Trainwrecks and Missing Masterpieces

The apparently lovable Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence star in Silver Linings Playbook, a front runner for the "holy hell this movie is a train wreck of utter proportions" for 2012 award. I seem to be pretty alone in my absolute despise for this movie, but I have a lot of moral issues (as well as acting, script, and camera movement issues) that I think this film completely ignores. Scott Tobias tweeted something that everyone who either absolutely loves or pans this movie is taking it way too seriously, but that's perhaps one of my issues: it treats these huge psychological issues in American society as no less than quirks for a charming unpretentious film, reducing them to really offensive broad strokes. I'm not saying we can't have comedies with mental illness - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is quite funny - but for Christ's sake we can do better than this. Anyways, I wrote this one for InReviewOnline, the former house of Sam C. Mac (#SMacDown™) and the new home of (former Cinephiliacs guest) Kenji Fujishima.

Over at The Playlist, my second column of "The Disc-less" covers five disreputable American classics in search of DVD releases. Basing this around Heaven's Gate, I chose some awesome films like Ishtar, Greed, and The Last Movie. I ironically chose Elia Kazan's Wild River, which a) technically was available in that expensive Kazan box set Fox put out (bad research on my part), and b) was announced this morning for a Blu-Ray by Fox. But still, a worthy read.