, but these scenes may not have worked with a different actor. Hawkes' conviction as Teardrop makes everything work. It's a performance and a role that consistently surprised me. It's a tough call, but Hawkes gets the win.

TRIVIA: Many of the supporting characters and all the extras were residents of the Missouri area where the film is set, and had never acted before.

OSCAR NOMINATIONS: Best Picture, Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence), Best Supporting Actor (John Hawkes), Best Adapted Screenplay

BEST LINE: Ree: "I'd be lost without the weight of you two on my back. I ain't going anyhere."