Project: Rich

Yesterday, I treated myself to an early Christmas present and saw Silver Linings Playbook. I was hoping it would be the renewal of faith I needed with several key aspects and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Its portrayal of mental health issues within a family and volatile relationships with everyone in it made it easy for me to connect to immediately. Just the right amount of punches were pulled for it to be enjoyable, but still make a point. My biggest jolt in faiths came from the actors themselves, though.

Jennifer Lawrence is an amazing actress who has done absolute horse shit roles ever since one of my favorite movies of 2010, Winter’s Bone. She’s at a point where she could easily be typecast into more shitty roles, but Silver Linings Playbook is proof Jennifer can continue to be something very special.

De Niro doesn’t have to prove a damn thing to anyone at this point. Still, you have to go back quite a few years to understand why he’s so iconic. I’m happy to see him take on the father who wants to do well, but struggles identifying what that means. I’m sure a lot of people identify with this and he did the role justice here.

I like Bradley Cooper. I like him a lot. He’s been enjoyable in the shallow roles and I’ve been dying to see what he does when you give him a thoughtful script and more depth. You get that here. His character knows what’s right and what’s wrong. He has a genuine want to be a better person, but he struggles with an illness that makes it difficult not to continually sabotage himself. I think he might always be an actor with some limit to his range, but Silver Linings Playbook really played to his strengths and weaknesses perfectly.

So what am I saying with all of this? Well, I suppose I’m saying the script and performances deserve many accolades. I suppose I’m saying you’d be doing yourself an injustice by not rushing out to see it. I suppose I’m saying this is absolutely one of my favorite flicks of the year.

This image of mine tends to get used a lot, but today it’s being used as a visual aid in a story about an “awful head-on collision” on the Golden Gate Bridge. Well alright.

Finally, someone in the media is saying it.

There are a lot of people in my life who watch and enjoy The Big Bang Theory. A lot of those people sit there and say they have no idea why I don’t take the time to watch it because it’s about me and the things I like. I’ve seen a couple of episodes and not a single thing about it pulls me in. In fact, the times I’ve watched, I’ve been genuinely insulted by it and always compelled to get away from it as quickly as I could have. Why I experience this reaction while other get so much joy from it has made me want to write something about it for quite some time, but it looks like I wont have to.

I found this article written by a fellow nerd. I love seeing someone else document exactly what I’m thinking and his analysis is so spot on. Here’s couple of quick excerpts:

“…lazy humour is one thing but cruel humour is quite another. If you watch, really watch an episode of The Big Bang Theory and pay attention to when the audience laughs it soon becomes clear that what they’re laughing at. What Chuck Lorre wants us to find funny is not the jokes which the characters are making, it’s the characters themselves… The reason I feel uncomfortable watching The Big Bang Theory is because it’s laughing at me, at people like me.”

“The humour in The Big Bang Theory relies on the audience siding with and relating to Penny, the character coded as ‘normal’ in comparison to the main four guys.”

“And this isn’t even touching on the way TBBT portrays women. Most notably the fact that until recently the only female character on the show had no understanding of science or nerd culture, and the episode in which it’s treated as a miracle that a woman is in a comic book store – ‘she must be lost’ they say.”

It was an interesting read that I related to a lot, so there’s why I hate The Big Bang Theory.