Who hasn’t woken up with a hangover and said you’re never drinking again only to hit the bar a few days later? That’s fine for us, but Todd Phillips better keep his word. “The Hangover Part III” absolutely must be the end.
The Wolf Pack is back together again, but not for more wedding shenanigans, rather a funeral and a trip to a rehab facility. After Alan (Zach Galifianakis) literally gives his father (Jeffrey Tambor) a fatal heart attack, his mother, sister, and Doug (Justin Bartha) decide that it’s time for Alan to get some serious help. With Phil and Stu’s (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms) support, they stage an intervention and head out to bring Alan to New Horizons. However, while en route, the Wolfpack is ambushed by Marshall (John Goodman) and his thugs. Marshall takes Doug as collateral while Phil, Stu, and Alan meet his demands – bring him Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong).
Part of the appeal of the original film was the fact that it focused on four real guys in the middle of a very relatable situation. It’s highly unlikely many have had an encounter with Mike Tyson’s tiger or made a quick $80,000 counting cards to pay off a gangster, but the idea of four guys getting so wasted during a bachelor party that they can’t even remember the crazy time they had is charming. But fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Back in 2009, the idea of one friend accidently roofie-ing his buddies was a novel scenario, but the sequel proved the concept didn’t have the appeal and flexibility for another go-around. It seems as though Phillips and co. recognized that issue because we get a different narrative here, but now we’re left with the problem that these characters just aren’t appealing or engaging enough to sustain any feature length scenario.
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“The Place Beyond the Pines” is long and often feels like it, but your time and attention is ultimately well rewarded through thoughtful, tense and moving scenarios that culminate in a very satisfying and well-earned conclusion.
While the large majority can come to an agreement on whether or not a film is good or bad, or pinpoint a particular element that exemplifies skillful filmmaking, for me, the reviewing process is still very personal. Some moviegoers prefer horror while others go for romance, some don’t mind a tearjerker while others would rather keep their emotions to themselves, and then there are the times when you just happen to walk into a movie and it strikes a chord because you just experienced something similar. Well, I certainly can’t speak to your big screen preferences, but I’m thrilled to share mine, a top ten that I’ve populated with quality films that have thrilled, entertained and/or moved me enough to make them some of my best memories of 2012.
Writer-director David O. Russell excels, but his stars steal the show. Bradley Cooper makes for a charming and enigmatic lead, but Jennifer Lawrence steals his spotlight. While everyone involved in “Silver Linings Playbook” pushes the bar higher and higher, it’s Lawrence who’ll be the toughest to top.
The second the trailer hit, we knew The Hangover Part II was basically The Hangover, but in Thailand. While simply recycling a storyline is generally a cause for concern, that’s really the point of this film, otherwise we’d be getting some sort of odd spinoff or no sequel at all. The Hangover Part II could have failed on just about every cinematic front as long as the boys experienced a drug-induced night of debauchery followed by a hilarious attempt at recovery. Unfortunately, just like the memory of the wolf pack’s big night out in Thailand, funny jokes seemed to have simply slipped the filmmakers’ minds.
When you’ve got a movie about a guy on drugs, what better way to show his softer side than to give him a girlfriend? Well, not only does Abbie Cornish do just that for Bradley Cooper’s character in Limitless, but her own has quite a bit of depth as well – and a heck of a fight sequence.
Robert De Niro is an icon. Naturally, any film he’s part of will have a press day packed with questions like, “How was it working with Robert De Niro?” Sure enough, the press conference for Limitless was no exception. However, hearing the same sort of question and answers time and time again never gets boring because we really know so little about the man himself; De Niro is quite concise with his words. But between his co-workers’ thoughts and his own intriguing but succinct insight, we’re able to paint a relatively clear picture of who Robert De Niro really is.
While promoting the film Limitless, Bradley Cooper brought up an interesting topic: the character an actor plays winds up reflecting upon that actor. Basically at one time Cooper was seen as the nice guy from Alias then the jerk from Wedding Crashers and then the good looking smart aleck from The Hangover. Nowadays Cooper is most directly associated with Phil thanks to The Hangover’s continued success, but he’s gearing up to turn that image upside down yet again with his latest film, Limitless.
Writer Leslie Dixon has had a hand in quite a few prominent films from Overboard to Look Who’s Talking Now to Freaky Friday. See a trend? The majority of Dixon’s work falls within the comedy genre. So what’s she doing penning a thriller? Limitless is actually the result of a spontaneous trip to the bookstore.
After wearing two hats on three feature films, Interview with the Assassin, The Illusionist and The Lucky Ones, writer-director Neil Burger decided it was time to narrow his focus and just direct. Conveniently enough, writer-producer Leslie Dixon had a script on her hands, but no director. They joined forces and the result is the wildly intense and visually vivid thriller Limitless.