The late Roger Ebert said this film was so good it could always be a terrific old classic. Silver Linings Playbook is indeed a good movie, but it’s no wonder that it made Ebert think of the old classics. It’s a film about people who aren’t lucky at all, and yet it wants to make you feel good. In the end you think it’s good to be a little deranged. An odd feeling.
Bradley Cooper is Pat, a young man with a bipolar disorder. He almost killed the man who had an affair with his wife and spent eight months in a psychiatric hospital. After being released, he moves back in with his parents, but his troubles, and his disorder, a far from over. He is determined to win back his wife, but she has asked a restraining order and every step he takes, takes him further away from what he’s trying to achieve. The only one who understands him, is the young widow Tiffany (a terrific Jennifer Lawrence), who’s more than just a little bit deranged herself …
It all seems hopeless, but mind the title about those silver linings.
Director/screenwriter David O’Russell earned some accolades for his work too, but this is definitely an actors’ movie. Direction and script actually leave something to desire, but Cooper and Lawrence are marvelous, and easily make up for some shallowness and predictability. Cooper was already okay in The Hangover (you easily saw he was a good actor), but really gets the chance to show what he’s capable of here. And yet it’s Lawrence who runs away with the movie (and the Oscar). Good supporting actors too, Robert De Niro regains some of his old charm (and class) as Cooper’s father. It’s not the classic some think it is - or will turn out to be - but it’s easy to enjoy and recommend. And yes, it has some old-fashioned charm, Roger Was Right.
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (2013) D.Antoine Fuqua (Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart
Well, well…what we got here is basically an old school like (B.Willis) type of film, where more or less the plot and script don’t matter. The film is unrealistic and preposterous with over the top action, bullets flying everywhere, explosions every so often and of course the corny lines here and there. But, guess what!..this film was fun and it’s supposed to be, it’s a well-shot action film that delivered. So, if you got about 2 hours of your life to spare, sit your ass down and crack open a couple cold beers and enjoy! Let the bullets fly…6/10
Just sat through I Give it a Year (Dan Mazer, 2013). It was a mrs.caress pick. Anyway, it wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be by any stretch; some funny people in there, and some amusing set-pieces. Laughed out loud once or twice. Shame it was all hung upon the framework of a f*ckawful piece of claptrap (couple who clearly have nowt in common and borderline detest one another get married purely for the purposes of this rom-com plot contrivance. But look! Here’s that ex-gf who’s obviously made for the husband. And look! Here’s the wife meeting a guy at work who’s obviously made for her. What will happen?). Could’ve been a lot worse though, I suppose. I could’ve been made to sit through tonight’s episode of bloody Big Brother. At least we missed that. Oh no, hang on: I AM being made to sit through tonight’s episode of Big Brother. We didn’t miss it after all. Hurrah. Viva life.
Just expressing my opinion (after half an hour I was a little bored) and I actually understand why you like this one. Very Jodorowsky-like flick with loads of beautiful and surreal imagery. It’s just a little too plotless and montonous to my taste, but it’s decidedly a wonderfully-crafted effort - it’s just not for everybody’s taste.
Not a movie for El Topo and other history buffs, they virtually got everything wrong: the events, the landschape, the tanks, the weather and the languages.
Enjoyable on pop corn level, Telly Savalas fighting Krauts while also being the movie’s comic relief, and Robert Shaw singing a Pantzer song in German (but delivering his lines in zee Englis langwitz)
Moreover they didn’t get all landscapes wrong: a couple of scenes were shot in a mountainous forest area looking very much like the Ardennes.
Best scene so far: Bronson having an idea when asked by Henry Fonda if the MP’s really looked like MP’s (Fonda think they might have been a German sabotage group): “Wait a minute!”
That’s exactly what I thought halfway.
Paul Walker is a traveller who hires a car in South Africa only to soon find himself in heaps of trouble, as the car has recently been involved in illegal activity. Nice idea and the locations are different, but there is something missing from this one…tension. And you do need a bit of tension in a film like this.
Rolling Thunder (1977) - 8/10 - I’ve had this movie on my watchlist for a while and I’m glad I’ve finally watched it. The film is very simple, yet it’s a very well-crafted piece of cinema, with a great deal of well shot scenes, but what I like the most about it is that the director never dramatizes too much or attempts to be render the material too exploitative - he just goes straight to the point of the story and while some viewers might deem it as a drawback, I thought it was very adequate that it didn’t aspire to be something different than it really is. It was nice to see Tommy Lee Jones and Luke Askew and overall the acting is very good. It’s just a classic that I’ve finally got to know. A truly great piece of entertainment.
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (2013) D.Antoine Fuqua (Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart
Well, well…what we got here is basically an old school like (B.Willis) type of film, where more or less the plot and script don’t matter. The film is unrealistic and preposterous with over the top action, bullets flying everywhere, explosions every so often and of course the corny lines here and there. But, guess what!..this film was fun and it’s supposed to be, it’s a well-shot action film that delivered. So, if you got about 2 hours of your life to spare, sit your ass down and crack open a couple cold beers and enjoy! Let the bullets fly…6/10[/quote]
Gave this one a spin. Undemanding film. Would have liked a bit more sadistic action, but I was forgetting I was not watching a super low budget film for a change . But all is well as at the end of the film America is still in love with itself.
Same with me, I’ve got season one sitting here. Even Tomas Milian and Fred Williamson being in some couldn’t do it for me. I used to love it when it was on too.
One old man with leather gloves takes on a whole Bronx gang. Bronson, Woodward wasn’t ;D
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) - 9/10 - As well scripted and directed as it is disturbing.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943) - 6/10 - I know it’s said to be one of the finest Hitchcock flicks, but I found it just good, nothing special. It has some tension-driven moments and the entire story isn’t too bad, but it all wasn’t that riveting to me.
Peur sur la ville (1975) - 6/10 - Didn’t intend to view this one, I watched it owing to a little misunderstanding and a discussion on our forum. Anyway I’m glad I did so. I thought it was a good piece of old-fashioned entertainment. It’s always a pleasure to watch an old-fashioned actioner, at least one may say what is going on and the cameraman is able not to shake the camera. The film is too much of a derivative of Dirty Harry to become something genuinely unique, but it’s not that it bothers - it all just feels too familiar to really impress. That’s Verneuil’s second movie I’ve viewed so far and it’s better than extremely erratic Le clan des Siciliens. It’s deftly directed and although towards the end the execution gets uninspiring, the first part saves the day and Belmondo is great.
. But all is well as at the end of the film America is still in love with itself.![http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/163/u01j.jpg/[/url]](http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/163/u01j.jpg/%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
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