o'russell's ABSCAM movie AMERICAN HUSTLE

man this was like 2-3x as funny as boogie nights

the wigs aren't a joke (though the curling iron is a joke), that is like claiming the elton john needle drop is a joke

i like almost all the performances in this but if it were up to me that script would have been burned and rewritten from scratch, such a confusing, confused, and bad piece of writing.

man this was like 2-3x as funny as boogie nights

― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Monday, October 13, 2014 11:51 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://straightfromthea.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/blankstare-CtA.gif

for real

O_o

Lol

I want to defend american hustle as a really solidly fun three-star movie somehow but idk

― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, October 12, 2014 4:24 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm with this. really felt to me of a piece with, like, Flirting With Disaster, all the awkward arguments and dysfunctional relationships. after seeing the movie, all the 'oh this wanted to be a Scorsese epic' talk seemed to be just people reviewing the trailer. really goofy movie. Christian Bale yelling "oh God I love gettin' to know ya!" killed me.

To be goofy the movie needed to be shorter and less concerned with hoping the audience gets the jokes. The movie went wrong from the first moment when the camera lingered on Bale's toupee. It's like, "Yeah, it's Bruce Wayne looking like Goodfellas' Morrie, I get it." But Coop and Amy Adams could've done a FWD.

this movie totally wanted to be like scorsese. flirting with disaster is one of my favorite movies and i love david o russell and this movie is totally going for scorsese, just filtered through an idiosyncratic sensibility. it doesn't have the same themes but it has a similar style. wall to wall pop music, slo mo, unreliable narrators, chopped up chronology, all in a specific, past era and milieu -goodfellas and casino shit. scorsese obviously didn't invent any of those things but that specific combination codes as scorsese.

but yeah it's really funny occasionally in a way that only david o russell movies are. and i'll keep watching movies that he directs as long as glimmers of that are there.

Yeah, this was blatant in trying to be Goodfellas. It was also forgettable and bland. Should've taken more time to incubate this rather than diving headfirst after Silver Linings.

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/american-hustle-sparks-1-million-libel-suit-filed-by-101422631012.html

101,422,631,012 is a lot of people suing.

(Sorry, get the hook.)

I finally watched this over the weekend on DVD. It succeeded for me as a very silly comedy. Parts of the script seemed to reach for a greater significance or deeper message, but the tide of ridiculousness was much too strong and the message was far too slight to pay any attention to. I understand the Boogie Nights comparisons made elsewhere in the thread, but this movie was much weaker imo. It did make me laugh, so there's that in its favor.

http://www.projectcasting.com/news/david-o-russell-amy-adams/

Clooney's story makes him out to be like a drunk dude in Hoboken on a Saturday night.

accidentally just put some foil in the science oven :-(

Dude's kind of human garbage, apparently?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-zap-ent-david-russell-groping-story.html

is there a thread for joy i thought i remembered one

he reshot the third act after test screenings. ho.

yea just saw clips on charlie rose it looks rough

i watched like the first half hour of this and was extremely bored so i stopped it. it seemed like the entire reason for the movie was to cosplay the 70s. kind of impressive on a formal level (set design, soundtrack, etc.) but not really engaging at all. felt like the kind of movie made with a bunch of producers patting each other on the back the whole time for being so clever and hip.

otm, there is an inherent self-satisfaction in the idea of making another movie with the same personnel in front of and behind the camera, ick no thanks

did surprisingly well in the box office this weekend as anti-SW fare, heard lots of people in the multiplex yesterday discussing it -- ugh.

discussing different films in alternate posts: C or D

I prefer my 70s rehashes to have spaceships and aliens over smug cokeheads with mustaches.

ok so the irl events depicted in this movie took place in the 90's, and at some point in the film someone says "no one will buy a 20$ mop in 1995", yet DOR period-pieced it (cars, clothes, interiors) as taking place in the 70s? odd choice. i saw it with my family on boxing day and we argued over when it was set until someone checked it on their phone

definitely the worst of his last three, but more interesting than i would have though possible for a movie about someone inventing a mop..? i thought it was cool as a parable on the pitfalls of patent law, incomplete contracts, and the high risks low-income people have to take on to get their inventions to market. bradley cooper was useless, the awesomeness of jenifer lawrence definitely the propelling force

im tired to really parse my thoughts properly, but i think joy is quite misunderstood. its better than his last two movies (the marty-tribute american hustle and the icky silver linings). and for all the reviews talking about awkward shifts in tone, actually, i think the tonal shifts are pretty well integrated.

good things about this - a genuine rags to riches movie, a working/lower middle class family in a hollywood movie (not esp common anymore), some fabulous visuals/framing, jennifer lawrence and bradley cooper's performances; a racially diverse cast, and a film that manages to inspire you without being mawkish about it. its one of the few genuinely good feel-good movies ive seen in a while. ive heard some critics LOLing about its premise, which seems cruel. it might just be a mop, but hey, its still a business. and this addresses the setbacks any new entrepreneur might have to face, while also managing to express the desperation of wanting to do something with your life. i think this is what the film/JL pulls off the best.

bad things - a few scenes were a bit wes anderson-ish. it was wrapped up too neatly. i think russell's stylised approach might have cropped o ut a lot of the individual stuff about this story; sometimes i felt like i was watching dragons den, there were a few scenes with overly expository dialogue (though it was generally well delivered, which made it seem a little less forced).

sometimes i felt like i was watching dragons den

LOL, otm

Found some of Joy puzzling--things like the scene where everyone was urging Lawrence to declare bankruptcy; it didn't feel right to me that panic would set in so soon--but overall, I didn't mind it. Thought De Niro was better than I'd see him for a while (admittedly, I skip most everything he does nowadays). Cream's "I Feel Free" was wasted.

As with Gone Girl, liked American Hustle a little more second time around. I think Bale's excellent; he completely disappears into the role. Many excellent musical cues. Don't think it means much, don't think it tries to mean much.

you and I are gonna argue about the musical cues and Bale until the Atlantic absorbs Hialeah and Doral.

Totally loved "10538 Overture" (such a great choice), Chicago, and "Dirty Work," and things like "Jean Genie" and "I Feel Love" worked well too. I mean, I know there wasn't a great deal of imagination at work with a couple of those, but there's just a knack for matching the song to the moment throughout. Much better than anything found in Joy.

joy is at heart a more hateful elitist absolutely fucking stupid story than atlas shrugged and i'm sort of horrified that it hasn't been more generally received that way (from what i've seen?).