Just a note on radio shows. Last night, we were on caesar’s ghost with Charlotte Kosa on blogtalk radio. And what fun that was. She’ll have the show archived at the link above. For some reason, we thought the show was going to be an hour, but it was two hours – and no breaks! Charlotte has a missing time experience that we hope she’ll write up and send us so we can post it.
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We took a break from work the other day and went to see Silver Linings Playbook.
We knew the movie had been nominated for an Oscar, that our daughter loved it, and that Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games) starred with Bradley Cooper, the guy from Limitless. Other than that, we didn’t know much – no story line or the context. During the credits we discovered it was based on a novel by Matthew Quick.
From the opening to ending scenes, I was captivated. Cooper plays a guy who is bipolar and his illness is the world into which you, the movie viewer, travel. It‘s a bumpy ride. Cooper is such a terrific actor that you really understand what it means to be bipolar, that it’s about the anxiety we may feel at some point in our lives but magnified five million times. He’s obsessed with his wife – Nikki – whom he hasn’t seen for eight months because he has been in a mental institution. He ended up there by court order after finding Nikki in the shower with a teacher with whom she worked and beating the teacher to a bloody pulp.
Robert DeNiro, now 70, plays the perfect father of a blue collar bipolar son. The woman who plays his wife, Jacki Weaver, is so realistic she looks and acts as though she was recruited from some blue-collar neighborhood in Philadelphia. Then there’s Jennifer Lawrence – Katniss from The Hunger Games – and wow, you can see where this incredible actress is headed. She’s been nominated as best actress in this movie (and Cooper for best actor) and was also nominated for her role in Winter’s Bone. She’s just 22. She’s the real deal.
Lawrence takes edgy, rebellious roles that illustrate the changing paradigm for women – and for society as a whole. Her characters are flawed because of circumstances, because of what they must do to stay alive, to flourish. In Silver Linings Playbook, she’s the 25-year-old widow of a cop, and she steals the show. Ultimately, the story centers around a dance contest, a gambling venture, and how love can transform us.
I hope this movie wins big time.
After all, as the title suggests, we all have silver linings in our lives. We just have to recognize them.
I loved this movie, too. Especially the dance contest.
As for winning a lot of Oscars, I only see two likely wins: Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress and Robert DeNiro for Best Supporting Actor. I am hoping “Lincoln” will win Best Picture, but the momentum looks like it’s on “Argo” (which I have not seen). Daniel Day-Lewis appears to have locked down the Best Actor award and I think Anne Hathaway deserves the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” alone. She captured all the heartbreak and despair in that beautiful song.
Great review. After those recommendations will have to see the movie!
Thanks for posting this wonderful review – not because you loved the movie but because you wrote a review is better than those who get paid to do it. I don’t go to a movie theater often – I don’t like what happens in the theater – another story. But I do love the big screen. So no I will go, thanks to you.
The movie is a must see, Adele.
I loved this movie! It is so real and honest and about how loved ones struggle to help and protect.
We are all broken and imperfect and this movie illustrates it so beautifully. There were so many layers in this movie, and the ending!!!!
They also got Philadelphias love for their Eagles Football!! I had forgotten!
I think Bradley Cooper should get an Oscar, he was amazing!
They all were amazing!!
I loved the movie and think Jennifer Lawrence and de Niro both deserve an Oscar for their roles. I wish it was possible to give multiple awards, as I also think Emmanuelle Riva was superb in Amour, and that Sally Field was outstanding in Lincoln. It’s only a few more days now! I read that Riva, who turns 86 on Sunday, will travel from France for the awards and speaks not a word of English! 🙂
It’s a good movie,I went and saw it the weekend cyclone Ozwald hit Brisbane.
Jacki Weaver is an Australian actress who is up against Anne Hathaway for an Oscar,so she has about 1000-1 chance I figure.
She got her break in Hollywood after her performance in an Australian film called
“Animal Kingdom”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNszOl14AWg
That’s a good film,too,although a little violent.
The accent she has in this clip is her real Aussie accent.
About Jackie Weaver also,her first film was “Stork”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAABH3SOMqc
which was a very early Australian 70’s comedy.
The guy in the lead role of Stork is Bruce Spence
who’s path I crossed at the last Byron Bay Writer’s Festival and snapped a few sneaky pictures of him here –
https://brizdazz.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/byron-bay-writers-festival-2012.html
You might say I was storking him that day .-)
Didn’t realize this about Jacki Weaver. Haven’t see Les Miserables, so don’t know about Hathaway’s acting in that.
Here’s another sync about Jacki Weaver and Oswald.
Yesterday I watched a movie called
“Jeff,Who Lives at Home”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1588334/
It’s a movie that a lot of Syncheads were recommending
https://followthesigns.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/synchronicity-in-movies-jeff-who-lives.html
Mark Duplass,one of the brothers who wrote and directed the movie is also an actor and when I looked him up on IMDB to see what movies he has starred in (and going to star in)
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0243233/?ref_=tt_ov_wr
I saw he was currently filming a movie called “Parkland”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2345112/
“A recounting of the chaotic events that occurred at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital on the day U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. ”
The interesting thing is that Jacki Weaver is playing Marguerite Oswald in the same movie.
And the weekend I saw “Silver Linings Playbook”was the weekend Oswald hit Brisbane.
Weird or what? as William would say.-)
There is also a connection for you guys with the
“Jeff,Who Lives at Home” movie,too.
Susan Sarandon plays Jeff’s mother in the movie and you guys did this post about being sent a Christmas ornament by Susan –
https://www.synchrosecrets.com/synchrosecrets/?p=6416
Someone else mentioned this movie to me.
I should have mentioned that the Oswald that hit Brisbane was a Cat.1 cyclone.
That’s the same as a cat 1 hurricane, right?
1 is the lowest on the cyclone scale and 5 is the worst,so 1 (and by the time it hit Brisbane it wasn’t even rated a 1) is just a very bad storm with destructive winds I guess.
So it’s the same rating as hurricanes, I suspect, but just has a different name – cyclone. I remember your post about it and thought back to hurricane wilma, a cat 1 when she hit us in 2005.We lost power for 5 or 6 days. Wilma went to become, i think, the third most powerful hurricane on record and her barometric pressure was something ridiculously perilous. The power of these storms is so unpredictable. The experts were telling us that wilma would be calmer on the backside. The opposite was true.
Thank you! It has been on my list – I better hurry.
If you know anyone who is bipolar the opening scenes are disturbing, depressing.But the rest of the movie is sublime.