Silver Linings Playbook

Pat is curiously confident and upbeat for someone who just got out from a mental hospital and under a restraining order from his wife. That’s because he’s determined to fix the damage he’s done to his life and surprise everyone by moving forward and upward. His motto is, “Excelsior!” Do you know what stage of bipolar disorder he’s in?

The number one task is restoring his marriage with his wife. After they divorced, he beat up her new boyfriend, but water under the bridge. Pat (Bradley Cooper) swears his parents, Pat Sr. and Dolores, (Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver), that everything will be fine. They’re not so sure. One of the pros of “Silver Linings Playbook,” the 2012 comedy by David O. Russell, is how Dolores is a stable and caring woman and has had so much experience in dealing with compulsive behavior, because her husband is a huge fan of the Philadelphia Eagles. Having been banned from the Eagles stadium for fighting, Pat Sr. now watches restlessly on his TV, convinced that the Eagles will win only if his countless fantasies are fulfilled.

Pat Jr. in desperation falls for Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence, a young widow in the neighborhood. Roger Ebert noted in his review, “Lawrence appears here much transformed from the woman we saw in “Winter's Bone” and “The Hunger Games.” Still only 22, she looks softer, sweeter and somehow prettier than before, yet she plays Tiffany as all edges and elbows, who can understand Pat because she’s crazy herself.” People call her promiscuous, and she agrees. She’s ticked off about Pat because he continues to think about his ex-wife, played by Brea Bee – and also because a lot of her value to him is that’s she’s still in contact with the other woman.

In supporting roles, we meet Danny (Chris Tucker), Pat’s patient friend from the hospital, and Dr. Cliff Patel (Bollywood actor, Anupam Kher), his therapist. Danny’s worried that Pat is not taking his medication. Ebert said, “Dr. Patel plays an increasingly common type in American movies, the Indian immigrant who seems to embody certain stereotypes and then is revealed to be completely assimilated.”

Tiffany thinks she and Pat should make out. Pat disagrees. He doesn’t want to be unfaithful to his ex-wife. Tiffany’s eyes narrow. We see that Pat doesn’t have a chance. Ebert said,

This all builds up into a classic screwball comedy situation in which two bets are inspired — one involving an Eagles-Cowboys game and the other involving a ballroom dancing contest that Tiffany has forced Pat to join her in with a form of emotional blackmail.

How these bets play out I will, of course, not hint. I will note that Pat, in keeping with family tradition, gets in trouble at the game for fighting. Don’t you sometimes wish movies watched other movies? Imagine Pat running into the Patton Oswalt character from “Big Fan.” How cool would that be?

I love actors. I’ve been on an almost lifelong journey with Robert De Niro, and feel intimately familiar with him as an actor (not as a person). Here his work unobtrusively charmed my socks off. He’s harmlessly obsessed with the Eagles, gratefully in love with his wife and cluelessly supportive of his son, who he doesn’t realize is an apple who has fallen very close to the tree.

One of the creative and type of brave accomplishments of Russell’s screenplay (inspired by a novel by Matthew Quick) is the way it requires both father and son to face and deal with their medical issues and against all odds finds a way to do that through both an Eagles game and a dance contest. Ebert noted, “We’re fully aware of the plot conventions at work here, the wheels and gears churning within the machinery, but with these actors, this velocity and the oblique economy of the dialogue, we realize we don’t often see it done this well.” “Silver Linings Playbook” is so good, it could be an amazing old classic.

I had heard about this movie, but I didn’t really hear people talk about this. Then, when I was trying to find something to watch when I was exercising, and, I believe, I saw this on Netflix. I’m with everyone when I say that this is a good movie to watch. I can’t say how accurate this movie is with bipolar disorder, so only those who have it can tell. However, Cooper, De Niro, and Lawrence all play their roles very well. I think De Niro has a child who has bipolar, but I don’t know for sure. Julia Stiles is in here playing Lawrence’s older sister. I find it great that Cooper and De Niro are working together, as De Niro was Cooper’s inspiration to be an actor. Check this out if you haven’t because this is one to see.

Next week, I will be looking at another good movie to check out in the finale of “Robert De Niro Month.” Sorry for the late posting. I fell asleep because I was so tired from work.

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle

The original “Rocky & Bullwinkle” cartoon show was smarter than it needed to be, and a lot of adults took a peek here and there. Roger Ebert said in his review, “It helped point the way to today’s crossover animated shows like “The Simpsons.” Now comes the movie version of the TV show (which was canceled in 1964), and it has the same mixture of dumb puns, corny sight gags and sly, even sophisticated in-jokes.” It’s a lot of fun.

The 2000 movie mixes the animated moose and squirrel with live action – and even pulls three of the characters (Natasha, Boris, and Fearless Leader) out of the TV and into the real work (where they’re played by Rene Russo, Jason Alexander, and Robert De Niro respectively, and explain “we’re attached to the project”).

The faceless Narrator importantly explains: “Expensive animation characters are converted to even more expensive movie stars!” Obviously, the Narrator always seemed to look outside the events and know that “Rocky & Bullwinkle” was only a cartoon. At one point in this version, he, voiced by Keith Scott, complains he now narrates the events of his own life. Also, the movie is self-aware. Ebert mentioned, “when someone (I think maybe Fearless Leader) breathlessly announces, “There has never been a way to destroy a cartoon character until now!” he’s asked, “What about `Roger Rabbit’?”” The story is about a plan by Fearless Leader to win world domination by hypnotizing everyone with RBTV (really bad TV). Only Rucky and Bullwinkle have so many years of experience at ruining the evil plans of Fearless Leader, Natasha, and Boris, and as they walk their way to a final fight, we also get a complete road movie (happily acknowledged as a cliché by the Narrator).

Ebert said, “The movie has a lot of funny moments, which I could destroy by quoting, but will not. (Oh, all right: At one point Rocky cries, “We have to get out of here!” and Bullwinkle bellows: “Quick! Cut to a commercial!”) As much fun as the wit is the film’s overall sense of well-being; this is a happy movie and not the desperate sort of scratching for laughs we got in a cartoon retread like “The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas.”” This is they type of movie where De Niro parodies his famous “Are you talking to me?” line with such cheerful fun that instead of complaining, we think – well, everyone else has ripped it off. Why shouldn’t he get his own turn? The movie is chock-full of cameos, including Janeane Garofalo as a studio executive, Randy Quaid as the FBI chief, Whoopi Goldberg as a judge, John Goodman as a cop, Billy Crystal as a mattress salesman, James Rebhorn as the president, and Jonathan Winters in three roles. Ebert noted, “Russo makes a persuasive Natasha, all red lipstick, seductive accent and power high heels, and De Niro’s patent leather hair and little round glasses will remind movie buffs of Donald Pleasance.”

However, the real discovery of the movie is its (human) protagonist, a 23-year-old newcomer named Piper Perabo, who plays an FBI agent. She has good comedic timing and is so attractive, she kind makes you pause the movie. Ebert compared, “Like Renee Zellweger in “Jerry Maguire,” she comes more or less out of nowhere (well, a couple of obscure straight-to-videos) and becomes a star right there before our eyes.”

Comedy is such a delicate type of art. Ebert noted, ““The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle” isn’t necessarily any more brilliant or witty or inventive than all the other recent retreads of classic cartoons and old sitcoms. But it feels like more fun. From time to time I’m reminded of George C. Scott’s Rule No. 3 for judging movie acting: “Is there a joy of performance? Can you tell that the actors are having fun?”” This time, you can. The right word for this movie is fun.

I remember seeing commercials for this movie and recall seeing this a lot on the movie channels when we first got cable. When I saw Nostalgia Critic’s review of this movie, I was expecting him to thrash it, like everyone else has, but he admitted to liking it. I didn’t see the entire movie until earlier this week. I started watching it, but then got sidetracked, and finished watching it yesterday. As a children’s film, I think this is fine. I would say check it out if you have a soft spot for good or bad puns, fourth wall jokes, and the type of awkward, yet still likeable charm. They got June Foray to reprise the role of Rocky, but Keith Scott voices Bullwinkle and the Narrator. Other cameos include Paget Brewster, comedian David Alan Grier, Don Novello, Jon Polito, Carl Reiner, Max Grodenchik, and Norman Lloyd. You don’t have to, but I still think you can give this one a try, if you would like to.

Next week, I will be looking at a good, but very emotional film, in “Robert De Niro Month.”

Awakenings

For this entire month, I will be reviewing films starring Robert De Niro that I have yet to cover. Let’s take a look at the 1990 classic, “Awakenings.”

We do not know what we see when we look at Leonard. Roger Ebert said in his review, “We think we see a human vegetable, a peculiar man who has been frozen in the same position for 30 years, who neither moves nor speaks.” What goes on in his head? Is he thinking? Of course not, a neurologist says in Penny Marshall’s “Awakenings.” Why not? “Because the implications of that would be unthinkable.” Ebert said, “Ah, but the expert is wrong, and inside the immobile shell of his body, Leonard is still there. Still waiting.”

Leonard is one of the patients in the “garden,” a ward of a Bronx psychiatric hospital that is named by the staff because the patients are there just to be fed and bathed. Looks like nothing can be done for them. They were victims of the great “sleeping sickness” epidemic of the 1920s, and after a time of sudden recovery they relapsed to their current situation. It is 1969. They have many different symptoms, but essentially, they all have the same problem: They cannot make their bodies do what their minds want. Ebert noted, “Sometimes that blockage is manifested through bizarre physical behavior, sometimes through apparent paralysis.”

One day a new doctor comes to work in the hospital. He has no experience working with patients. Actually, his last project involved earthworms. Like those who have gone before him, he has no hope for these patients, who are there and yet not there. Ebert said, “He talks without hope to one of the women, who looks blankly back at him, her head and body frozen.” However, he then turns away, and when he turns back, she has changed her position – apparently trying to catch her eyeglasses as they fell. He tries an experiment. He holds her glasses in front of her, and then drops them. Her hand reacts quickly and catches them.

However, the woman cannot move through her own will. He tries another experiment, throwing a ball at one of the patients. She catches it. “She is borrowing the will of the ball,” the doctor thinks. His colleagues will not listen to this theory, which sounds strangely metaphysical, but he thinks he’s getting somewhere. What if these patients are not actually “frozen” at all, but victims of a stage of Parkinson’s Disease so advanced that their motor impulses are cancelling each other – what if they cannot move because all of their muscles are trying to move at the same time, and they are unable to choose one impulse over the other? Then the falling glasses or the tossed ball might be breaking the restraint.

Ebert pointed out, “This is the great discovery in the opening scenes of “Awakenings,” preparing the way for sequences of enormous joy and heartbreak, as the patients are “awakened” to a personal freedom they had lost all hope of ever again experiencing — only to find that their liberation comes with its own cruel set of conditions.” The film, directed with greatness and emotion by Penny Marshall, is based on a famous 1972 book by Oliver Sacks, the British-born New York neurologist whose The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a classic in the medical field. These were his patients, and the doctor in the film, named Malcolm Sayer and played by Robin Williams, is based on him. Williams had the opportunity to meet Sacks.

Ebert noted, “What he discovered in the summer of 1969 was that L-DOPA, a new drug for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease, might in massive doses break the deadlock that had frozen his patients into a space-time lock for endless years.” The film follows maybe 15 of those patients, mainly Leonard, who is played by Robert De Niro in a brilliant performance. Because this movie is not a tearjerker but a smart look at a bizarre human condition, it depends on De Niro to make Leonard not a character of sympathy, but a person who helps us think about our own fragile look on the world around us.

Ebert compared, “The patients depicted in this film have suffered a fate more horrible than the one in Poe’s famous story about premature burial. If we were locked in a coffin while still alive, at least we would soon suffocate. But to be locked inside a body that cannot move or speak — to look out mutely as even our loved ones talk about us as if we were an uncomprehending piece of furniture!” It is this fate that is seen, that summer of 1969, when the doctor gives the experimental new drug to his patients, and in a miraculous rebirth they are free and begin to move and talk once again, some of them after 30 years of self-captivity.

The movie follows Leonard through the stages of his rebirth. He was (as we saw in the beginning) a bright, likeable kid, until the disease took over. He has been like that for three decades. Now, in the late 1940s, he is filled with joy and gratitude to be able to move around freely and express himself. He cooperates with the doctors studying his case. Also, he finds himself liking a daughter (Penelope Ann Miller) of another patient. Ebert mentioned, “Love and lust stir within him for the first time.”

Dr. Sayer is at the focus of almost every scene, and his personality becomes one of the highlights of the movie. He is also restraint: by shyness and inexperience, and even the way he holds his arms, close to his sides, shows a man cautious of contact. He was happier working with the earthworms. Ebert commented, “This is one of Robin Williams’ best performances, pure and uncluttered, without the ebullient distractions he sometimes adds — the schtick where none is called for.” He is a lovable man here, who experiences the amazing professional joy of seeing chronic, hopeless patients once again sing and dance and meet their loved ones.

However, it is not as simple as that, not after the first weeks. Ebert said, “The disease is not an open-and-shut case. And as the movie unfolds, we are invited to meditate on the strangeness and wonder of the human personality. Who are we, anyway? How much of the self we treasure so much is simply a matter of good luck, of being spared in a minefield of neurological chance? If one has no hope, which is better: To remain hopeless, or to be given hope and then lose it again? Oliver Sacks’ original book, which has been reissued, is as much a work of philosophy as of medicine. After seeing “Awakenings,” I read it, to know more about what happened in that Bronx hospital.” What both the movie and the book show is the huge courage of the patients and the deep experience of their doctors, as in a small way they reexperienced what it means to be born, to open your eyes and discover to your surprise that “you” are alive.

If you haven’t seen this movie, why are you reading this review? This is one of the best movies ever made. I’m not saying that because I’m a Robin Williams fan, but I seriously believe this movie was one of the groundbreakers of its time. Check it out if you haven’t because you will love it.

Apologies for the late post. Some personal stuff came up and I got delayed a lot. Stay tuned next week when I look at a film that I saw parts of growing up when we first got cable in “Robert De Niro Month.”