Tag Archives: Bradley Cooper

Joy review — American Hustling

Directed by David O. Russell | Written by Russell and Annie Mumolo | 124 min | ▲▲▲▲△ Going back to his 1996 comedy Flirting With Disaster, I've admired Russell for his haphazard auteur style, a precarious balancing act between narrative messes and the inspiringly brilliant. Of late that ragged creativity has produced the excellent Silver Linings Playbook, but more… Read More

American Hustle review

Directed by David O. Russell, written by Russell and Eric Singer Russell likes to tell his stories on an edge. That's what I like about him and his movies. It feels like his tales could fly apart at any minute, become total, unwatchable messes, but he always manages to keep it together just this side… Read More

The Place Beyond The Pines review

Directed by Derek CianfranceWritten by Cianfrance, Ben Coccio and Darius MarderThree stories, interlocked. The first: A stunt-driving motorcyclist (Ryan Gosling) returns to Schenectady, New York—a city whose name in Mohawk means, roughly, the title of this picture— and finds a woman (Eva Mendes) and an infant. Cycle guy decides to stay, to try and be a… Read More

Silver Linings Playbook review

Written and directed by David O RussellSelfishly, I think it's great to see talented writer/director Russell pick up his pace. The first movie of his I saw was the brilliant, anxious comedy Flirting With Disaster (his earlier, first feature film, Spanking the Monkey, remains unseen by me). FWD was in 1996. In '99 came Three… Read More

The Words review

The poster is the best thing about this picture   Written and Directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal It's not very often I get to see a movie that fails as spectacularly as this one. And not in the usual way, from laziness or the factory-tooled mediocrity of many Hollywood movies. This doesn't fail… Read More

The Hangover Part II review

  Directed by Todd Phillips | Written by Phillips, Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong | 102 min | Crave Plus In 2009, The Hangover blew the doors off the box office. There have been a few big R-rated comedies in recent years, all those Apatow pictures, but this beat them all. And, you know, that… Read More

Limitless review

Directed by Neil BurgerWritten by Leslie Dixon from an Alan Glynn novelLimitless is a movie for our over-medicated times, and a concept so high and wired that the picture refuses to let you down until the credits roll. Sure, it could have been a whole lot more than just a rush, but in terms of… Read More