AMERICAN HUSTLE

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 12/14/13 at 12:04pm

Anyone else see this yet? I saw it last night and I flat out loved it. David O. Russell really knows how to make good, old-fashioned, shamelessly entertaining films and AMERICAN HUSTLE certain fits the bill. In fact, it may be the most whip-smart piece of entertainment I've seen on screen in 2013. It's absolutely hilarious, it looks both gaudy and beautiful (often simultaneously), and it's got a truly fantastic cast, each giving some of the best performances of their careers.

Yes, Jennifer Lawrence steals every single scene she's in, but she's in great company with her costars, particularly Bale and Cooper.

I thought it was bold, brash, and unpredictable, all in the best sense of each word. Definitely one of the best films of 2013 in my mind.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/14/13 at 12:30pm

I am dying to see this movie so badly, but it doesn't come out here until Thursday evening (already bought my ticket). How do you like it compared to other David O'Russell films, Wicked? How's Amy Adams in it?

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/14/13 at 1:03pm

People seem to insist that Russell is doing Scorsese but to me his films have always had a madcap, Sturges, Lubitsch, slapstick, Jonathan Demme (in that tones can shift in unexpected ways- much like Sturges can) feel with some instances of Bunuel (For goodness sakes, I Heart Huckabees have 'The Existential Detectives' and created a space where Mark Wahlberg and Jason Schwartzman were a comedy duo). For me he has incredibly different influences of cinema. He's the actors director that Hollywood really needs and for years avoided him, largely due to him digging his own grave, until The Fighter.

I also must ask, how is Amy Adams? I feel have always been pro-her in movies by DOR. Her work in The Fighter was not so much against type but an introduction into what other directors never really considered from her acting potential.

Updated On: 12/14/13 at 01:03 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 12/14/13 at 1:36pm

My personal MUST SEE end-of-the-year film. Me and the hubby were supposed to go see it last night but we switched plans at the last minute. We are definitely seeing it next week.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/14/13 at 2:20pm

Amy Adams is remarkable. I said the same in another thread, but this really is her film.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 12/14/13 at 2:35pm

She was fantastic, as usual. She's an extraordinarily talented actress who would have an Oscar on her mantle already if it was up to me. I'm sure her time will come though.

I also loved Louis C.K., who's turning into a great comedic character actor. He was so wonderful earlier this year in BLUE JASMINE as well.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 12/20/13 at 9:20am

So many moments of brilliance, Adams is beyond stunning, Lawrence steals the movie nearly away from everyone. The music played fits the film perfectly. I am not 100 per cent sure if all the elements came together, but overall an enjoyable if at times slightly long film.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/20/13 at 2:24pm

Saw this last night and had a great time. It's quite an ambitious piece and though it takes a bit to get started (and it has a little too many montages), David O'Russell mostly pulls it off quite nicely. It's fast-paced, fun, and incredibly well-made. The screenplay is fantastic, the characters are richly defined and very juicy. The best part was the ensemble; the main five actors are all doing some of the best work of their careers, and it's a lot of fun seeing them sink their teeth into such great characters. I agree the smaller parts were wonderfully cast and there's a star cameo that was perfect.
It's hard to single out anyone in the cast since they were all so good, but Amy Adams was my favorite. She gets to play a character unlike any role she has played before, and she revels at the chance to play this part. There's a dramatic scene she has with Christian Bale in the first part of the movie that I'll be rewatching over and over. She also has a lot of chemistry with both Bale and Bradley Cooper. Jennifer Lawrence was so great, her character should get her own film.

[madbrian]

Posted: 12/21/13 at 8:13am

Saw this movie last night and loved it, though maybe not quite as much as Silver Linings Playbook.

"Jennifer Lawrence was so great, her character should get her own film"

Agreed.

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 12/21/13 at 12:05pm

saw this the other night... i think the best part of this movie has to be the performances... every single one of them is just PERFECT! and I wholeheartedly agree about Jennifer Lawrence... this woman impresses me more and more with every performance she gives. And I've always loved Amy Adams in all her movies. She just has this beautiful quality about her. And I also loved seeing Louis CK! Love that guy...

that being said... I may have to see this movie a second time. I may be in the minority here but I thought the movie was pretty good. It does move slow at times but it does pick up speed but then kinda slows down again. I don't understand why all the reviews are saying it's hilarious, etc... I think I laughed several times but not as much as I was expecting based on all these reviews. I prefer Silver Linings Playbook.

After seeing the two apparent front runners for the major awards, my vote would have to go for 12 Years a Slave during awards season...

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/21/13 at 4:00pm

I will say, there's tons and tons of movies I really like this year (more than in many years), but there's no movie I wholeheartedly love with a passion the way I loved THE HOURS, ADAPTATION, CHICAGO, and FAR FROM HEAVEN in 2002--movies I've watched over 10 times and will never stop watching. I don't know there's any this year that are like that for me, so I get what you mean re AMERICAN HUSTLE eatlasagna. I still thought it was so much fun, so entertaining, and so well-made that I wouldn't mind seeing it take the Best Picture prize; then again, I'm a huge supporter of comedies or less Important with a capital "I" movies winning the big prize.
The ensemble makes the whole thing. Oh, and can I just throw in some love for Jeremy Renner? I'm very hot/cold on him, but he blew it out of the park with this performance, and I loved the scenes involving his wife, Jennifer Lawrence, and Christian Bale.

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 12/22/13 at 12:02pm

I saw it and loved it. The ensemble and direction are easily the strong points of the film. I guess I was too naïve to understand a lot of the hustling and dealing that was going on because it came across as convoluted for some reason and I had no idea once the film started that this was based/inspired by a true story. I didn't really understand what was going on until they (POSSIBLE SPOILER...??) brought in the Mexican to stand-in. I bet if I saw it a second time, it'd probably make more sense. But Jennifer Lawrence (who I love) easily stole every scene she was in. She's a remarkable young actress and I am always excited to see her latest work. Christian Bale embodies the character, obviously, and it works 100%. Amy Adams is stunning and, as Jordan said, it's her film. Bradley Cooper was good, don't get me wrong, but I felt like he was just doing a '70s toned-down version of Pat from Silver Linings Playbook... the ensemble was great!

[StockardFan]

Posted: 12/22/13 at 12:39pm

I'm dying to see this movie!

[Melissa25]

Posted: 12/22/13 at 7:52pm

Agreed that it is Amy's movie and the ensemble is great. I really enjoyed this and thought the music was a blast.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 12/22/13 at 10:52pm

Saw it. I think it's near my favorite DOR film, just behind I Heart Huckabees and neck and neck with Three Kings.

What I like about those movies is it is that none of those three are too preoccupied with plot. It's about the film's thesis, that is in hyper-text, and how the characters live within that thesis. What annoyed me about Silver Linings Playbook, that I merely thought was okay, was it appeared that Harvey Weinstein enforced DOR to be about plot, which meant the entire film's third act was about wrapping things up with a bow. Russell talks about how the film's original edit was a completely different, even darker film than what was shown in theaters. Here with American Hustle, it is DOR simply knowing there is an end to the story. He made the movie under Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures that gave us The Master last year- Ellison notably pushed for Paul Thomas Anderson's cut not getting any interference from Weinstein, who distributed, which Weinstein spun as blame for the film being a financial flop (like any movie with Freddie Quell as your lead was going to do boffo at the box office). DOR does seem to have more free reign here like many other of Ellison's collaborators. Not because 'the bad guys won' in the end of this film but like most of DOR's films, nobody is a bad guy*, it truly feels like an ensemble piece with no studio edit on being one actor's particular showcase, only one character has any semblance of a backstory, and the film, as I noted before, could not give a flip about plot. There is that running gag between Cooper's Richie and Louis CK's FBI guy where the straight-laced Midwesterner CK is trying to tell Richie a story about ice-fishing and Richie could not be any less interested because he is expects a cliched lesson with each different telling and even at one point insists to know the ending. To me that was DOR being rather devilishly meta about how the lessons and plot in this film are secondary. It is about the characters finding more comfort in lies and constructs of their creation.

What also really endeared me to this film was the throwback nature to it. People insist it's a Scorsese rip-off or DOR is doing a Casino/Goodfellas retread. To me it is a Preston Sturges/Cukor/LaCava comedy in Martin Scorsese clothing- and that's because I associate DOR more with Cukor, LaCava, and Sturges than Scorsese. People can tell me about the musical cues of period rock music being a Scorsese touch but that's like saying any movie with a longtake is a rip-off of Orson Welles. To me the figure people are suggesting is getting 'ripped off' is such a giant in cinema that yeah, many filmmakers will follow certain cues because they are now essential. With that said, I dare Scorsese to make a film with two original female characters as realized in their performances as Amy Adams' Sydney/Edith and Jennifer Lawrence's Rosalyn. Scorsese has often said female characters are not his strength, he's aware of it even when his biggest defenders don't. DOR is actually pretty even-handed in his depictions of gender and the film plays to those strengths. Both Adams and Lawrence had my audience eating out of their hands.

But really, everyone is good. I cannot really say who is the best but to me everyone was impressive in their own unique ways. I loved Bradley Cooper as the volatile doucheboat he was born to play while also being this pathetic, possibly sexually repressed Catholic Italian-American whose payback you never realize you enjoyed watching until it happens. I want him and Louis CK to play Abbott & Costello archetypes in a comedy. Jennifer Lawrence's role is small and while I really wish the other cast members besides her got the critic awards spotlight, her Judy Holliday vulnerable dumb blonde to me worked better than what I ever expected. Yes, she scored laughs but her dramatic moment of when she tells Jack Huston's character she's afraid she'll die before she can ever change was a wonderful moment. I liked her more here than in Silver Linings Playbook. **shrugs** Bale seems to be getting less kudos because it feels DeNiro-esque (he even meets eye to eye with DeNiro, for goodness sakes) and how his physical transformation seems so manufactured but to me DOR and Bale work to bring a humanist touch to Irving. We see Richie mess up his hair and his elaborate ritual and I feel kind of bad for how much effort he puts in and his scenes with Rosalyn and Sydney are gold. He plays reactive to those two very well and maybe that's not what gets awards, but I haven't liked Bale this much since The Prestige. Adams and DOR need to work together all the time, if I had my way. That he reintroduced a mass audience to a pretty well-known actress in finally having an assertive sexuality and vulnerability, where her Mary Sue doe eyes are now these eyes that can carry scenes without a word, are an amazing testament and reinvention of Adams. Jeremy Renner is a solid and not simply perfunctory. He is believable as this nice son of immigrants who believes in carrying out the greater good for his state and city who has no idea how much he is destroying his name, city's progress, and family in the process. I like after playing guys with screws loose in The Hurt Locker and The Town he is just playing a straight-laced family man.

The film's accuracy to the real story is loose but I think there could be a criticism in that the wrong people got fingered for the sake of scoring one for the FBI. People might not like that but considering how much the film mentions it being a post-Watergate, horrific time in America, a manufactured sting operation that stemmed from other criminals protecting their skin, that often does happen, feels like a hollow victory. You have that final Irving-Carmine confrontation for a reason. But still, to say the movie has a plot is generous. Quite frankly, Lawrence's Rosalyn functions like the Coens stated the cat does in Inside Llewyn Davis. When she enters, the stakes and tensions arise.

Anyway, I feel like this movie is the crowd-pleaser and awards threat it was made out to be. A few people will immediately assert that it is just a middling film with stars, but I feel like there is a humanist touch to this movie, so enjoyably character-driven, and so militantly old school. I'm sure if there was a scandal like Abscam in the '30s, DOR would've made it but why do that when you have those costumes and that music catalog?

*- I know, I know, Richie is kind of a 'bad guy' but he felt like a lost man-child that I felt bad for when he had that pretty stubborn reaction to Sydney telling him the truth.

ALSO: Anybody notice that a lot of the trailers had a lot of footage not in the film, or better yet felt like it had a different take than what was on the screen?



Updated On: 12/29/13 at 10:52 PM

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 12/27/13 at 12:30am

A great American movie with Bale's and Adams's best performances to date and near equally fine work by the rest of the cast. The script and direction are outstanding. Wildly entertaining and smart. A caper with immense heart and a brilliant indictment of America, its cops and its robbers. No wonder the NY Film Critics voted it the year's best.

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 12/29/13 at 1:52pm

Absolutely loved this movie! Adams and Lawrence stole the show for me. The writing is genius and the screenplay will absolutely win the Oscar. Anybody else love Adams' Bernadette Peters-esque hair?

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 12/29/13 at 1:57pm

I loved everything about this film. The performances, the screenplay, the costumes, the soundtrack. It was just so SPOT ON. August: Osage What?!! AMERICAN HUSTLE is a much stronger Oscar contender and deservedly so. It's destined to be regarded as a modern day classic.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 12/29/13 at 2:31pm

Strummer- great analysis. Agree w most everything. Lawrence is scary. ( her character and her ability to inhabit it) Adams was just transcendent.
It is the overall immersion into the 70's that really makes it work for me. ( even the disco scenes referencing Staying Alive w/out quite parodying them)

[Roscoe]

Posted: 12/30/13 at 10:18am

Roscoe In The Minority Time:

After reading all the praise and great reviews, I was really flummoxed by how much I disliked AMERICAN HUSTLE. A tedious batch of warmed-over Scorsesisms, like GOODFELLAS MEETS THE STING, the film is only endurable because of the great Amy Adams and the great Jennifer Lawrence, who manage to kickstart the moribund film into great vivid life when they lock eyes at an ill-fated party. You just know there's going to be TROUBLE, and there sure enough is TROUBLE, and it is a joy to behold, and at the same time in another room there's another meeting going on with Robert De Niro playing a Miami gangster, and he seems to remind the male cast members that there's more to acting than hairdos and period wardrobe: everybody brings their A-Game, there's real tension going on for the first time in the movie.

And it dissipates soon afterward. I've seldom been so completely mystified at the extravagant praise a movie has been getting.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 12/30/13 at 10:21am

I wouldn't expect anything less from you Roscoe.

Your review (read: dissension) does not surprise me.

Par for the course, really.

But you are most definitely entitled.

Carry on.

[Taryn]

Posted: 12/30/13 at 11:34am

I was actually kind of disappointed. Not that I felt it was terrible by any means, but I'm surprised at the particular level of acclaim. Felt it was overlong, but definitely agree on the fantastic performances.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 12/30/13 at 4:31pm

Roscoe, sucks you didn't like it, but just as there's people who like the film, I've also read plenty of criticism from some Oscar bloggers (off the top of my head, Kris Tapley, whose opinion I generally agree with and respect very much, is not a big fan of this film or David O. Russell in general). I loved the film so much though, I can't remember the last time I had such a great time at the movies. I agree with you though that the scene between Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence is perfection, the two of them on screen is explosive. What did you think of Jennifer Lawrence's and Amy Adams' performances in general? I think Lawrence so far has been pretty much incapable of being bad in a movie (at least post-WINTER'S BONE), and Amy Adams only gets better with each performance.
The real question though is: Did Roscoe hate it more than CHICAGO?

Updated On: 12/30/13 at 04:31 PM

[SNAFU]

Posted: 12/30/13 at 4:42pm

Watched the screener last night and for the first ime (OK maybe the second time) agree with Roscoe.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 12/30/13 at 8:16pm

http://www.vulture.com/2013/12/american-hustle-and-the-art-of-the-homage.html

^ Interesting read for those drawing comparisons to Scorsese and GOODFELLAS.