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Slackerish posted:According to IMDB Russell said "Christian, I hate plots. I am all about characters, that's it." What's the deal with this exactly? Whose idea was it for Russell to do this after Silver Linings? This was clearly a very plot heavy movie and out of Russell's strengths (character-based comedy/drama).
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Dec 26, 2013 10:12
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Slackerish posted:Um, my guess is it was Russell's? I'm imagining after directing two Best Picture noms in a row you pretty much get carte blanche over what you want to do next. That's what I thought when the movie was first announced, but it'd be really weird for him to pick such a plot-heavy movie and then tell his actors "gently caress the plot, just be the character." Worse yet, if he did pick it, then it means he probably doesn't know his best strengths. Doesn't bode well for his future
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Dec 27, 2013 02:12
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No Wave posted:I gotta agree with Smudgie Buggler here - Amy Adams' incredibly weak performance really torpedoed the film. She is, theoretically, the lynchpin of the film, being the motivating factor for all the major character development. I think the bigger problem here is Adams excels in roles that require more subtlety and this one was so oversaturated with over-the-top acting that she was out of place. She was the only one that truly blew me away. Cooper basically reprised his role from Silver Linings, Lawrence did a bit too only with a touch more sadism, and Christian Bale did his Christian Bale thing. Why Adams was great: women with bottom of the barrel self-esteem tend to have a few traits, the most important of which is that their mouths curl downwards every time their face is at rest like they're always frowning. I can't recall any actress ever doing this in film history. They also tend to want to be anybody but themselves. Part of that is written into the role, but you can hear just how much she doesn't want to be herself in the first 30 minutes of the movie and how she thinks Irv is her ticket out of that. And then when she was acting as Lady Greensleeve, half of that stuff went away because she didn't have to be herself. She had the body language down and she carried herself with dignity and had great posture to boot. When she tells Richie she isn't who she said she is, all of those old issues come back, particularly the frowning. When she tells Richie, she's looking for someone who wants her to be her, thinking that'd be Richie, and it isn't. My favorite part is even in the end of the movie, that stuff doesn't disappear. She's just a bit older and has firmer object relations. I think the best part about Adams' performance is that, as Lady Greensleeve, the accent was atrocious, changed locales a few times, and went in and out. Magic Hate Ball posted:I felt like this film needed to be both tighter and have more down-time. The whole thing sorta rushed by, and it all played out so high-octane that after a while it was hard not to just check out and wait for it to be over. I got this feeling too. The whole thing felt disorganized. While a few of you in this thread are opening my eyes to a few things I didn't notice, Russell got tied up in explaining the characters more than he did to explaining the plot (in my opinion).
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Dec 31, 2013 18:08
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