o'russell's ABSCAM movie AMERICAN HUSTLE

It has little in common with Scorsese except milieu.

I thought this was sort of inert but still pretty good. Especially Adams, Lawrence and Renner. Bale doing his usual Acting and manic Cooper were a tad much, but didn't really hurt things.

couldn't stand Bale. As you point out, the more obvious and ridic the performance the taller the Oscar.

this isnt out in the uk yet but it looks like another corny 'lol the 70s' kinda movie. not sure anyone needs another one of those. bradley cooper isnt a bad actor (i can think of a lot worse at his level) and he has lots of hollywood charisma. i miss american psycho bale.

It's been out since the 20th in London. Anchorman 2 is the current 'lol the 70s' kinda movie, and whilst AH plays with this a bit - it does more than that.

A2 is set in the '80s all-news dawn era, I read

I think you're right. I saw and hated Anchorman 2 the day before I saw American Hustle and I didn't twig they were set in two alleged different eras. I guess my cultural signifiers are not finely enough attuned.

American Hustle reminded me more of a '70s film than just a film set in the '70s. A la "Saturday Night Fever," maybe. I really like how it leaked out various bits of the characters backgrounds as motivation. I though the central metaphor of the American dream as scam was pretty strong, too. Anyone can get ahead, but only if you cheat, and cheating is expected. Follow the rules, get the shaft or fall behind. The more honorable you are (Renner, CK) the harder you fall, not because you deserve it, but because you're simply too naive to understand how the world works. Which is what makes Renner's character so fascinating: he understands the world is corrupt (the Mafia), but he's idealistic and sees corruption as a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Bale's character sums it up with his faux Jesus aphorism: "Always take a favor over money."

Also, it's not that Cooper is bad in this, or Bale is trying too hard. It's that Adams and Renner and Lawrence are so good, imo. They make it look easy, especially Adams, who is incredible and carries the movie.

i started out really annoyed at the overtness of late 70's signifiers and the abundance of perfectly-choreographed tracking shots but then about 45mins in i let myself forget about scorsese and boogie nights and remembered that wild 70s/80s set/costume design and swooping tracking shots are some of my favorite things in the world, so i ended up really liking this

also JiC otm x2

agree that the disco scene was kind of a dud, they should have went all-out or left that scene out all together

if we'd finished the disco poll in 2011 we could have sent the finalists to DOR in time

That scene was screaming for a little Machine needle drop.

agree with morbs that the renner/bale breakup scene was the clunkiest in the whole film

the shot of bale standing alone in the middle of the rotating dry-cleaning racks was the most accidentally hilarious, need an animated gif asap

I Feel Love and Harold Melvin's Don't Leave Me This Way are pretty good, though they probably would've played the Thelma Huston version by then.

it's funny to think about how actors in 2013 making a '70s crime caper are like actors in the '70s making a '30s crime caper.

which kinda makes this The Sting.

which itself was super influenced by the 1890s nostalgia of the 1920s/30s

am hustle also felt like a tribute to 90s movies about the 70s - the dueling narrations was very casino

In the 1890s view of the 1970s, they would've still been listening to the Harold Melvin version.

in the 1980s view of the 1970s they should've been listening to The Communards

It probably helped that I saw this a day after Scorsese’s meltdown--far from seeming hysterical, it’s Bresson by compariso--but I liked this fine. Don’t think it’s better than Boogie Nights, but that’s a 10 for me, and this is a solid 7 or 8.

I’ll go back now and read everybody else’s comments (which I always only skim lightly until I get out to see a film). I did sense nobody was that impressed by Christian Bale. The most interesting performances for me were by him, Adams, and De Niro. I thought Bale really disappeared into the character and slogged along movingly. Adams is really good, and while I wouldn’t say that De Niro does anything different than he did in Casino or Goodfellas, with the extra 15 or 20 years, and the director’s good sense to keep him in reserve, he makes for an absolutely perfect Lee Strasberg.

I'd give the music a 7 or 8 too. Steely Dan and Chicago early on are great, then basically nothing for a good half-hour, then a lot. If you hate the director-as-DJ, you’ll appreciate the break and roll your eyes at the rest. Inspired: “10538 Overture.” Wasted: “I Saw the Light.” (What is the point of using something that can barely be heard? Was it a trade-off involving soundtrack licensing? I don’t get it.) Weird: “White Rabbit” in another language. Liked it, though.

De Niro's best work since Wag the Dog, agreed.

Underscored by seeing the trailer for his Stallone thing right beforehand. Good god.

Enjoyed this. Good female leads, obv. My gf noted that it failed the Bechdel test, but that it made that seem more like a problem with the test than with the movie.

It's really a relationship movie. Woody Allen with a Scorsese comb-over.

the women talked about nail polish; bechdel test passed.

I don't have much to add to what's already been said but Michael Peña was kind of wasted in this which is too bad because he's always great.

Overall it felt like a silly movie with some good to amazing acting.

Some other music I thought worked well: "Evil Ways," Bee Gees, Elton. "I Feel Love," too--obvious, yes, but at least it was loud and Russell let it play for a minute. Harold Melvin instead of Thelma Houston was strange--maybe licensing, because the hit version is so much more famous (much better, too, I think). "Delilah" was a) perfect for that group of people and in that context, but b) I don't think it's a very good song, so veracity notwithstanding I wished he'd gone with something else (has "It's Not Unusual" ever been in a movie? that's waiting there for anyone with the good sense to use it). "Live and Let Die" was...funny. And you get to hear the double preposition.

I don't get the resemblance to Boogie Nights aside from lol period and the marketing. It's slightly more obvious that the movie has nothing to say in this case.

As far as movies where celebs wear funky threads to AM gold go, anchorman 2 was not only funnier but arguably more politically conscious and definitely more self aware about utilizing cliches in the third act. Admittedly less likely to get trophies, MTV aside.

Will Ferrell way more engaging a clown than Christian bale

Will take Jennifer Lawrence over Christina Applegate as the ex who demands to be reckoned with, though. Preferred Meagan good to Amy Adams as the sexy coworker in the love triangle.

It felt like a mishmash of Boogie Nights/Scorsese/Tarantino. The party scene where Bale meets Adams, that was staged very similarly to the "Spill a Wine" scene in Boogie Nights (with Chicago subbing for Eric Burdon). The principals walking along in slow-motion underneath the credits is like the credit sequence in Reservoir Dogs (with Steely Dan subbing for George Baker). Anyone who has no patience for such stuff anymore won't be impressed. I have infinite patience with that kind of thing.

otm

the total way less than the sum of its parts, but so many great parts

i didn't see any.

The end?

and there was a scene shot from a car trunk, how thrilling

Croups you say tons of awful contrarian stuff but this: Preferred Meagan good to Amy Adams as the sexy coworker in the love triangle. takes the cake. Even if you prefer Anchorman 2, Meagan Good was awful in it, and Amy Adams was easily the best part of American Hustle.

wow i hadn't considered that, here's your cake back

It's slightly more obvious that the movie has nothing to say in this case.

Haven't given this much thought; I don't mean to be anti-intellectual, just being honest, but I only sometimes spend time on this if a film first engages me at the level of performances, direction, and story. And then I may or may not go forward from there. Some of my favourite films of the last 15 years--Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, Boogie Nights, The Virgin Suicides--I've got my own version of what they're trying to say. Sometimes--Rushmore comes to mind--I'm not sure that they have anything to say. That's fine--I don't need it. And when films like The Tree of Life or The Master come up short at the level of engagement, what they have to say won't make me like them better.

American Hustle is definitely trying to say something, but like tipsy says above, I responded more to the Bale-Adams relationship than any statements about identity, America (yikes), or whatever.

"if you want to send a message, use aol instant messenger" - samuel goldwyn

lol old people

That's funny--I was actually thinking about Nat Hentoff's famous Bob Dylan interview, slocki:

Well, anyway, second of all, you've got to respect other people's right to also have a message themselves. Myself, what I'm going to do is rent Town Hall and put about 30 Western Union boys on the bill. I mean, then there'll really be some messages. People will be able to come and hear more messages than they've ever heard before in their life.

Yeah I don't think it's even trying to be a political film. There's the overall sense that everyone's on the make or on the take, but that seems more like general human behavior than anything specific to a place or time. It's more about the web of relationships, loyalties, jealousies, and how all of those affect everyone's individual actions. Not that that's inherently profound -- it's a deliberately light movie, maybe deliberately slight too. But I was entertained.

http://variety.com/2013/film/awards/how-american-hustle-conned-the-critics-1200963635/

That’s why last year’s “Silver Linings Playbook” was such a delight:

stopped reading

Yeah, I never saw that one or the boxing one before that. I've only seen Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees and Flirting with Disaster. Never saw Spanking the Monkey, either, come to think of it. Maybe if I had seen Silver Linings and the boxing one I would have liked this one less?

I should re-watch Three Kings. Loved it at the time.

Hmm, wonder why Marky Mark didn't make it into this one? He's in three of the others. The director clearly inspires some loyalty.

I loved three kings when it came out, but between my reaction to everything he's done since and my experience reassessing other clas of 1999 films I'm afraid to look.