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A Silver Overlay in “Silver Linings Playbook” – A Movie Review

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On January 2, 2013

In General, Movies

David O. Russell’s first film, Spanking the Monkey (1994), is not a crowd pleaser.  Mediocre as it is, it’s tougher than that.  His new picture, Silver Linings Playbook (2012) is a crowd pleaser—and it isn’t mediocre.  It’s a seriocomic piece that manages to be a lot of fun.  Nimble with his camera, Russell adapts a novel unknown to me for what seems like a good adaptation to the silver screen (i.e. the movie stands on its own).

The story is that of a man (Bradley Cooper) just out of a mental hospital and his hopes of restoring his subverted marriage.  Presently he befriends a chilly, emotionally disturbed young widow (Jennifer Lawrence) who affects his life in curious ways.  The value of marriage, despite the imperfections of marriages, is a theme in Playbook.  So is the understandable fight, undertaken by some individuals, to turn away from darkness, from “negativity” (oh, that word!), and concentrate on light—as well as possible.

Funny and buoyant, what we have here is a contemporary Preston Sturges movie, only more touching.  Granted, it can be corny too, but I had no trouble seeing a silver overlay in Silver Linings Playbook, however un-tough it may be.

“The Avengers” Arrive – A Movie Review

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On May 21, 2012

In General, Movies

The Avengers (2012 film)

The Avengers (2012 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (2012) is consistently entertaining.  Its action footage would be more entertaining, wholly exciting, if it contained greater suspense (like the car chase in The French Connection), but no matter.  It’s still head-on fun and technically accomplished.

Certain Marvel comic-book movies, most of which I haven’t seen, anticipated this lengthy flick in which Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk and other superheroes band together to–you got it–save the world.  (I wonder who’s going to save it from the economic policies of political leaders?)  I enjoyed the movie’s humor and was certainly glad the talented, now likeable Robert Downey Jr. was on hand.  I mean he’s now likeable as a human being, I think.  Like the action, Downey makes us forget most of Whedon’s poor plotting.

When Eminem Was Hot Stuff: 2003’s “8 Mile” – A Movie Review

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On November 21, 2011

In Movies, Music

Cover of "8 Mile (Widescreen Edition)"

Cover of 8 Mile (Widescreen Edition)

Eminem, in 8 Mile, plays a Detroit post-teenager who dreams of becoming a rap singer, who both has black friends and receives hostility from blacks who don’t like his career intentions.  For all its hokiness it’s a good movie, chiefly because of its depiction of working-class life in an American city.  Scott Silver’s script is fragile, but Curtis Hanson directs it with flair and know-how.  Eminem’s acting is hollow but the other performers shine.  E.g., Mekhi Phifer  is urban tough but nonthreatening as one of Eminem’s friends, he who asserts he intends to square things with the Lord but never gets around to it.  Kim Basinger gives a nicely complex performance as the white rapper’s mother, and the late Brittany Murphy effectively plays, er, an affable slut.  It’s not much of a role.  It is not even clear that Silver is aware she is a slut.

Another problem: the obligatory embarrassing sex scene.  And another: rap music.  The one Eminem rap song I have heard in its entirety struck me as trivial and unfunny, and the tripe spewed out in 8 Mile is no better.  One wishes we had Duke Ellington and Scott Joplin around to teach this white kid a lesson.

Spurning a “Blue Valentine” – A Movie Review

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On February 22, 2011

In Movies

Country Valentine

Image by .bobby via Flickr

Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine (2011) deals with the deeply troubled marriage of Dean and Cindy (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams).

Have you ever seen the Swedish film, The Passion of Anna, by Ingmar Bergman? It, too, has a lot to do with relationships between men and women.  I don’t consider it a success because, for one thing, it’s too talky, but it makes Blue Valentine look utterly lousy by comparison.  At least Bergman (in Passion) cared about character development; Cinafrance doesn’t.  We learn very little about Dean and even less about Cindy.  (Why, really, is their marriage such a failure?  The movie more than hints that it’s all Dean’s fault, but that explains nothing.)

At least Bergman fashioned quite a few powerful scenes; too many of Valentine‘s scenes get boring.  Ross Douthat of National Review finds the couple’s courtship “very charming.”  I don’t.  Usually, when people in movies are shown falling in love, it’s sleep-inducing.

There is a certain degree of artistic strength in Cianfrance’s film, but mainly it’s a draggy work of pseudo-art.

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Give “Please Give” a Chance – Movie Review

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On February 8, 2011

In General, Movies

Please Give

Image by HowardLake via Flickr

Written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, the comedy-drama Please Give (2010) has to do with moral responsibility when it is unmet (except in the case of Rebecca [Rebecca Hall]) and with feeling guilty.  Kate (Catherine Keener) hands out money to the homeless and contemplates doing volunteer work only in order to assuage her guilt over exploiting the deaths of elderly people who own valuable furniture.  Only near the film’s conclusion does she conduct a form of giving which is not just a means of reducing guilt, as when she agrees to buy her teenaged daughter a pair of costly jeans.  Her culpability is nothing, however, compared with that of some other characters, who are nevertheless guilt-free.  Whence comes this reality?

Holofcener (Friends With Money) is a true artist–and an intelligent one.  This despite the fact that Please Give provides an unearned happy or optimistic ending.  It resolves itself with scenes of family affection, which is inadequate.

Even so, the film is absorbing and the acting is utterly winning.

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