@deanduncan63Saw #AmericanHustle, or the battle of the 2 David O. Russells. In this particular bout …
… the charitable naturalist bests the profanely jerky caricaturist. Just barely.
#AmericanHustle. Lots of virtuosos, shredding. Exhilarating, but for stretches you wonder if there’s any actual music going on in there.
#AmericanHustle. Speaking of music. The classical film score (Steiner, Korngold, A. Newman, J. Williams, etc.) …
… may start to strike us as manipulative, overdetermined, excessive. But needle-drop scores like this can actually border on the idiotic …
… Sound, fury; cool, kinetic. But these exciting soundscapes so often end up signifying nearly or next to nothing!
#AmericanHustle. De Niro!
#AmericanHustle. Bale’s tremendous toupee/comb-over open actually threatens to overturn Aristotle’s hierarchy of dramatic elements …
… Not plot, with character and theme following. The whole thing—layers, camouflage, duplicity, vunerability, redeemability— …
… is contained in, comes down to his hair!