“American Hustle, ” the new film from “Silver Linings Playbook” director David O. Russell, bristles with energy.
Imagine the love child of “The Sting” and “Ocean’s Eleven” infused with the verve of the frenetic last thirty minutes of “Goodfellas” and you get the idea.
Branded with the disclaimer, “Some of this actually happened,” “American Hustle” is a fictionalized retelling of the Abscam scandal, an elaborate FBI takedown of corrupt government officials.
Christian Bale plays Irv Rosenfeld, a low level con man with a paunch and Trump-esque comb over. He makes a comfortable living, enough to support his wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence), their son and his mistress and partner-in-crime Sydney (Amy Adams).
His life goes sideways when Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), an ambitious FBI agent, threatens them with arrest unless they help him run a complicated corruption investigation involving New Jersey mayor Carmen Polito (Jeremy Renner) and other high ranking officials.
There’s a zany tone to “American Hustle.” It plays like a heightened version of real life. Perhaps it is the outrageous 1970s styles—all big hair, wide collars and flared pants—or the edgy, slightly larger-than-life performances from the top-notch cast, but the film feels one step removed from reality. Settle into “American Hustle’s” world and the darkly humorous ride is an enjoyable journey.
Bale leads the cast, but it is very much an ensemble. As the dumpy Irving he is a mass of contradictions. He’s a confidence man with a conscience; a man who feels it’s wrong to entrap politicians so soon after the public cynicism about elected officials after Watergate and Vietnam. Trapped in a loveless marriage, he’s a philanderer who is reluctant to leave Rosalyn because he wants to do the right thing for his son. He genuinely likes Carmine even though he’s about to set him up to do some real jail time.
Bale brings some real complexity to a character who could easily have been a stunt. Some actors might have relied on the weight gain and the bad hair to do the work, but Bale brings him to life and even makes you feel sorry for him.
The standout, in a smaller role, is Lawrence. Realistically she may be too young for the part, but as “the Picasso of passive-aggressive karate,” she’s perfectly cast. With a thick Long Island and perfectly lacquered lips, she plays Rosalyn as a creature of pure emotion, passionate one second, needy the next, driven by jealousy and dysfunction and one too many self-help books.
Adams, Renner and Cooper also distinguish themselves playing preposterous characters with one thing in common—they aspire to be something they are not. Everyone on display is on the hustle, looking to reinvent themselves, and that desperation is what gives the movie its dynamism.
As a backdrop Russell hits all the right period notes, particularly with the music. He uses archival music from the likes of Elton John, Electric Light Orchestra and The Bee Gees to set the mood, but instead of acting as a greatest hits collection of the Me Decade through clever editing it sounds like a soundtrack.
“American Hustle” is one of the year’s best. It’s an entertainingly audacious movie that will doubtless be compared to “The Wolf of Wall Street” because of the similarity in tone and themes, but this time around David O. Russell has almost out-Scorsese’d Scorsese.
More a character study than a traditional narrative, “Inside Llewyn Davis” lives up to its name by painting a vivid portrait of its main character. Once you get inside Llewyn’s head you probably won’t want to hang out with the guy in real life, but you won’t regret spending two hours with him onscreen.
Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is an ambitious folksinger trying to make his voice heard in the center of the folk universe, 1961 Greenwich Village. Essentially homeless, he sofa surfs, imposing himself on an ever dwindling list of friends as he tries to deal with a cold New York winter, a shady record company, a wayward cat, a soured relationship and his career frustrations. Add to that the haunting memory of a former musical partner and you have an abstract parable about artistic temperament and the quest for success.
“Inside Llewyn Davis” opens with a song, the folk standard “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me.” Performed in its entirety, it telegraphs that the music won’t be relegated to the background; that it will be telling part of the story.
Onstage we see Llewyn at his best. He’s an angel-voiced troubadour whose passionate performances contain the intensity with which he lives his off stage life. Oscar Isaac, in his first leading role after smaller parts in “Sucker Punch,” “Drive” and “W.E.,” has a built-in broodiness that services the character well. He’s a sullen guy, always borrowing money or asking a favor without offering much in return except his talent. It’s a carefully crafted but subtle portrait of the rocky terrain between brilliance and the rest of society.
The loose nature of the story allows for many cameos. People drift through Llewyn’s life like Jean (Carey Mulligan), a foul-mouthed folk singer with a sweet voice and her naïve partner Jim (Justin Timberlake). Mulligan is fiery; an embittered woman angry with Llewyn for very personal reason. Timberlake redeems himself for “Runner Runner” with a nice extended cameo as a wide-eyed folksinger who isn’t as talented as Llewyn but is destined to be more successful.
Garrett Hedlund appears as a monosyllabic beat poet to good effect, but it is John Goodman who wins the cameo showdown. As a jaded jazz player Roland Turner—who sneeringly pronounces ukulele as “ookelele”—he’s as vile a character as has ever appeared in a Coen Bros movie, (which is really saying something). Goodman seems to relish wallowing in the toad-like character’s most unsavory aspects and I suspect audiences will too.
“Inside Llewyn Davis” is a fictional look at the vibrant Greenwich Village folk scene. Imagine the cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” come to life. Sharp-eyed folkies will note not-so-coincidental similarities between the people Llewyn meets and real-life types like Tom Paxton, Alert Grossman and Mary Travers, but this isn’t a history, it’s a feel. It gives us an under-the-covers look at struggles and naked ambition it takes to get noticed.
This is a really odd movie. It looks like a high-end educational documentary you’d see on the History Channel but anyone with more than a grade two reading level will find the story slow and clichéd. The computer animated story of a herd of migrating dinosaurs and the dangers they face from within and without the tribe is beautiful looking but dragged down by terrible voice work. Badly dubbed, personality-free voices by Justin Long and Skyler Stone stand in stark contrast to narrator Alex, who voices the character with a bitt too much enthusiastic personality. Imagine Jurassic Park without Jeff Goldblum or the fun and you get the idea.
Merry Christmas Dude. This Big Lebowski Kit abides and it’s only $16.95!
From target.com: In 1998 the Academy Award®-winning Coen brothers released the film The Big Lebowski—the hilariously quirky comedy-thriller about bowling, avant-garde art, nihilistic Austrians and a guy named . . . the Dude. Starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, and John Turturro, The Big Lebowski has grown into a cult classic more than a decade after its original release.
Now Achievers everywhere can enjoy The Big Lebowski Kit—a boxful of fun, Lebowski-style, with:
• Oriental-rug mousepad that “really ties your desk together”
• Severed big toe—with polish! (rubber)
• Magnet with the classic phrase, “The Dude Abides”
• Little Lebowski Urban Achievers Certificate
• “the Dude” embroidered bowling-shirt patch
• 32-page book with trivia and images from the film
If someone on your list has a habit of saying, “I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly…” but already has all the scotch they can drink, why not get them the next best thing? A The Legend of Ron Burgundy 7-Inch Faux-Bronze Bust!
Enetrtainmentearth.com says: Ron Burgundy – he’s kind of a big deal. Proof: his many leather-bound books. More proof: this Anchorman The Legend of Ron Burgundy 7-Inch Faux-Bronze Bust! Featuring the legendary Ron Burgundy’s head sculpted in faux-bronze and sporting a look on his face that haunts with pure debonair class, this decorative bust is the type that belongs on the bookshelves of philosophers and within the personal library of the Maharaja. Lucky enough, this amazing bust is available for you as well, and you need not bring the wrath of the Maharaja down upon your head for the sin of coveting such an exquisite item. Measuring 7-inches tall, the faux-bronze bust of Ron Burgundy includes a name plate with the Anchorman’s full name: “Ronald Joseph Aaron Burgundy.”
In the new Coen Brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis Golden Globe nominee Oscar Isaac works opposite an all-star cast. From Justin Timberlake to Carey Mulligan and John Goodman there’s no shortage of star power on the marquee.
There was one co-star, however, he wasn’t looking forward to working with. In fact, he described working with a red Mackerel cat named Ulysses as “daunting.”
“I’m not afraid of cats,” he says, “but a cat put me in the hospital once. It bit me. Ninety percent of cat bites are highly infectious. The next morning I woke up with a red line going up my arm. It had gotten into my lymphatic system. I had to go to the hospital and I was there for two days. That was six years ago.
“Then you cut to the Coens and they’re like, ‘We’ve got five cats and we’re going to attach them to you and you’re going to run as fast as you can.’ It was daunting.”
In his first leading role the thirty-three year old actor, who previously had smaller parts in Sucker Punch, Drive and W.E., plays a broody folk singer in 1961 Greenwich Village. To pull off the role he had to perform many songs live on film, an experience he describes as “so incredibly joyful I have no way of communicating it.”
“I knew I could play Llewyn. I knew what was required, which was playing these amazing, beautiful old folk songs that have been passed down. So the songs are great. I’m working with [executive music producer] T-Bone [Burnett} and he’s going to tell me if I am sounding false and is building my confidence throughout and Joel and Ethan [Coen] are filming it so in a way you’d have to try really hard to f**k that up.”
Inside Llewyn Davis is garnering attention for the young actor. Recently he was on the Today show when his name was announced as a Best Actor Golden Globe nominee.
“After the segment was over I went downstairs,” he says. “Then my name came out and I was immediately escorted up the steps to get back on, in front of the cameras to get reaction before I even had a moment to possibly formulate what I would say about it. It’s such a huge thing. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I was even cast in this movie.”
Add a touch of futuristic Christmas kitschy to you house with the “Argo” poster for the movie Ben Affleck didn’t make! The sic fi poster from Mondo artist Kilian Eng is available through ebay!
From the website: Mondo’s ARGO print by Kilian Eng
released on the night of the Academy Awards and sold out immediately.
24″ x 36″ screen print, hand-numbered from an edition of just 325.
Print is in perfect condition!
I will package this print with care to ensure it arrives to you safely, sent in a sturdy tube.
Shipping in the US will be USPS Priority Mail; international orders will be USPS First Class.
“You’re a con artist,” wrote Karina Halle in Sins & Needles. “A liar. A thief. An unredeemable soul.”
She might also have added to that colourful list really interesting movie character.
As despicable as flim flam artists may be, there is no denying they make good film subjects.
This weekend in American Hustle, Christian Bale plays Irving Rosenfeld, a con man forced to help the FBI ensnare a group of corrupt politicians in the ABSCAM sting operation.
Although American Hustle director David O. Russell says his film is a fictionalized account of events, the ABSCAM operation was headline news in the early 1980s and Hollywood took notice.
In 1982 director Louis Malle was making plans for a May start date on an ABSCAM film called Moon Over Miami starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Belushi was to play Melvin Weinberg, based on the same man as Bale’s character in American Hustle.
The movie was scuttled following Belushi’s death in March of that year.
That con man film never saw the light of day, but many others have.
Everyone knows The Sting and The Grifters, but lesser seen is David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner, a complicated story starring Campbell Scott as Joe Ross, a man who invents a process “to control the world market.” Concerned that he will not be properly compensated for his work he contacts Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin), a wealthy businessman who offers to help. Little does Ross know that he has just stepped into a world of deception that will change his life.
Steve Martin’s performance in The Spanish Prisoner was Oscar worthy, but it wasn’t the first time he played a confidence man on film.
In the comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels he starred opposite Michael Caine as a scruffy con man trying to muscle in on some high end business on the French Riviera. Caine’s suave grifter makes a bet with Martin. Whoever can con Soap Queen Janet Colgate (Glenne Headley) first will walk away with $50,000.
The movie was written for Mick Jagger and David Bowie who were looking to do a project together after the success of their Dancing in the Street video. The rock stars dropped out before cameras rolled — Bowie later said both were, “a bit tweezed that we lost out on a script that could have been reasonably good” — and replaced by Martin and Caine whose hilarious performances earned the movie a spot on Bravo’s 100 Funniest Movies list.
In our busy lives it’s very possible we spend more quality time with machines, our ever-present technology, than with our loved ones.
We certainly spend more intimate time with our earbuds than with our significant others, ask Siri questions all day and lovingly stroke our keyboards as if they were the silky-smooth hands of our intendeds.
So the premise of “Her,” a new (slightly) futuristic romance from director Spike Jonez about a man who falls in love with the operating system of his computer, doesn’t feel that far fetched. Or does it?
Set in the near future “Her” begins with Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), an unhappy, soon-to-be-divorced writer, buying a new computer with an advanced operating system designed to meet his every need. It sorts e-mail, keeps track of his appointments and helps him navigate through the in formation age.
It also speaks with a raspy, flirty voice that sounds suspiciously like Scarlett Johansson. Named Samantha, she helps organize his life but soon their back-and-forth takes on a tone more in line with old school 976 phone calls than high tech banter.
“I’m becoming much more than they programmed,” she says, as a romantic relationship blooms and Theodore falls in love with OS-amantha. “She’s not just a computer,” he says, “she’s her own person.
Their connection might be unconventional, but the film’s approach to the subject isn’t. It’s a romantic movie that explores the essence of relationships. The gimmick is the idea of marrying technology to romance, but the core is a primal love story.
Phoenix’s delicate performance embodies the way that technology both isolates and bonds us all. He’s a melancholy presence, alienated from friends and co-workers, but longing for a connection with someone or something. In this quiet, intimate performance he makes us believe in and accept the story’s eccentric premise.
As good as Phoenix is, and he’s very good, the performance that will stay with you is Johansson’s vocal work. We never see her, but her raspy, expressive voice is a near constant presence, and she creates a character with words, not actions.
“Her” is an oddball story, but it’s not an oddball film. It is ripe with real human emotion and commentary on a generation’s reliance on technology at the cost of social interaction.
