What I'm watching

#460/#11 Silver Linings Playbook

Following an 8 month stay at a mental health facility for court mandated treatment of his bipolar disorder, Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) is adamant he is going to turn his life around and reconnect with his wife (who’s infidelity lead to the episode which put him in the facility). In trying to better himself however, he starts an unlikely friendship with the equally damaged Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence) and the pair begin to grow closer through a dance competition.

I found this film a little hard to get a handle on at first actually. I was following Pat and his family having to deal with his bipolar disorder and enjoying the apparently realistic account of something I have no reference for, the characters and the dark comedy but I couldn’t quite see where they were going with it. By the time the dancing competition comes up however, it becomes apparent it’s a rom-com, a darker realistic rom-com but a rom-com none the less, and that was an interesting thing to see.

These types of movies are usually straight dramas or ridiculously twee, but SLP walks the line well keeping the comedy funny while not hurting the drama. Thinking back it reminds me a little of 500 Days of Summer in that more ‘real world feel but still clearly a movie plot’ kinda way. The evolution of the love between the characters felt really organic as well, as the transition from strangers to friends to something more happen very naturally.

The standout elements of the movie are definitely the performances and the screenplay. I take back every bad thing I ever said about Cooper because this performance has made me a fan. He is wonderful in this role and well deserving of the oscar nod. Lawrence too, is just going from strength to strength in her career and I cannot wait to see more from her. Robert De Niro plays Pat’s father and also just kills it. It was nice to see him actually making an effort for a change. Finally, Chris Tucker plays a minor role in this, and it has got to be one of his better performances.

Coupled with some great dialogue, all of these elements combine to make a lovely movie. Not one I’ll need to go back to often but a lovely film all the same 4/5

NB: Also Jennifer Lawrence looks stunning in this. She’s never looked hotter. I don’t know if it was the dark hair, the slight touches of goth or the little bit of extra weight she had to gain for the role but seeing her dancing in this was worth watching the movie for alone. Just FYI.

#337/#54 The Hunger Games

In the dystopic future, yearly hunger game are undertaken by 2 tributes from each of the 12 districts in which participants fight until only one remains. This year sees the struggles of District 12’s female tribute, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), as she tackles life in the games.

I hate when I’ve got to review a film like this. A film that by every definition is a good film but just doesn’t capture the spark to make it a great one. It’s easy to say bad things about a bad movie but it’s difficult to pinpoint what’s missing to make an acceptable one better than it should be. It’s also more often than not a film I’ve already read the book/series of before it made its way to the silver screen. I don’t know if it’s higher expectations or just familiarity with the story but it happened to Harry Potter, it happened to Lisbeth Salander and now it has happened to Katnis Everdeen.

The good, first off, is plentiful throughout the film. The music, cinematography and set design really work to capture the feel of poverty in the districts and the decadence of the capitol. Additionally specific actors such as Jennifer Lawerence, Stanley Tucci and Elizabeth Banks all fill their roles perfectly and others such as Woody Harrelson, Lenny Kravitz, Amandla Stenberg and Donald Sutherland, while not what I had pictured from the books, all do really well to make their roles fit them properly. All of the behinds the scenes stuff with the game keepers and President Snow (Sutherland) was also a welcome addition.

The bad, however, comes when they decided to cut things out or speed things up that were paramount in the book. I’m not talking little things like cutting the character of Madge out. That made sense to keep the narrative flow going, but things like having Katnis find water right away, or meeting, bonding with and then losing Rue in such rapid succession or all the cave scenes. It kept the gist of why all those things were important but it lost the emotional impact that came with them. It lost the oppressive feel that even the games were trying to kill Katnis right from the beginning with something as simple as withholding water.

Additionally, in a similar vein to Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander, Kantis does not vocalise anything. The majority of the context we get in the books is from her observations and inner thoughts so we lose a lot of this in the transition to the screen. They fixed this a little by adding the commentary by Tucci’s character but it still felt a bit like an abridged version of the story. All the same content just none of the context.

Lastly I didn’t like Josh Hutcherson as Peeta. I generally like him as an actor but he just felt pointless and out of his league acting along side Lawrence in this. I’ve never liked the character of Peeta but the first book was where he made the most sense to the hunger games storyline so you’d expect this film to be the one where he would establish his presence and it just doesn’t materialise here.

Overall I still enjoyed the movie, and I’m going to be checking out the further ones in the series, but there was a better version of this film that could have been made. 3/5

#207 Winter’s Bone

Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 17 year old girl tending to her little brother, sister and mentally ill mother in the Ozark region of the USA. Existence is hard, but manageable, until her methamphetamine producing father skips out on his court date and their house is going to be used to pay the bail. Ree has to set out into the closed-off community of meth cookers and break the code of silence in order to try and track down her father.

A while back I said that the Black Swan was the least interesting of all the 2011 best picture nominees I had seen so far to which someone asked what about this film? I can now finally answer this question. Winter’s Bone was less interesting.

Much like Swan it was well acted, everything in the film was clearly greatly researched and really provided an insight into that type of lifestyle/culture which you would normally never see. The only problem was I wasn’t that interested in that culture to begin with. It can be as polished and well done as you want it to be but if I’m not invested in the subject matter it’s going to be fairly difficult to make me care about the story. As such I got bored with this flick pretty quickly.

It also lacks any staying power. I saw this about a week ago and have seen a number of different films since. All of the other films I can still remember if I think about it enough but ever time I’ve blanked on this film. It’s not really a great sign when the Bounty Hunter or Jonah Hex is more readily memorable than your picture. 2/5

#159 X-Men:First Class

A group known as the Hellfire Club comprised of powerful mutants want to create world war III by causing the Cuban missile crisis. In attempts to stop them a group of mutants led by Oxford professor of genetics Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and concentration camp survivor Erik Lensherr aka Magneto (Michael Fassbender) band together as the first group of x-men.

This film is as good as, if not better than, the original two x-men movies and it blows 3 and 4 out of the water. It has a great story and is really good at creating a solid group of characters you’re interested in.

McAvoy as Xavier is really quite good and you could definitely see him becoming Patrick Stewart’s Xavier in the first films. Fassbender just steals the show however as Magneto, becoming a kick ass action hero almost, before his ultimate fall from grace. The interaction between the two actors is great as well but was a little rushed at the end. It could have done with another movie before they had to go their separate ways to really cement their relationship.

From the rest of the cast Jennifer Lawrence makes Mystique the most interesting she’s ever been in the franchise, Kevin Bacon makes for a really good villain you love to hate and Nicholas Hoult really surprised me as Beast having only ever seen him in the Channel 4 show Skins (in which he was pretty poor).

January Jones as Emma Frost was gorgeous and every bit what the fanboys had been wanting but her character was pretty bland (she was pretty much what Mystique was in the first film) and Jason Flemyng as Azazel, while cool, wasn’t anything more interesting than a henchman really.

I’ve heard from a couple of sources that this is what George Lucas should have been doing with Phantom Menace in setting up a heroic character and making their decent to villain all the more tragic and I absolutely agree.

I’ve also heard it said that the last 10 minutes are really rushed and should have been left to develop in the next film and I sort of agree with that as well. What we got was really good but it could have been slightly better handled if they trusted they were going to get a sequel from this film (which they definitely will now).

This is all nit picking however, it’s like winning £950 when you could have won £1000. It could have been better but we still made out like bandits. 4.5/5

Also best cameo I’ve seen in a film in years. I won’t spoil it but it’s really funny.