Tag Archives: Bradley Cooper

2012. 122 minutes. Rated R.

“The only way to beat my crazy was by doing something even crazier.”

Technically speaking, American film has added three distinct genres to the scope of international cinema: the western, the film noir (although the French figured it out and named it for us), and the screwball comedy. While the western has lived a long, durable existence, re-emerging every few years from the dead, the latter two are arguably completed cycles, beginning and ending roughly in the 1940s and 1950s. While remnants of film noir elements are constantly popping up in both Hollywood and world cinema, even to the point of leading scholars to create the “sub-genre” of the neo-noir (think Chinatown, LA Confidential, even Memento), what is the modern day equivalent of the screwball comedy? What is currently known as the romantic comedy generally involves goofiness, clichéd plot lines, a sappy romance and Matthew McConaughey. This is all fine and good for the masses, but what about the serious connoisseur of cinema? Where is our It Happened One Night?