American Hustle

[AntiDumbFrogQuestion]

Like David O. Russell's most recent work, somehow this seems to fall naturally out of him and have some oddly punk-rock sense of flair to it.  I enjoyed it at the least. Most people forget that Renner is NOT Mr. Action star like his paycheck wants you to believe...check out "12 and Holding" if you want to see what I mean.
And the casting of Louis CK? Well that made the movie for me.

[Alexandro]

Bale is showing Cooper a fake Rembrandt and says: "who's the master? the artist or the conman?", or something along those lines. I kept thinking of PTA because of The Master and mainly because of Boogie Nights. He was also endlessly compared to Scorsese (more like accused of ripping him off) when Boogie Nights came out, yet he managed to make a masterpiece of his own, with a flavor of his own. An energetic classic for the ages. Of course he won no oscars. If he had made a timid imitation like this, the story would be different. For all the comparisons to Goodfellas and Scorsese, to me the real imitation is from PTA. His tenderness towards his characters, their need of love and approval, the use of music and the fluid camera, but none of the rage, the male awkwardness, the mad friendships or the feeling of rooted pain giving way to a transcendent experience for any of the characters. Even the deleted scene of Luis Guzmán in BN has more catharsis and emotional punch than this whole movie.

I never was such a big fan of David O. Russell's first films, but I laughed out loud like crazy with Flirting with Disaster, was very impressed with Three Kings (still his best) and admired a lot the craziness of I Heart Huckabees. Now, I don't know. Like with The Fighter and Silver Lining Playbooks, his approach has become too light for me. I enjoyed SLP for the most part, as good romantic comedies about family and beating all odds are hard to come by. But here I kept waiting for the film to start, for anyone to break the mold the film had made for them. Only Jeremy Renner's character seemed grounded in a reality beyond the artificial constrictions of the screenplay.

The "happy ending", at this point is kind of kick in the balls. I guess this film will win the Oscar. I said the same thing about Argo last year and then a few months later it won. It's that kind of film. You can watch it and then forget about it.

[jenkins]

you can do that? woa. i watched it ~40 movies ago and haven't forgotten about it. i can do that

[Lottery]

I can't forget about it because everyone's talking about it but I stopped caring about it pretty quickly. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was on my mind longer than American Hustle. Both were fun.

[Alexandro]

I can't forget about it because everyone's talking about it but I stopped caring about it pretty quickly. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was on my mind longer than American Hustle. Both were fun.

Do we have a thread for Cloudy with a chance of meatballs 2? Because that was an awesome surprise.

[jenkins]

adorable