In "American Hustle"’s would-be signature moment con-man Christian Bale shows G-man Bradley Cooper a Rembrandt in a gallery. He explains that it’s really a fake. Who is the better artist, he asks, the original artist or the person who took the time and skill to fake it?

Well, I would say the artist. He is the one who perceived it. He is the one who conceived it. He is the one who summoned the inspiration.

A romantic comedy may feel like a strange new direction for director David O. Russell (“I Heart Huckabees,” “The Fighter") but his adaptation of Matthew Quick’s namesake novel is a winner, serving up equal parts romance and uplifting drama. What of Bradley Cooper 2.0? He plays a demanding role to perfection. His Pat Solatino, a bipolar Philadelphia man who spent eight months in a psych ward after a brutal beating put on

“The Words” is a nested film with three intertwined stories about writers and as such will be followed with rapt attention by any writer in the audience. Whether anyone else will be interested in a movie filled with good intentions but whirring on empty, I’m not sure. For starters, Montreal once again trying to pass off as Paris once again feels off. But then, the entire movie—by first-timers Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal—feels off. It

I watched “The Hangover II” (a.k.a H2) at the multiplex […]

Limitless begins with Bradley Cooper contemplating a leap from the penthouse of a high-rise apartment building. Based on previous experience, I might have considered this the perfect beginning to a movie. Fortunately, Cooper sticks around and proves me wrong. Too often he has fallen too easily in relying on Adonis DNA and hanging out in the heartthrob category. Here, he’s an inviting lift to Burger’s trippy direction and script (no one speaks that way, but everyone wishes they could speak that way).

Director Todd Phillips loves frat boy bonhomie. His cult hit "Old School" has taken up its spot in the "Animal House" pantheon. It would be wonderful to say that "The Hangover" captures that feeling of male bonding and ritualism, but it really doesn’t. From a friendship perspective, these guys all take their own separate cabs. If the search for a missing pal seems like an annoying distraction from a comedy routine for the men involved, why should it matter to the audience?