Excelsior

So I had the opportunity to watch Silver Linings Playbook last night in a theater setting.  I really wasn't expecting much going in, I knew it had something to do with dancing and had the guy from The Hangover (which I've never found worthwhile). 

A sequel to Face-Off, with football!

So here are some of my observations from this movie, which apparently was nominated for a shitload of Oscars:

- Bradley Cooper is actually a pretty decent actor when he's not in a movie in which a key plot point is that Ed Helms has sex with a Thai transvestite hooker.

- I thought Jennifer Lawrence was like 19 when I saw her in the Hunger Games trailer.  I haven't the slightest clue how old this woman is.

- At times, the movie tries to be kind of a sports movie, and it fails horrendously.  A weak plotline is the family and neighbors' obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles, but the crew obviously wasn't too familiar with the team.  The only player mentioned with any regularity is DeSean Jackson, a man whose most notable accomplishment is being a dumbass.  In addition, Bradley Cooper's character's mother prominently sports a Kevin Kolb jersey.  Kolb was notable for only ever starting two games, and getting blown the fuck up by Clay Matthews.

Highlight reel shit right there.

In addition to these small things, the movie was incredibly effective at making me feel uncomfortable as shit.  Bradley Cooper's character suffers from bipolar disorder, and several times in the movie he has certain mental episodes.  In addition to identifying with some of the traits portrayed in these - including being triggered by otherwise innocuous things (in Cooper's case, a song), feeling suffocated by certain situations that can lead to verbal or physical outbursts, and refusing to take psychiatric medication due to a fear of losing any level of awareness or conscientiousness - what made me cringe was that during some of these portrayed episodes, the crowd was laughing - laughing because this character had an inability to deal with reality due to a mental illness.  In addition, Cooper's character has a violent outburst in a short scene resulting from walking in on his wife cheating on him, just to drive those feels straight into my brain.

Despite some of these things, Silver Linings Playbook is far from a bad movie.  Cooper is great in it, Robert De Niro and Chris Tucker play small but entertaining parts, and there's a really neat callback during the final act's dance competition scene that people with good ears will catch involving the music choice for Cooper and Lawrence's routine.

NOTE: I've been told I end all these posts really abruptly but I'm not going to change that now.