by ·Comments Off on Silver Linings Playbook (2012, David O. Russell)

Our second “guy just out of mental institution struggles to readjust” romantic drama-comedy in a row, after The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This one seemed to try harder for slightly lesser results. But the two leads were great, and Robert De Niro and Chris Tucker are better than they’ve been since Jackie Brown.

Bradley Cooper is our disturbed hero – I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who mainly knows him from Midnight Meat Train, yet there was a MMT reference in this movie – and Jennifer Winter’s Bone Lawrence is his disturbed new friend with whom he tries to enter a dance competition. Bradley moves back in with his mom (Jacki Weaver from Picnic at Hanging Rock) and dad (compulsive gambler De Niro) and spends all his time stalking his ex-wife and hurting J-Lawrence’s feelings, until they realize after the dance thing that they were meant for each other.

Also, Dewart from Take Shelter plays Bradley’s brother and Dash Mihok from The Thin Red Line shows up as a cop.

by ·Comments Off on The Hunger Games (2012, Gary Ross)

Just like the book, plus a bunch of good actors (hello, Jennifer Lawrence and Woody Harrelson), minus all depth or feeling, and with the worst camerawork I’ve seen in years. Ross made Pleasantville and his DP shot all the latter-day Clint Eastwood pictures, so what happened here? The soundtrack is nice, anyway.

by ·Comments Off on Winter’s Bone (2010, Debra Granik)

Katy and I were surprised that the movie had a happy ending. Then again, the happy ending consists of the lead character finding her dead father and sawing off his hands. She spends the previous ninety minutes in an atmosphere of such threat and menace, surrounded by hostile neighbors and relatives, all with guns in their hands, that we’re just stunned she’s alive, and with some money to boot.

Katy picked this because lead actress Jennifer Lawrence will star in The Hunger Games (having played Mystique in the X-Men prequel along the way). I was also glad to see Sheryl “Laura Palmer” Lee, first movie I’ve watched of hers since the great Mother Night. Lawrence is a dirt-poor girl with a messed-up mom and missing dad (this is all good Hunger Games practice) in a town full of angry meth dealers, some of which are her relatives but I can’t always tell which. What’s for sure is that this is a town which values shutting-the-fuck-up above all else, and even though she has damn good reason to go asking after her father (she’ll lose her house if he skips bail), all these questions are making people nervous, so they resolve to deal with her. Fortunately she makes a sorta friend in Uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes of Me and You and Everyone We Know) who helps her out, probably dooming himself.

Nominated for oscars but beaten by The King’s Speech, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Aaron Sorkin.