I tend to wave off stuff from The Daily, but this isn’t bad. I laughed at the casting of Matthew McConaughey as the shirtless FBI guy who had a thing for Jill Kelley. But Kelly should be played by Sandra Bullock. Perfect narration by Bill McCuddy.

As Jake Gittes said to Lt. Escobar at the end of Chinatown, “Lou, I’m tellin’ ya…you don’t know what’s goin’ on here!” Has there ever been a lazier, gruntier, hairier ball-scratching default front-runner pick than Argo? Lincoln is a Best Picture nominee, yes, but rarified, Kaminski-ized and all but entombed. Lincoln is inflated because it just opened and is flower-fresh in Guru minds and did well at the box-office…but there are little pin holes that people don’t want to look at. Helium is escaping as we speak.

I should have posted this Jamie Stuart Hurricane Sandy piece (i.e., “Eternal Storm”) yesterday morning when he first sent it to me. But I started to put stuff up and this happened and a Fed Ex guy arrived and I had an early lunch meeting and I wrote a bit more and I had to pick up dry cleaning and then talk to my mom and then I fell behind on the column and I had to wail to catch up. What was I talking about? Oh, right…Stuart and Sandy.

Eternal Storm from The Mutiny Company on Vimeo.

Stuart writes that he’s not sure “if it’s right to create art out of this experience, yet. I don’t know what the time limit is. But I have created something that I hope people can appreciate. And art always helps.”

True artists don’t kowtow to sensitive p.c. bullshit. Compassionate, politically correct notions about what is sensitive and insensitive are the enemies of art. As one who has been beaten up by liberal p.c. Stalinists about this and that viewpoint, I know what I’m talking about.

Imagine if there was a secret community of aliens who landed on the planet with digital video cameras at the time of Ramses and Moses, and a descendant of one of them — his name was Zorkan, let’s say — happened to be in ancient Jerusalem on a day that a man named Yeshua of Nazareth was flogged and crucified on Golgotha, and he tagged along and shot a lot of footage of the whole episode. And then Zorkan when back to his apartment and cut it all together on an alien version of IOS 5 on a Macbook Pro and was about to post it when he said to himself, “I don’t know if it’s right to create art out of this experience yet. I don’t know what the time limit is. Maybe I won’t put it up at all. It doesn’t seem respectful to that poor skinny guy, Yeshua something…maybe I should just erase what I have.” And then he did erase it because he wanted to be sensitive and p.c. about filming something that was not pleasant and positive.

If news of what Zorkan did got out and became known to the world, Zorkan would be one of the most loathed and reviled cameramen and video artists of all time.

From Scott Raab’s q & a with Bradley Cooper and David O. Russell in the current Esquire:

“It has become fashionable to suggest that Robert De Niro‘s best work is behind him,” writes N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott in the 11.18 Sunday Times magazine. “But nostalgia is a vice, and a survey of the last four decades of movie history reveals that De Niro has never slackened, diminished or gone away but has rather, year in and year out, amassed a body of work marked by a seriousness and attention to detail that was there from the start.

“So let’s not herald his new movie, Silver Linings Playbook, as a comeback or a return to form. He has been here, more often than not in top form, the whole time. But Playbook, directed by David O. Russell and based on a novel by Matthew Quick, is nonetheless something special — an anarchic comedy in which De Niro plays a wild, funny and touching variation on the difficult-father theme.

“His character, Pat Solitano Sr., is a Philadelphia Eagles fanatic whose dream of domestic peace is undermined by his emotionally unstable son (Bradley Cooper) and his own volatility. Pat is a reminder that De Niro, an unmatched master of brooding silence and quiet menace, can also be an agile comedian and a prodigious talker.”

“Unfortunately, the Petraeus scandal is not weird at all,” writes Esquire‘s Stephen Marche. “It only seems weird because the entire thing, in every sordid detail, has left a trail in the information ether we all inhabit. The story of an older man sleeping with an adoring younger woman is in fact the oldest story there is. It has happened before. It is happening now. And it will happen again. Only the technology has changed.

“Given that in the future everything will be only more recorded, and therefore more available for public scrutiny, now is as good a time as any for America to acknowledge that people in public service have penises and vaginas and that sometimes life gets messy.

“The weirdness of the Petraeus scandal is nothing next to the weirdness of the public squeamishness about the matter. Americans are living in a post-pornography world, where they will do things in bed that were unimaginable a generation ago with regularity and ease. But despite that personal permissiveness, a sexual license that makes the revolution of the sixties look like a box social, Americans have not extended the tolerance they warrant themselves to others.”

The last portion of this recently-posted, English-market Amour trailer, lasting roughly 35 to 40 seconds, is brilliant. Especially the last 10 seconds or so. But you have to watch the whole thing. It only passes along a sequence that’s in Michael Haneke‘s film, but it does so in just the right way.

Am I a dispassionate pundit, weighing the relative merits and demerits of this and that film with a sense of fairness, restraint and balance? Uhm, nope. I have strong feelings yea and nay, and I let fly and play favorites during award season. It’s certainly no secret that I’m in the tank for Silver Linings Playbook, and that I’ve been setting up camp in this tank since Toronto. And so last night I co-hosted a special SLP screening along with director-producer JJ Abrams at Bad Robot in Santa Monica.

Invitation art styled by Dylan Wells.

Six or seven or eight HE readers attended along with Abrams, director Charles Shyer and various journalist pallies. Here are some reactions:

Variety‘s Jeff Sneider: “I just wanted to thank you and J.J. Abrams for hosting last night’s screening of Silver Linings Playbook at Bad Robot, which has one of the coolest offices I’ve ever seen. I could’ve spent all night admiring the artwork (both professional and amateur) lining the walls, as well as the numerous knick-knacks in the lobby.

“I thought David O. Russell did a great job with the movie, which was fantastic and is, in my mind, a sure-fire Best Picture nominee. Bradley Cooper displayed more range than I’d ever seen from him, and Jennifer Lawrence was a human stick of dynamite. But oddly enough, it was Robert De Niro who I came away most impressed with. I thought he was note-perfect, and I’m surprised he’s not being leading the Best Supporting Actor conversation. Perhaps he is in some circles, though Lawrence and to a lesser extent Cooper seem to have dominated the awards prospects for the film. I thought De Niro’s scenes with Cooper were messy and real and wonderful, clearly the result of developing some chemistry during Limitless.

“I loved the quirky tone of the script and how it could veer from funny to serious from one line to the next. I was also impressed with the editing, which did a nice job of conveying the manic energy of the characters. But aside from the movie itself, it was just nice to sit down in a comfortable screening room surrounded by like-minded movie lovers, some of whom I met during the pre-screening cocktail hour. J.J. and the rest of the Bad Robot staff were very gracious hosts, and it was a pleasure to share an evening with a carefully selected group of your friends and readers. Thanks again for having me.”

Director-writer Charles Shyer (Baby Boom, Father of the Bride, Affair of the Necklace, Alfie): “I don’t know where to begin. There was absolutely nothing predictable about this film…except of course, that the picture, the actors, the screenplay, and the direction are all going to be nominated for Oscars…and that most will win.”

HE reader “Lane”: “Silver Linings Playbook is a human dramedy that explodes with exuberance, pathos, and empathy. Some have described it as Capra-esque, and I agree, if Capra were making films for the ADD generation. Much has been said of Jennifer Lawrence, and yes, she’s fantastic, but this is Bradley Cooper‘s film. Like Jack Black did in Bernie, Cooper completely escapes into the role and is absolutely invested, convincing and on-target as Pat. A nomination is absolutely in order, and if the award was given for sheer emotional investment to a role, he would win.

“And it’s so fantastic to see Robert DeNiro back in form. There wasn’t an off moment for him. He nearly brought me to tears and it just shows what he is still capable of with great writing.

“The film plays at a breakneck speed, which wonderfully mirrors the psychological state of Cooper’s Pat Solitano. The second half starts to feel more ‘normal,’ but this also mirrors Pat’s psyche. Some have complained that the second half falls into more traditional ‘romantic comedy’ tropes. But I think they’re missing the point. It’s a fantastic use of editing and pacing that only enhances this emotionally and intellectually engaging piece.

“With so much going on, this is a character piece through and through, and it takes a talent as supreme as David O. Russell to rein it all in and feel methodical and complete. With its generous screenplay and performances, a deliberate and cohesive aesthetic, a rocking soundtrack, and a strong sense of empathy, Silver Linings Playbook is a crowd-pleasing gem.

(l. to r.) Once Upon A Time co-scripter Vladimir Cvetko, editor David Scott Smith, Graemme McGavin at Bad Robot complex following Monday night’s screening.

‘We don’t see this alchemy achieved very often or so well in today’s movies. Sorry, Argo — you’ve got nothing on SLP. With many deserving contenders this year, I’d be happy if Silver Linings Playbook took Best Picture. Tackling so many genres throughout his career, with a clear voice and vision, O. Russell has cemented himself as one of America’s best.”

L.A. Daily News critic/staffer Bob Strauss: “Silver Linings Playbook not only presents us with the best acting jobs of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence‘s careers; Masanobu Takayanagi‘s cinematography is in perfect, jittery harmony with their characters’ volatile mannerisms. Who knew such an edgy style was even possible? Probably Russell, who’s chased this kind of look in several films but has never quite gotten it nailed this smooth and precisely.”

HE reader “Buster”: “SLP was challenging, which was good, but filled with unlikable characters and improbable situations, not quite as far-fetched as I Heart Huckabees but still in that wheelhouse of steaming hot psychobabble that likely comes from too many years of therapy. From this collection of clinically crazy characters, omniscient shrinks and shrieking parents came something completely unexpected and welcome.

“Particularly in the form of Jennifer Lawrence’s portrayal of Tiffany, a seriously ‘wounded bird” who deals with her dead husband by becoming a nymphomaniac, a woman with a heart of gold and a mouth that makes men melt.

“Jeffrey Wells has compared Lawrence to Shirley MacLaine‘s Fran Kubelik in The Apartment. I wouldn’t go nearly as far. MacLaine did a lot more with a lot less than Lawrence does here. Still, Lawrence is a joy to behold, and — apart from her physical attributes — knows how to make the most of a glance, a smile or other small gestures. Jeff seems right in giving her a near-lock on the Best Actress Oscar, at least as far as I can tell this far in the Academy sweepstakes.

“And I can see a slew of other nominations but few if any wins for the rest of the Silver Linings crew — Bradley Cooper in the lead role of an obsessed psycho, Robert DeNiro as his gambling fool of a father, and Jacki Weaver as his long-suffering mom. The movie zips along with rarely a dull moment, the music selections are mostly spot-on (although I occasionally wondered why a 1969 Stevie Wonder song pushed Cooper over the edge, yet he could dance effortlessly to a somewhat similar 1973 Wonder number, ‘Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing’).

“This is a movie you’ll recommend to your cinema-loving friends, but steer your dopey movie pals far away to something safe and fun like Skyfall or Argo. Because, like it or not, Silver Linings Playbook isn’t safe or fun — it’s actually pretty sick, but even with a slightly cop-out Hollywood ending, it’s also pretty smart.”

HE reader Jesse Crall: “In a crude fashion, I can divide David O. Russell‘s films into two categories: (a) Intense subjects handled with dark comedic flourishes and (b) more playful exercises twisted by surreal qualities. The Fighter, Three Kings and Spanking the Monkey fit the former, and Flirting With Disaster, I Heart Huckabees, and now Silver Linings Playbook fall into the latter — ostensible comedies that refuse to adhere to genre or tonal expectations.

“Silver Linings is the best comedy Russell’s ever directed. Like The Fighter, he takes a worn premise and turns it into a special viewing experience thanks to the careful manner through which he presents his subjects.

“Like Lincoln, Silver Linings arrives with a built-in ending, but while Spielberg and company opt for appropriate sepia tones and a reserved presentation, Russell lets his film unfold in a skewed manner unlike any mainstream comedy this year. Like the best works of Hal Ashby (Shampoo, Harold and Maude), Silver Linings embraces the capacity for high comedy and conflict that emerge through the genuine interactions between eccentric personalities.

Invitation styled by Mark Frenden.

“Among Russell’s comedies, it feels the most representative of honest relationships, lacking the philosophical satire of Huckabees or screwball elements of Flirting With Disaster. It understands its universe, finds the right place to jump in, and foregoes distracting embellishments for a poignant look at how even turbulence can produce the well-earned silver linings so earnestly sought by Bradley Cooper‘s Pat and Jennifer Lawrence‘s Tiffany.

“Despite its romcom plot, Silver Linings is shot in gray tones to match Philadelphia’s autumn skies. Extreme close-ups of faces inject the viewer into characters’ lives, sometimes intrusively to highlight their claustrophobic mental realms. A stand-out scene features Cooper thrashing through a late-night manic episode with frantic cuts scored to Zeppelin’s unwieldy rocker ‘What is and What Should Never Be,’ an unnerving scene that substantially enhances the path to the film’s eventual resolution.

“Lawrence, a grounded, sturdy force in the wilds of Winter’s Bone and The Hunger Games, ironically moves with feral qualities in the suburban settings of Silver Linings. Whip-smart, pissed off and sexually entangled, her unstable Tiffany matches the neuroses of Cooper’s Pat, a manic-depressive prone to enraged outbursts and sudden infusions of unrestrained enthusiasm. Both characters keep their bodies moving through jogging, though dance, through fighting…Cooper and Lawrence nail the physical demands of unfocused hyperactivity as well as honestly handling the emotional damage threading their characters’ choices.

“Russell’s script does them plenty of favors though, turning moments of high contention into unlikely reservoirs for comedic banter. Cooper’s demonstrated his ability to nail the Caustic Asshole roles but in Silver Linings, he delivers a touching portrait of fluctuating hopes battling against uncontrolled impulses.

“Robert De Niro stands out most among the supporting players, turning his decade-long infatuation with gruff fathers into his most satisfying portrayal yet as Pat Sr. He’s all tense shoulders and vein-popping anxiety brought on by a nasty trifecta of high-stakes gambling, a dangerous Eagles football obsession, and an inability to understand his son’s personal complications. His face and Cooper’s fill the screen when they interact in scenes often awkward or charged with uncertainties. Jackie Weaver, as Pat’s well-intentioned mother, offers a more stable counterbalance though her short stature sinks beneath the looming frustrations of the two Pats. Just as her men command the screen, Weaver’s Dolores shrinks thanks to Russell’s wise decisions to highlight her timidity through high angled shots.

“Silver Linings falls victim to placing the entire plot’s fortunes on the result of ‘The Big Event,’ in this case a same-day football bet and dance competition for which Tiffany solicits Pat as a partner. A subplot involving Pat Sr.’s financial straights doesn’t carry as much weight as his son’s romance and the Eagles references only pay off during a scene in which Lawrence confronts his bizarre game-day superstitions. Still, despite my knowing Silver Linings‘ conclusion a half an hour in, the film delivers a helluva time as we move toward the finish.

“Despite its genre, Silver Linings never descends into twee styling or cute contrivances. A deep chemistry between Cooper and Lawrence establishes itself within seconds of their meeting, playing off each other with acerbic wit, sweet dependence, and the physical exploits of dance, jogging, and cruel disputes, sometimes in the same sequence.

“Silver Linings Playbook again confirms Russell’s mastery of presentation, someone who looks beyond the supposed limitations of a plot by focusing instead on nuance. Precise details like Pat and Pat Sr’s matching necklaces, Pat’s oft-mentioned weight loss and desire to ‘get fit,’ or Tiffany’s donning black clothes and make-up all serve to make the characters unshakably familiar.

“Some critics have called Silver Linings a pleasant male fantasy thanks to the young Lawrence’s built body and her character’s penchant toward bed-hopping. These critics are making the mistake of shallow plot reading, ignoring the complexity behind Tiffany’s sexual exploits and failing to appreciate how moving her coupling with Pat becomes. Lawrence’s talent allows her to build a Tiffany that’s both mature and frightening in her capacity to alienate family and friends and a tactless ‘meet cute’ with Pat warps the notion of love at first site.”

In an 11.9 article for Jewish Daily Forward, Jonathan Rosenbaum takes exception to Janusz Kaminski‘s cinematography in Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln. “The obvious effort…to be mythical in almost every shot is far more rhetorical and hectoring than John Ford (or Sergei Eisenstein, for that matter) ever was, especially in terms of the lighting, which sinks this movie’s interiors into the darkest gloom imaginable, the abject condition that James Agee once described as rigor artis.

“Surely Lincoln and his cohorts didn’t experience their everyday surroundings as if they were silhouettes in a pretentiously underlighted art movie, but this Lincoln and these cohorts do. It’s obvious that some form of symbolism in which darkness equals slavery and light equals emancipation is at work here — so that the light pouring through the window of Lincoln’s office just after the House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment is made to seem like some sort of divine orgasm.”

Last night Judd Apatow sat down with Mike Nichols to “ask for for advice,” writes HE’s Manhattan correspondent Clayton Loulan. “That was how the Museum of Modern Art billed their conversation, at least, which was a promotion for This Is 40 under the aegis of MOMA’s “The Contenders” series. The room was full and the age of the crowd covered the spectrum. Here’s the mp3.

This Is 40 director-writer Judd Apatow, legendary helmer Mike Nichols on stage last night at the Museum of Modern Art — Monday, 11.12, 8:35 pm.

Apatow started off the evening by showing the first nine minutes of This Is 40 and then the discussion began. Topics ranged from Nichols discovering Dustin Hoffman for The Graduate to Greta Garbo inventing movie acting in George Cukor‘s Camille to HE’s discussion favorite, Lincoln. Nichols said he doesn’t believe that you can compare all of Spielberg’s films” — whatever that means — “but if you could, Lincoln would be his best. ” Wells insert: Nope.

“Apatow offered up witty remarks to a clip from Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge (“It’s funny to see that Jack Nicholson was ever at an age where he was excited about a hand job.”) and seemed genuinely awestruck after watching the ‘Sounds Of Silence’ montage from The Graduate (“You made that…no one else can say that.”)

“The conversation came to a close so that Judd could make it to another screening of 40, but Nichols stayed on stage a few extra minutes, accepting compliments and offering up more advice for those ready to listen.

“Nichols and Elaine May will be interviewed in the upcoming (early December) comedy issue of Vanity Fair, which is being guest-edited by Apatow.

Again, the mp3. “The mikes for the event were set ridiculously low, so turn those speakers up,” Loulan writes. “Apatow mentioned that we were the quietest audience he’d ever heard. There was a reason for that.”

I know what’s going on with the great Anna Karenina. I’m not stupid. It has a 69% Rotten Tomatoes rating — two-thirds admiring but with guys like David Edelstein, for one, calling it “as boldly original a miscalculation as any you’re likely to see.” I can hear the distant shouts of an unhappy mob as we few, we stalwart few, clean our flintlocks and await the inevitable. But at least Hitfix‘s Drew McWeeny is a thumbs-upper, and he states his case clearly.

Director Joe Wright “has taken one of the great novels of all time and working with one of the great voices in modern theater, Tom Stoppard, come up with something that honors the book but also refigures it in a way that illuminates the material to striking effect. Wright is once again working with his favorite leading lady, Keira Knightley, and this might be their most stylish, heightened effort yet. Wright and Stoppard have come up with an immediate way of making the book’s themes explicit, and how you respond to the film will depend largely on how you react to the device they’ve created.

“Seamus McGarvey‘s photography, the score by Dario Marianelli, the sumptuous production design by Sarah Greenwood…all of it plays into this overheated relationship, this all-consuming desire, and the film does a great job of conveying how that feels. Wright does everything he can to put us at the eye of this particular hurricane so we can feel it for ourselves. This isn’t about watching it with a dispassionate eye, but is instead about feeling what it’s like to get so caught up in passion that everything else fades away.

“To some degree, it is the way the story is told that wowed me more than the story itself,” McWeeny concludes. Wells insert: Exactly! It;s not the material as much as the brushstrokes. “The last third of the film loses some steam narratively, and it’s hard to make a wallow in self-pity feel as engrossing as the early embrace of the passion, but Wright manages to find grace notes even in that stretch. Overall, Wright continues to distinguish himself with this film, and it seems to me that he’s still just mastering his voice.”

Whoever attended last night’s semi-secretive Django Unchained screening in Culver City, all three hours’ worth, isn’t saying anything about it on Twitter. Or at least not on my screens. I’m all ears.

There was also a preview screening last night of Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity at a commercial plex in Sherman Oaks. (Probably the Arclight, I’m guessing.) An excellent source confides that “VFX were 95% completed, 3D and color grading still work in progress.” The 3D-converted, presumedly groundbreaking stuck-in-space drama, which costars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, was bumped last May into a 2013 release date.