Director/Actor Best Film #13: Russell & Lawrence

I mean, come on.

Silver Linings Playbook was an extremely overhyped movie that, as I've said before, does nothing that Along Came Polly didn't do much better, but it works as a film and Cooper and Lawrence are very good together and that dynamic carries the movie.

American Hustle is a cinematic con-job that duped critics into thinking it was a great movie, but the con fell apart midway through that awards season. It's a fugazi Scorsese, and none of the leads in the movie are in any way good, and it continues to highlight the fact that O. Russell had no clue how to weaponize Lawrence's skill set, forcing her into roles that she was ill-suited for. If she and Adams had swapped parts it might've fared a bit better, but it's still one of the worst nominated films of the century.

Joy is just dull. It's like someone made a suggestion of "You know who needs a biopic? The woman who invented the Miracle Mop!" as a gag, but a studio took it seriously. Lawrence is better here than in American Hustle, but still not worthy of any attention or acclaim.

So yeah, the first one.

What can I say, but....preach !

I don't love it or anything, but my vote is easily Silver Linings Playbook from this bunch. I feel winning a Best Actress Oscar for this role was extremely generous though....Lawrence isn't really doing anything more difficult than Cameron Diaz in There's Something About Mary or Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde or Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality, and those performances never get near the Oscars.

I'm the only Joy guy here. The movie is good, but Lawrence was better and should've won the Oscars. It plays into her strengths as the ultimate lip war queen of America with one heck of a zip as a delivery.

Silver Linings playbook and American hustle are her 2 weakest performances out of her major 5....putting NHF in there because it feels like people like it enough to make that a Lawrence 5.

There was something about the random 'throw shit at a wall and see what sticks' madness of Joy that I sort of semi-admired. It's certainly better than the phony bucket of shit they made prior to it anyway. It's probably not better than their first movie together, but I have never been able to take that clown show seriously.

Russell's actual good collaborator is Marky Mark. He made the actual good movies of his career (give or take Spanking the Monkey) with him.

Joy made about as much sense to me as The Snowman. I don't know what happened there.

Silver Linings Playbook

To be fair though, my favorite part of the film is Chris Tucker.