To be fair, I think they made the right choice between Sarah and Jennifer. I’m not convinced Sarah has the chops to pull it off, whereas Jennifer proved herself with Winter’s Bone.
The trailer makes it seem like a typical stupid rom-com with zany lovable characters in wacky situations. The actual film is that these characters aren’t zany and lovable - they are pretty much certifiably and believably mentally ill. So it’s sort of a rom-dark-com that plays off the cliches of the genre but with the twist that the characters really are troubled in a way that is only sometimes being played for laughs.
I mean, it starts out with the premise that a dude with a mental illness has beat his wife’s lover almost to death with his bare hands in front of her and still remains extremely optimistic about their chances to reconnect. That’s a hefty dose of tragedy that just gets worse the more you come to genuinely like the guy and understand how little control he has over his behavior.
So, there’s no thread for Silver Linings Playbook, but I just wanted to note that I saw it this past week, and it’s really a very good movie. It’s not challenging or ironic or anything, but it’s a really well told story, well acted, with believable characters, and some absolutely great writing. Walking out, I thought “I can’t think of a single thing that movie did wrong”, which is pretty rare. I guess you might call it a “perfect” movie in that regard.
The core is a romantic comedy, but it doesn’t try to subvert it the way something like Young Adult did, it just uses the Rom-com as its foundation to build characters and relationships. It talks a lot about mental illness, in myriad forms (including obvious but undiagnosed ones), and treats it in a very real way, the way people really talk about mental illness. But fundamentally, I think it’s telling a story about the American experience.
This may be a weird tangent, but I have some touchstones that I think of when I think about movies and TV shows that capture “being American”. These include This American Life, Daria (as a period piece, but very effective for my generation), and to a lesser extent things like King of the Hill (which skews towards wacky a little too much) and even Parks and Rec. I put Silver Linings Playbook in the same category.
Oh, and while I actually kind of like Silverman’s shtick, I’m not convinced she can play anybody but herself. And she would have been a horrible fit for this movie.
“Hear that? She made Crabby-snacks and home-mades.”
Dropping this in here as well since a bunch of you seem to have no interest in Wreck-it Ralph. Disney has released the Oscar nominated Paperman short to youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aTLySbGoMX0
Oh, and watch it in 1080p and full screen.
Just saw Silver Linings Playbook.
I totally agree that Hollywood casting practices are often deplorable. But Jennifer Lawrence is amazingly good in the movie – easily her best performance since Winter’s Bone. And who knew Bradley Cooper is actually a good actor?
My wife and I saw it a week or so ago and we loved it also. I thought all four of the principal actors were great, and a couple of the supporting ones were very good too. My family has always had a soft spot for Bradley Cooper though, ever since we ran into him in Lewes, Delaware when he was filming Failure to Launch.
Anyone watching the short films? I saw the live action short films tonight. Curfew was definitely my favorite. Death of a Shadow gets points for originality, but never quite came together. Henry was just sentimentality, Buzkashi Boys was the most beautiful, and Asad was, uh, goofy?
My wife makes fun of my man-crush on Bradley Cooper. I don’t care! I’ve loved watching his career grow since first seeing him in Alias.
And all the nominated animated shorts are great, FWIW.
Seth McFarlane is awful so far. I want drugged out Franco back.
Presumably there’ll be a lowlights of McFarlane on Youtube tomorrow? Cause I can’t watch anymore.
Safe to say that McFarlane is gonna do a Letterman and not be invited to host ever again. God, I want to see coked-out Franco and desperate Hathaway than this.
Just walking through the living room, its pretty obvious Seth isn’t doing well and this Oscars is pretty terrible. Don’t know that I am down with all of the “live-snarking” going on; do we really need to broaden and reinforce the corrosive impact of what might be the Internet’s worst influence?
Is it just me or did it look like Kristen Stewart was 3 sheets to the wind?
That’s pretty much what’s left of Western culture. Better get used to it.
Prolly just the pain meds for her injured foot?
Had there ever been a tie before? Yikes!
Wow… was this opening song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TWLKP8j0zk
DVR is recording this for later shock and awe, when I get time to watch .
What’d she do to it?
What the song says!