Nobody puts Baby in the corner!

Rating: 9/10 (26 February 2013)

First impressions: J-Law getting the only Oscar was exactly right. (Best Picture, not so much.) As far as my biggest criteria for an actor being "great" - that when s/he's on screen, they're all you can look at; they're interesting; they hog your attention. That's J-Law. She's vulnerable, raw, weak and wounded; then she lures you in for the kill. She completely out-acted GQ model, B-Coop, who can smile and that's about it. I don't see anything boiling behind Cooper's eyes. He's had a nice childhood and plays golf with his dad. That's what comes out in his acting. DeNiro was awesome, although his one crying scene seemed excessive. He knows how not to hog the screen, how to fill the air with chatter, keeping the story and attention on Bradley. But I don't see B-Coop going further than TV in his skills. That's not to say he won't get 8 Oscars in his lifetime, the way the bar is being reset. Julia Stiles was awesome - such a power house. John Ortiz read his lines.
The story was original and sometimes fun. It could have been 10x better if they borrowed from some of the dramatic mental illness/family dysfunction movies of yore (Great Santini, Ordinary People) but they had to keep it peppy with dancing and love letters. The explosive anger scenes were about 70% motivated, but I never really felt what Pat was feeling. Why was he so angry? Except for TONS of exposition in the first 20 minutes we had no way of feeling what he was feeling. (Better writing would show it instead of tell it in a shrink's office.) It seemed like a Woody Allen movie without the humor. When both characters dump their pathologies on the street, instead of laugh, you pity them. Then you question the world we live in. How did people get this messed up? What made Pat this way? I still don't know.
Chris Tucker did his best with the writing. I see him doing more dramatic stuff in the future, but his role seemed to be "funny black guy does black stuff blackly."
There were grueling scenes. The big dance bet came late in act II, just when you thought things should start resolving. Yes, the writing course says "have your character want something, then make sure he gets something else." Fine. The ending was canned girl food. Russell was right to have J-Law instigate the Final Kiss. It was her movie.