American Hustle

I do not get everybody's infatuation with David O. Russell. Never mind that the guy is reportedly an asshole but his films are mediocre, at best. Like this one. Granted, American Hustle is far superior to the last of his products that has been shoved down our collective throats, Silver Linings Playbook, but that is not saying much.

Like its predecessor, American Hustle apparently cannot decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama. In my opinion, it is neither. Let's just agree to calling it a crime caper. Don't get me wrong, it has its moments and Jennifer Lawrence is actually very good in this (yes, I called her very good), now that she is allowed to play something other than the defiant young woman of all her previous roles.

As for the comedy part (or attempt of it)...the actors are made to look as ridiculous as possible (unnecessarily so), except for Amy Adams, who is as scantily dressed as possible. There is a dance part and some singing (both uncalled for). The drama comes in when several love triangles develop among the characters. It gets even sappy at parts (the Amy Adams character revealing to the Bradley Cooper character that she has been using a false name but 'this, this is real'). Also, it has endless voice overs (which I don't care for).

The story itself is about a couple of con artists that get caught and are forced to help the feds con other people (including one very honest and likable politician) but actually end up conning the feds. It drags on forever and the plot gets lost in the smugness of it all.

Could have easily been a good half hour shorter. I kinda wish it had been.

4/10

...which brings us to our Best Picture Oscar nominees update:
Gravity
Captain Phillips
12 Years a Slave
American Hustle

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The second installment in the Hunger Games trilogy marks the beginning of the revolution, long overdue in Panem. The victors Katniss and Peeta are paraded around the districts but rather than appease the public and keep them quite, the mere presence of Katniss - unwilling token of the uprising - inspires people to become defiant. It starts with three raised fingers in district 11, as a thank you from the locals for Katniss' treatment of Rue in the previous hunger games.

To stop any unauthorized behavior the new game runner, Plutarch Heavensbee, talks President Snow into a new kind of hunger game, to get rid of Katniss in a way that would not shed any more doubts onto the government. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the hunger games the tributes will be drafted from the previous victors - two per district, one male one female.

Once in the arena, Katniss and Peeta form an alliance with Finnick and the elderly Mae, arranged for them by Haymitch. From then on, not much goes the way President Snow intended, but very much the way Plutarch orchestrated things. Rather than quench the revolution by distracting the public with the spectacle going on under a dome, a revolution is started on a smaller scale within the dome. Katniss is apparently the least informed of everyone involved.

In the end, the dome is brought down through lightning, wire and one of Katniss' arrows and she and a handful of other survivors are lifted out of the arena. Katniss awakes in District 13, where she learns that while her mother and sister and Gale are there, as well, Peeta and one of their allies, Johanna, did not make it out but are held by the government.

8/10

House at the End of the Street

A divorcee and her teenage daughter Elissa move into a small town and a house they can really only afford because of what happened next door.

Legend has it that a young girl killed her parents years ago and now only the girl's brother lives in the house. The girl, 13 at the time, was said to have disappeared into the nearby woods and/or drowned in a nearby lake. But no body was ever recovered, so you know there is something very fishy about ti. The boy, one Ryan, had been sent away to live with an aunt after causeing an accident that left his sister mentally challenged. He is now back (and in college) to renovate the house so that he can sell it.

Elissa totally likes Ryan and even though the rest of the town, at best, shuns him or, at worst, beats him up she stands by him. Her mom doesn't like that either for some reason. I'm not quite clear why that is, especially since she has something going with a local policeman who finds no issue with the young man whatsoever.

Anyway, both Elissa and the small town cop are wrong about Ryan.

What really happened is this:
The parents were totally drugged out in the house while Ryan and his little sister were playing outside. The girl wanted to go higher and higher on the swing and Ryan failed to hold her arm for a bit and she fell off backwards and hit her head. This left her not retarded (bad word! bad word!) but, um, well, dead. The parents blame the boy and from now on decide that he is the daughter and raise him as such. But then once the teenage hormones kick in, he snaps and kills the parents and reappears as the poor discarded brother.

He cannot, however, cope without his little sister and keeps a young woman in the basement that he pumps full of drugs of some kind (whereever he got them from....). The woman in the basement is exchangeable because, you know, sometimes shit happens and he breaks her neck when she tries to run off through the forest and he catches up with her just in time.

Anyway, final showdown, cop dies, mom gets injured, Elissa kills culprit. And then....they move out again. Sure, they were fine living beside a house in which some sort of tragedy happened and where the town weirdo is still holed up, but now that it is just a house, no way José. We're done here.

3/10

Silver Linings Playbook

Every year, relatively early, the buzz for the sometimes long off award season starts about a small movie (or, small compared to the other contenders). It gets heaps of accolades and everyone agrees that it is so good and deserving of a best picture nomination at every award ceremony, including the Oscars. And then when I watch it, it turns out to be merely ok.

A year ago, that film was The Descendants, the year before it was The Kids Are All Right, before that it was Up in the Air. Ever since the academy descided to throw more films into the best picture circus, as a rule this  film would end up in it. 2012, that film is Silver Linings Playbook.

It is advertised as a comedy/drama/romance. Somehow I totally missed the comedy part. Nothing about it is in any way comedic. Ok, there is some drama and a really weird romance between the bi-polar Bradley Cooper and the widowed Jennifer Lawrence.

Ah yes, Jennifer Lawrence, every critic's new darling. I like her fine, but I have seen her in three films so far, and she has played the same role in every single one of them - hard shelled, mouthy young woman. This worked great in Winter's Bone and it is perfect for The Hunger Games. In Silver Linings Playbook her character is bordering on annoying.

Jackie Weaver is decent in this, Robert DeNiro is his usual great self, Bradley Cooper is surprisingly good (I'm usually not a fan).

This is not as good as they say.

1/10