American Hustle (2013)

[Ceetar]

About Abscam. I enjoyed it.

This about sums it up:

[batmagadanleadoff]

I saw American Hustle in the movie theater last December. Wanna know why? OK. I'll tell you why. Because I saw the trailer for American Hustle on TV, featuring the opening track on Led Zeppelin's debut album -- Good Times, Bad Times -- and decided right then and there that I hadda hear that song on a big screen, coming out of gigantic movie theater speakers. Whatta gyp. The song wasn't even in the movie. Just the trailer. I hope they paid a fucking fortune to license that song. Talk about an american hustle.

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[Benjamin Grimm]

The movie was okay, but I don't think it's good enough to be a Best Picture winner. The only other nominee I've seen so far is Gravity, and I liked that a lot more than American Hustle.

[Vic Sage]

from the Academy Award thread:

I've only seen 3 of the best picture nominees so far (GRAVITY, HER, AMERICAN HUSTLE). Of that small group, i was most impressed with GRAVITY. While i appreciated HER (particularly Johannson's vocal performance -- when is that going to be a category?), i did find it meandering after a time, even though ultimately moving and worthwhile. I'm just not a big Joaquin Phoenix fan. But i did like Amy Adams more in this than in AMERICAN HUSTLE, which i think is entirely overrated. The performances are fun, in a cartoony, garish way, and its entertaining enough, more or less, but its mostly about hair... bad hair. I was not moved or particularly interested in any of it. And that the low-level scumbags figure out a way to get over on the high-level scumbags doesn't give me quite the uplift one might think. But Bale is certainly incredible (once again). But GRAVITY was masterful in every aspect; the beautiful cinematography and design, the stellar performances, the taut direction, the powerful themes... its all there. I definitely want to see WOLF OF WALL ST and have some interest in NEBRASKA, too, but no interest at all in CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, PHILOMENA, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, or 12 YEARS A SLAVE, . Well, I might catch up with SLAVE on cable, but the other 3 would require a "desert island"-type situation.

[Frayed Knot]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I saw American Hustle in the movie theater last December. Wanna know why? OK. I'll tell you why. Because I saw the trailer for American Hustle on TV, featuring the opening track on Led Zeppelin's debut album -- Good Times, Bad Times -- and decided right then and there that I hadda hear that song on a big screen, coming out of gigantic movie theater speakers. Whatta gyp. The song wasn't even in the movie. Just the trailer. I hope they paid a fucking fortune to license that song. Talk about an american hustle.

Should have seen ARGO instead, nice in-film use of 'When the Levee Breaks'

[Edgy MD]

Good point. I'm going to go and rent Argo again tonight just 'cuz.

[ashie62]

And to think young Ashie was Abscammer Harrison William's driver while in school... Never saw him without a flask....

I like David Russell movies so I had fun with this...

[TransMonk]

I like Russell's work from the 90s (really like Three Kings), but beginning with I Heart Huckabees, I just haven't found his movies entertaining.

This one was not an exception to that. I thought Amy Adams did well and that Bale borrowed heavily from DeNiro.

Movies with "hustle" in the title should be exciting, right? Honestly, I barely made it through and at the end didn't really care who was hustling who anymore.

[Frayed Knot]

I'm with those who thought the movie to be fun and with some good performances but not all that deep.
You can barely can figure out who's scamming who much less why and so I didn't find myself caring all that much how things turned out.


Now for the real question: Why was Robert DeNiro's part in this not only uncredited but also unmentioned in all (at least all that I've heard) the discussion of this much talked-about film?

[Ceetar]

I'm with those who thought the movie to be fun and with some good performances but not all that deep. You can barely can figure out who's scamming who much less why and so I didn't find myself caring all that much how things turned out. Now for the real question: Why was Robert DeNiro's part in this not only uncredited but also unmentioned in all (at least all that I've heard) the discussion of this much talked-about film?

I think they should have an Oscar for best cameo. It'd be kinda fun.


Maybe he wasn't mentioned because he was unaccredited and there's a lot of inner circle proprities stuff going on in Hollywood? But it's a good point. I enjoyed that scene even if it didn't ultimately seem to have much relevance.

[Frayed Knot]

I mean I know this stuff happens occasionally, but it's often because the movie is bad and the actor wants to disassociate himself from it. F. Murray Abraham, IIRC, refused to let his name show on the credits for BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES but that one is entirely understandable.
In this case though it wasn't like the movie was bad or that the part was so tiny as to not merit inclusion. The only other thing I can think of is that DeNiro is too big to get what would have to amount to like 8th billing so he figures no mention is better than that.

But it was weird finally getting around to seeing a much talked-about movie some five months after it was released and being surprised halfway through to learn that Robert Freaking DeNiro was even in it!
I wouldn't have thought that kind of surprise was possible.

[Ceetar]

isn't it sometimes just about doing a favor and appearance fees? Don't some guys get stupid high money whenever they're credited based on SAG agreements or something?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Frayed Knot wrote: In this case though it wasn't like the movie was bad or that the part was so tiny as to not merit inclusion. The only other thing I can think of is that DeNiro is too big to get what would have to amount to like 8th billing so he figures no mention is better than that.

Who the fuck is Robert De Niro anymore? And are De Niro flicks still highly anticipated events, or are you dating yourself? That said, the mobster portrayed by De Niro in American Hustle was, I thought, the most bone-chilling shark-eyed mafioso I ever saw on a movie screen. Boy, I was ready to turn over my lunch money to the next person that so much as looked at me after De Niro's scene.

The Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit in Arabic. Nice touch.

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[Benjamin Grimm]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Who the fuck is Robert De Niro anymore?

He's a Hollywood legend. And that's nothing to sneeze at.

[Frayed Knot]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Who the fuck is Robert De Niro anymore? And are De Niro flicks still highly anticipated events, or are you dating yourself?

No, but neither is his appearance in a movie something you think a movie would want to hide. Nor was this movie something that you think HE would want to hide.
And it's not like I'm upset about this or anything, just kind of puzzled as to why his role went uncredited and also why his small though hardly minute contribution (credited or not) to a multi-award nominated movie went virtually unmentioned.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Guest

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

It's a cameo. Cameos go uncredited all the time.

Also, yeah, he's a legend. Yeah, Raging Bull is probably one of the top five fillums I've ever seen. But take a look at his iMDB page, and the movies he's done for the last decade-and-a-half. His filmic batting average would SHOCK you.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Who the fuck is Robert De Niro anymore? He's a Hollywood legend. And that's nothing to sneeze at.

To tell you the truth, I did experience a little bit of remorse after hitting the send button on that post because I know that De Niro is a Hollywood legend and once you're a Hollywood legend, you're a Hollywood legend for life. But that was my over the top way of saying that I don't think that De Niro starred in a movie that remotely interested me since Dallas Green and Generation K were supposed to lead the Mets into an era of perennial contention. And that's a very long time ago.

[Edgy MD]

It's a whole category unto itself --- Hollywood legends who never stopped working despite abysmal batting averages over the second half of their careers.

Paul Newman
DeNiro
Woodsy Allen
Francis Ford Coppola

You know, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is a perfectly decent film, but in it you can watch three careers clearing the shark at once in Coppala, DeNiro, and Brannagh. And Brannagh was too young to be doing no shark jumping. Flying toward legend status and then blammo, his career was going nowhere.

He may be the latter day Orson Welles.

[Frayed Knot]

The difference with DeNiro is that he barely seems to be trying. His output these days seems to be either small roles in larger films where he doesn't have to work too hard or carry the load, to just awful 'Meet the Fokkers' kind of stuff that's so far beneath him you wonder why he bothers. For a while I was thinking that he was just going for a handful of big budget nonsense so as to finance that Tribeca project he was fronting, but by now it seems like this "phase" has gone on too long for even that.

No matter what one thinks of Woody's output these days, it's not like he's out making teen comedies or some other type of thing that's not in his wheelhouse. He's just (in the opinion of many anyway) putting out pale imitations of what he's always done. Newman too (at least as far as I can remember) wasn't doing schlock toward the end, he just either wasn't getting offered good enough stuff or he wasn't always choosing wisely.

[TransMonk]

The difference with DeNiro is that he barely seems to be trying. His output these days seems to be either small roles in larger films where he doesn't have to work too hard or carry the load, to just awful 'Meet the Fokkers' kind of stuff that's so far beneath him you wonder why he bothers.

I'd guess this is why he bothers:



But, yes, he could be trying harder.

[Vic Sage]

For 30 years, DeNiro was one of the best actors of his generation and a movie icon. But his career took a turn, I think, after RONIN, an excellent caper/thriller by John Frankenheimer that completely flopped in 1998; he followed it with the utterly mediocre ANALYZE THIS (99) and MEET THE PARENTS (00), which were both huge hits in which he parodied aspects of his psycho-tough guy screen persona. And with only a few exceptions in the 14 years since, his work has been pedestrian commercial crap showing little ambition beyond cashing his check. His recent work with David O. Russell (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, and his cameo in AMERICAN HUSTLE) have been more interesting, but may only constitute a blip, not a trend in a better direction. We'll see, i guess.

[Edgy MD]

There's a story about DeNiro zipping in to the set of The Fan by helicopter, doing his scenes, and zipping out. When he complimented John Kruk on his acting chops, Kruk supposedly responded with "How the fuck do you know? You're never here."

That said, I think labeling these guys with generational supremacy only encourages that sort of thing.

[Vic Sage]

So we shouldn't have an opinion about his earlier career, and his relative status among his peers as a result of that work, for fear of his taking it too much to heart and thus becoming a mediocre sellout resting on his laurels? And that if we do make such an assessment, we've somehow encouraged his bad choices?

I think we're entitled to "label" him (i.e., have an opinion about him) however we want without bearing an iota of responsibility for his choices or their consequences. That's completely and entirely on him.

[Edgy MD]

It's not a question of what you are or are not entitled to do.