Bradley Cooper

Review: “The Place Beyond the Pines”

Derek Cianfrance’s sprawling, epic “The Place Beyond the Pines” is Capital-A Ambitious filmmaking of proportions we haven’t encountered in a project with Hollywood stars since “The Tree of Life” a few years back. Well, perhaps that’s an overstatement—Cianfrance’s focus is smaller than Terrence Malick’s, which amounted to no less than the breadth of Creation—but still, …

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Review: “Silver Linings Playbook”

David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” sets itself up for disappointment by initially adopting the appearance of a sophisticated movie that it’s not. The premise–two mentally ill people, he bipolar and she coping with the death of her husband, fall in love despite their difficulties with day-to-day life–suggests that the film is the rare romantic-comedy …

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Review: “The Words”

“The Words” is a story within a story within a story, and only one of these offers anything that resembles a conclusion. Given writer/directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal’s apparent love of plot–what other Hollywood filmmakers have recently implemented a three-layered structure?–the movie’s abrupt, mildly confusing ending seems auspicious at first. But upon reflection, it …

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Review: “Hit & Run”

Since its inception in the early 1990s with Robert Rodriguez’ “El Mariachi,” the do-it-yourself filmmaking movement has been roundly celebrated by the entertainment media. Indeed, micro-budget films that have blossomed into full-fledged Hollywood hits, from “The Blair Witch Project” to “Napoleon Dynamite,” offer compelling narratives of the little guy seizing upon the promise of capitalism, …

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