Hot off the heels of two very hot Oscar favourites in three years, comes red-hot David O. Russell’s hot new Academy-fancied flick American Hustle. Now that’s really hot.
David O. Russell’s American Hustle (MAN, that’s satisfying to say) is a film utterly clad in veneer. It’s very much a haircuts, nail varnish, dodgy accents, more hair, heaving cleavage, aviators, even more hair kind of a movie.
Set in 1970s New Jersey, Christian Bale’s be-toupéed Irving Rosenfeld is a flabby career-conman, making decent wedge from knocked-off paintings and trifling lending scams; juggling his be-bouffanted, haphazard handful of a trophy wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) and be-frizzied soul-mate and partner-in-crime Sydney (Amy Adams). When be-permed, ambitious undercover cop Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) busts Irving and Sydney, he offers them the chance to secure their freedom by bagging him bigger fish in the form of senators, governors and be-pompadoured family man and mayor of Atlantic City Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner).
But despite all the facade and the follicle topiary, you’d be a fool (a fool I say) to labour under the misapprehension that American Hustle hasn’t got depth; it’s got it in volumes. Continue reading →
We can rely on, at very least, these 7 unfortunate exhibits to prove just how strong the Best Actor category is at this year’s Academy Awards. And the great thing is that, despite the wonderful performances of these above gentlemen, the five who got the nod are no less deserving.
Plus, they’re all very different. Denzel Washington’s drug-addled alcoholic pilot shares similar traits to his two other Oscar-winning characters from Gloryand Training Day. Behind a smart-talking super confident facade there lies a deep trouble and ultimately false pride, which will eventually result in his demise. Bradley Cooper is also very believable in Silver Linings as a troubled soul overcoming inner-demons. And, talking of troubled souls, Phoenix is the very epitome of a mentally and physically lost child. Accused by some critics of chewing the scenery, I found his central role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s flawed treatise as utterly compelling and just a little disturbing. While Hugh Jackman’s Jen Valjean is the role the Australian was born to play (yep, a Frenchman with an American accent), and he plays it devilishly well. Why, he’s even better than Russell Crowe.
And yet, despite the immense caliber of performances on show, somehow honest Abe still stands head, shoulders and stovepipe hat above the others. Once again, Daniel Day-Lewis has managed to metamorphosise himself from an ostensibly mild-mannered unassuming chap, to something completely unforgettable and iconic. To say that the performance for his inevitable third Oscar is on a level with his Christy Brown (My Left Foot) and Daniel Plainview (There Will Be Blood) is the highest and most reverential praise that I can bestow.
The measured yet authoritative portrayal of an almost legendary figure, is so beguiling, that not even the Wilkes-Booth ancestry would begrudge him the Oscar.
It dawned on me, while watching ‘Take Me Out’ the other day (it’s when I do my best thinking), that I really really HATE it when somebody describes something by speaking about it as if it were a recipe.
By way of a masochistic example, take the following:
What do you get if you take a pinch of Bradley Cooper’s charm; an ounce of Robert De Niro’s idiosyncrasies; a spoonful of Jennifer Lawrence’s nubile, vital, fresh-faced, beautiful talent; a dash of Jacki Weaver’s whatever-noun-applies-to-Jacki-Weaver; and stir it all up in a bowl of David O. Russell’s wit and originality? That’s right, it’s Silver Lin…oh dear, you’ve already chosen swift suicide. Understandable.
Despite your justifiable self-fatallisation, I’ll continue to do writing about yonder Silver Linings Playbook. It’s a faintly dark comedy about about a bipartite couple brought together by bipolar (excuse the inevitable misdiagnosis; I sacrificed accreacy for phraseology). Pat (Cooper) has just been discharged from a psychiatric unit after his wife’s infidelity got him all hitty. Tiffany (Lawrence) has been seeking to overcome the grief of her young widowhood by slagging around with her whole lucky office. And in each other they find reluctant kinship – and unlikley dance partners – which flourishes into something golden.
The success of the piece hinges on Cooper and Lawrence, and Russell’s faith is repaid with a touchdown. Cooper, in particular, impresses with his vulnerable naivety and his Best Actor nomination is well deserved; while Lawrence, as the erratic nympho, continues to establish herself as a genuine leading lady who can pull-off a spectrum of roles.
But Russell also pulls his weight with a script that is funny enough to work as a comedy, and smart and insightful enough to stand-alone as a drama. It never slips into the smugness that his previous screenplays sometimes can, the prime example being the unbearable Flirting With Disaster. The film’s critics seem to have a problem with the trivialisation of mental illness, but for me it was an honest depiction of depression and its manifestations and I did not feel that the resolution suggested that the suffering parties were, all of a sudden, utterly cured. They are people with problems, but who want to overcome them and, frankly, that’s a very useful message.
That said, Russell’s inclusion among the Best Director nominees seems unwarranted. At times the film is very clumsy and the editing scatter-gun (although Crispin Smuthers and Jay Cassidy are also nominated) – many scenes seem unfinished or jammed-in. The domestic argument set-pieces for example, in which Pat’s dysfunctional parents played by De Niro and Weaver (who make up the quartet of acting nominations, the first film to do so since Reds in 1981) evidence the possible cause of their son’s problems, are disjointed and disorientating.
Of course, I’m sure that the canny filmmakers would say that this ad-hoc cutting signifies the altered states of mind that the protagonists share in common. And on the strength of the good faith developed by the film’s other boons, it is easy to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Toronto may or, indeed, may not be the city of Mounties, Bryan Adams, maple syrup and Greg Rusedski.
Irrespective of the correctitude of the above already equivocal assertion, Toronto is also – presumably by sheer serendipity – home of the Toronto International Film Festival or, if you’re cool like me, TIFF.
“Exactly how cool are you?” you may well rudely ask. Well, let’s put it this way: I wear the face of my watch on the inside of my wrist and sprinkle cinnamon on my Starbucks latte…at the same time (sometimes). That cool.
See, told you ‘TIFF’ was cool. It’s on an orange background, for cripes sake…
I’m also sufficiently cool to know that TIFF is the true starting pistol for the annual Oscars race. Forget the false starts of Cannes and Venice, whose top prizes – respectively the Palme d’Or and the Golden Lion – have only once in 110 attempts gone to the eventual Best Picture winner (that being the Ernest Borgnine comedy Marty(1955, 4 wins, 8 noms) which won at Cannes).
To drag the athletics/Olympics/athletics at the Olympics analogy to its inevitably West Indian limit, the Usain Bolts of recent years that have gone on to break the Oscar finishing tape in first place are The King’s Speech (2010, 4 wins, 12 noms), Slumdog Millionaire (2008, 8 wins, 10 noms) and American Beauty (1999, 5 wins, 8 noms). Chariots of Fire (1981, 4 wins, 7 noms) fittingly completes the golden quartet over the course of the last 34 awards.
Perhaps more interestingly (if you can imagine such a thing) is the fact that of the 20 TIFF winners that are English-language cinematic non-documentaries, 20% of the time they have gone on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This is a pretty good strike rate, considering that the Oscars ceremony is still five months away, particularly when compared to the lousy 1.6% and 0% conversion figures of Cannes and Venice respectively.
Throw in the likes of Precious (2009, 2 wins, 6 noms), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, 4 wins, 10 noms and former BTV Film of the Week), Life is Beautiful (1997, 3 wins, 7 noms), Shine (1996, 1 win, 7 noms), Places in the Heart (1984, 2 wins, 7 noms) and The Big Chill (1983, 0 wins, 3 noms) and of all Toronto’s cinematic non-documentary winners, a third earn nominations for the big one. Bear in mind that in the vast majority of those contests, the category only allowed five nominees instead of the new system allowing up to ten, and Toronto’s victor now probably has roughly an even chance* of being nominated.
[* Note that this reasoning has been scientifically proven using the empirical measurement known as the ‘Hunch’]
So what does this mean for this year’s TIFF People’s Choice winner Silver Linings Playbook? I should imagine that it means that director David O. Russell and star Bradley Cooper are permitting themselves broad, somewhat smug, grins…
Cooper could almost see the $ signs as Russell described the concept for his Stuck on You sequel (Credit: Chris Opalla (but only for the photo…the joke was all mine))
It also means that it becomes an immediate front-runner for inclusion in the final showdown in February. David O. Russell’s name will be fresh in the hazy memory of the even the eldest of Academy members; a couple of years ago his The Fighter (2010, 2 wins, 7 noms) picked up two Oscars (a pair of supporting actor gongs (a.k.a. a “brassiere”?) for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo) and a further five nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Throw in the hottest thing in Hollywood , Jennifer Lawrence, who herself picked up a nomination two years ago for Winter’s Bone (2010, 0 wins, 4 noms), Jacki Weaver, who lost out to Melissa Leo two years ago, and Robert De Niro, and Silver Linings Playbook – whose plot revolves around two people with ‘problems’ who seek solace in each other’s weirdness – has a great chance of filling the ‘quirky-yet-philisophical’ comedy nomination that the likes of Jason Reitman and Alexander Payne have thrived on over the last few years.
The filmis released in the U.K. on 21st November and, until then we’ll have to make do with the rather annoying trailer (below). But don’t let that put you off; The Kids Are All Right had an annoying trailer too and that turned out to be a brilli…actually, on second thoughts, forget that train of thought.
His name's Adam Marshall and he LOVES talking about himself in the third person. He thinks he's an expert but the truth is that he probably just likes talking about the films and the Oscars and the such.
I hope...that is to say, he hopes...that you like the words that are written down.
David O. Russell’s American Hustle (MAN, that’s satisfying to say) is a film utterly clad in veneer. It’s very much a haircuts, nail varnish, dodgy accents, more hair, heaving cleavage, aviators, even more hair kind of a movie.
Bloscars 