Holiday Movie Run Down!

I learned over Christmas that it is *hard* to eat cookies, drink wine, AND review movies all at the same time. Since I was doing the first two pretty much constantly, punching up pieces on everything I saw didn't come close to happening. Now that the holidays are over and I'm too horrified by how FATTY FAT FAT MOOOOOOO FAT I am to keep eating all those cookies, here's some bight-sized reviews of everything I did see!

American Hustle

American Hustle takes a meandering path to excellence. David O. Russell's latest is a rambling, tangential 70s crime story, fueled by superb acting, hot ladies (who do a great deal of said superb acting), and a gut punch of a sound track. Hustle is the best of the holiday Oscar grabbers, beautiful in and because of its imperfection. This is not meticulously made cinema; it's scattered, even frivolous in a few instances. But it's steadily fun and so, so pretty to look at. Treat yourself and see this.

The Wolf of Wall Street

I don't want to like The Wolf of Wall Street. I really don't, because I feel like Scorsese really lost his barings with this one. In Scorsese's last large-scale crime story, The Departed, the morality tale was overdone. Who was right/wrong/a rat was as in your face as a kick to the same region would be. In Wolf, where your villain should be just as clear, Scorsese seems to drift. Perhaps Jordan Belfort, the Wall Street swindler on whom the story centers, isn't so bad? Perhaps the Quaaludes and theft and exploitation really are just lots of good timin'?

If you're going to tell a story like Wolf wants to tell, which is ultimately to show the consequences of excess, those consequences need to be emphasized just as hard as the good times. I didn't leave this movie feeling like Belfort lost, or perhaps more importantly, feeling like he necessarily should lose. I left it feeling like I should go make billions on Wall Street and buy a yacht. Scorsese makes the good timing too fun, the evil too minimized. Some of this can be blamed on how charismatic Leonardo DiCaprio is, but ultimately the totality of the product falls on the director.

...and yet. And yet. God damn it is fun to watch. Go ahead and see it if you've got 3 hours to spare. Dubious morals notwithstanding, Wolf is a good movie, and absolutely worth your time.

47 Ronin

There's a reason Keanu is very not shirtless here.

And to round things out, a big bucket of shit! 47 Ronin looked so promising in the trailers, which is to say it looked like a clown-ass action movie. And it has *moments* of being that. Mostly, though, it's a dull stroll through feudal Japan with chubby Keanu Reeves. The days of Johnny Utah are long gone. Hell, the days of Neo are pretty damn gone too. Reeves the Ronin is scruffy and soft in the middle and dull at the edges, much like this script.

A brief summary: following her father's death, a princess is captured and needs rescuing. Said rescue is executed by Keanu and 46 other Ronin. There is a witch. You will take a nap. The end. Waste no dollars on this.

Holiday Re-Watch: Silver Linings Playbook

I like American Hustle. I love Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell's 2012 master work. Watch it and fall more deeply in love with mentally ill Jennifer Lawrence than ever before. Merry After Christmas!