Super Bowl Live Diary

The Patriots aren't here but I'm still watching. This marks the 27th consecutive year I'll have watched the big  game live. The first one I saw in its entirety was was XX, when my even then beloved Patriots were slaughtered by the Bears and their 46-defense.


0:28 Ravens win the toss and choose to defer. Smart choice by the team I'll root against really hard. Let's hope Kap sticks it to them right away.

0:32 Davis beats Pats Nation Enemy #1 Bernard Pollard, but the play is nullified by a penalty. Hate that bastard, if you'll excuse my French.

0:35 3-and-out after two miscues by the Niners. Ay caramba!

0:40 Another Niners gift (offsides on 3rd down) and Ravens capitalize. I'm going to v omit. Well, the Niners have shown they can come back from a deficit. If they can't stop these mistakes, it won't be close.


0:47 Crabtree gets away from #52 (Lewis) and #31 (Pollard).

0:51 Pistol starting to work. Theisman says Ravens D will wear down. I tend to agree.

0:53 I spoke too soon. 49ers may not be able to pull this out if they have to settle for field goals inside the ten. And Davis looked hurt. They need him to attack Ravens weakness - LB coverage. D. Walker ain't gonna cut it.


0:59 That was almost Patriots like by the D - get good pressure and still allow the completion.

1:03 And again. How does that get completed?

1:04 Niners pass rush doesn't wrap up and finish. That needs to change.

1:05 Pass rush gets to Flacco and knocks Ravens out of field goal range. They need to keep bringing it.


1:10 Davis is back. 29 yards. And follows it up with another 11. He's going to eat them up if they don't adjust.

1:13 And another gift by the Niners. Can't keep piling up yards and not cash in.

1:15 This is how a superior team loses. Penalties, turnovers and FG's instead of TD's.


1:17 Seems like Ravens want to run it just to give their D a breather. First down here was key. Drive already a success.

1:18 Patrick Willis lowers the boom. I wish the Pats had someone that hits like that.

1:21 Ravens score on a play the Patriots ran all the time in their heyday. Niners have no more margin for error. I'm getting a beer.


1:28 This may be it if the 49ers give up another TD here.

1:34 If things were going the Niners' way, this Boldin drop ends up being intercepted.

1:35 Ravens go for knock out punch with fake FG and miss. Niners still have life. Barely. Need to score here, though. Ravens get ball to open 2nd half.


1:40 Well, that was futile. Moss was open for a second but Kap got the ball off too late, giving the DB time to recover. Unless Lee booms one here Ravens will get ball with good field position. Fake FG may only have delayed the inevitable. Worst case, Niners are down 28-3 by the time to they get the ball again.

1:48 That's the first half of that worst case scenario. Except now the 49ers will get the ball with about 1:50 left. Unless a different team comes out after half time, this game may be over. The Patriots blew a 21-3 lead in the 2006 AFC Championship Game. But then, the Colts had Peyton Manning and half the Patriots D was either injured or had the flu.

1:53 Kaepernik needs to run the ball. They won't win this game with him just throwing, this great completion to Walker notwithstanding.

1:58 Another FG. Keys to first half. Niners commit turnovers and costly penalties, do not capitalize on scoring chances. Ravens 6-8 on 3rd down, including TD passes to Boldin and Jones. Niners can allow one more TD max or they won't be able to catch up.

2:03 B. Pollard has two tackles in first half, no notable plays in pass defense, continuing his remarkable stretch of only being a factor in playoff games against the Patriots.

2:17 If the Ravens go on to win, these are your last 8 SB winners. The 10-6 Ravens (4th seed), the 9-7 Giants (4th seed), the 10-6 Packers (6th seed), the 13-3 (top seed), the 12-4 Steelers (2nd seed), the 10-6 Giants (5th seed), the 12-4 Colts (3rd seed), and the 11-5 Steelers (6th seed). The playoffs deliver great drama but also render much of the regular season meaningless. That's one thing I appreciate about European soccer leagues - you win the regular season, you're the champion.

2:31 And that's that TD. Niners basically have to score on every possession now, unless they completely shut down the Ravens offense from here on out. Somehow, I don't see that happening.

2: 35 I should just go to bed, but I've only ever not finished one SB and that was that miserable Colts win over the Grossman-led (if you could call that leading) Bears.

2:40 The lights go out. Is this a sign I should turn the lights off, too? What happens if they don't regain power? Will the game have to resume tomorrow? Is this NOLA's revenge against the NFL - You kill our team's season, we're killing your big game? I'm sure someone will find a way to blame Belichick for this.

2:57 If I want to function later today, I may HAVE to shut it down before the game ends.

3:05 We've got 3 & 13 coming up. Who benefits from this delay, if anyone? This is another half time, right after we've just had one. Does that mean we have a punt return TD by Jacoby Jones to look forward to?

3:13 Ravens not taking the foot off the pedal. Still throwing it.

3:15 49ers have 25 minutes to make up a 22 point deficit. Can be done, but can it be done with a QB starting his 11th game? Defense has to make multiple stops, too. The odds favor more turnovers forced by the Ravens D.

3:18 I would keep doing that if I were the Niners. Run Kap every opportunity he sees.

3:21 Crabtree has to make that catch on 2nd down. Niners just not making plays that are there to be made. At least, Kap and Moss bail him out on 3rd down. Niners must get a TD on this drive.

3:24 Davis beats Pollard. I take my small victories where I can get them.

3:25 Crabtree makes up for the drop. Pollard fails to wrap up. If that had been a Patriot receiver, he would fumbled, gotten a concussion, broken several bones and torn all ligaments in both knees. Have I mentioned that I hate Bernard Polard? The Patriots should just sign him and never activate him for gameday. Who knows, he probably would knock out half the defense with friendly fire-style hits. Niners, btw, should go for two but don't.

3:28 Meanwhile, the 49ers stop Jones before he reaches the 20. Signs of life?

3:30 Blitz comes home and Niners force second 3 and out in a row. Ted Ginn Jr. returns punt to Ravens' 20. Here we go.

3:32 Niners making it look easy. We have a ball game. Again, Niners should go for two. If you fail here, at least you have time to compensate. If you fail late, that may be it. Then again, there are 20 minutes left to play.

3:35 And Niners kick. Odds are there'll be a lot more scoring anyway. Niners need another stop. Can't let momentum get away from them.

3:40 Oh my. That's a fumble. What goes around comes around. Rice's 3rd lost fumble of playoffs. Belichick would personally nail him to the bench.

3:42 39 FG coming up. Akers has been shaky this year.

3:44 Wow, questionable penalty gives Akers a second chance and he makes it. All breaks suddenly going Niners way. Tale of two halves.

3:50 Niners can't wrap up in the backfield. As a Patriots fan, it's reassuring to see that our D is not the only one with that problem. Great drive for the Ravens so far. They need to come away with points here, TD puts them up by 12, esssentially two TD's.

3:55 Boldin pretends it's a run play that he's given up on and then breaks hard to the outside. Smart play.

3:57 Ravens settle for 20 yard FG. Must be considered victory for Niners. 12:54 left, down 8. Teams are statistically very even. Big difference is Ravens +1 in turnovers and special teams TD.

4:02 Moss between Pollard and Reed for 32 yards, followed by Gore for 21. Niners have been moving ball well most of the day.

4:04 Kaepernick too fast, it's almost unfair. Going for two here and fail. Bad play, bad execution. A lot of time left. This is when you want to be able to grind out first downs on the ground. Don't think Ravens will be able to do that. Flacco will have to make some throws.

4:10 First PD call of the night. No complaints, though.

4:16 At least, they didn't lose the time out. Now we'll see if it was worth it.

4:17 Boldin is a monster. No Patriots WR makes that play. I hate that we can only run the 'throw it at the defenders head and let the receiver adjust'-play with Gronk. We need a big and strong wideout.

4:20 Big third down coming up, Niners must hold Ravens to FG. And Pitta can't hold on. Tucker makes 38 yarder. 49ers have 4:19 to score a TD and take the lead for the first time. The trick is not only to score but also to use up most of that time. And to convert the 2-point conversion.

4:25 That ball was maybe 6 inches too far. Davis just couldn't hold on.

4:29 Niners let the clock run down to two minutes, facing 2nd and goal. They are almost certainly going to leave enough time on the clock for the Ravens to mount a final drive, if they score. The 2-point conversion will be critical.

4:32 3rd & 5 for the Niners. I think I would've run on 2nd. Hindsight.

4:34 What was that play? You throw it short of the end zone?

4:35 And then you throw a fade. Niners best offensive weapon this close is Gore and Kaepernick running. They used neither when it counted most. Granted, there was a lot of contact on Crabtree but the refs haven't been calling much and you certainly can't count on it.

4:41 Intentional safety. Need a Music City Miracle type play now. Did Harbaugh bring the Stanford marching band?

4:45 No, he didn't.

I'm going to say this: Sometimes teams say they didn't lose, they just ran out of time. I believe this is true today. add another quarter and I think the Niners win. They just couldn't overcome all their early mistakes.

It Bears Repeating

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?


- T.S. Eliot, The Rock, 1934.

Django Unchained

If Quentin Tarantino decides to make nothing but crazy revenge fantasies with Christoph Waltz in them, I will go and see every single one.

#2

Podcast

Pop Culture Happy Hour (Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, Trey Graham, Glen Weldon)

PCHH is NPR's roundtable on all things pop culture. It sounds like a mostly good-natured conversation between friends with the occasional snark thrown in. I listen to quite a few podcasts of this sort but this one is by far my favorite. It combines a pleasant atmosphere with good humor, interesting and well-informed opinions on a wide variety of topics, trivia games, good production values and a general level of professionalism despite the obvious intimate friendships of the hosts. The recommendations at the end of the show are called 'What's making me happy this week.' They are exactly what the name implies and therefore are not always recommendations at all. It just adds to the overall sense of familiarity of the show. The whole thing usually comes in at a manageable length of around 40 minutes, long enough to be substantial, short enough not to drag.

TV Show

Homeland (Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon)

Homeland is the story of Sgt. Nicholas Brody, returned home after 8 eight years of being held POW by al-Quaeda and Carrie Mathison, the CIA analyst that believes that once missed something that could've prevented 9/11 and believes there's something wrong with him. The first season was a breakout success and almost universally critically acclaimed, eventually sweeping the big Emmy categories with Damien Lewis and Claire Danestaking Outstanding Leads in a Drama Series and the show itself unseating perpetual winner Mad Men, ending its four-year run as Outstanding Drama Series. Having set the bar incredibly high, the show ran into quite some criticism in its second season. The plot supposedly was full of holes. The show was moving at an incredible pace, which made such charges not unlikely. But it also kept it from dragging along and becoming boring. Add that to the excellent performances of two of my long-time favourite actors in Lewis and Danes, and I did not let Homeland episodes accumulate, which is an easy and reliable indicator of how much I enjoy a show.

Book

The Sorrows of an American (Siri Hustvedt)

Siri Hustvedt's fourth novel is the story of a Norwegian American family, with first-person narrator Erik Davidsen, a middle-aged psychiatrist living and working in New York, at the center of the narrative (no d'uh - he's a first-person narrator). The two primary plot strands revolve around Erik's Jamaican-born downstairs neighbor, her son and her stalker-photographer-boyfriend, and a family secret buried deep in the past. The novel is one of the few cases of 'serious literature' on my 2012 reading list. Serious literature sometimes is work to read, consequently isn't much fun or entertaining to read and leaves you thinking 'Hmm, what was that?' Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, the subsequent research and analysis can be very gratifying. The Sorrows of an American is not that. It is a pleasure to read, you feel with the characters and you put it down with a warm, fuzzy feeling of satisfaction. I was initially surprised I had it as high on this list as it is, but looking back on it it is well deserving of both this spot and a reader's time.

Movie

Looper (Rian Johnson)

Looper is a science fiction time travel story that pits Bruce Willis' Joe against his younger self played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Joe is a Looper that kills and disposes of people sent into the past by organized crime. Eventually, his older self appears on a mission to kill the master criminal he holds responsible for the death of the love of his life. If this doesn't say 'Terminator for our generation' I don't know what will.
I had been waiting for this film for quite a while as I had heard Johnson talk about it on the Slashfilmcast and it did not disappoint. Rian Johnson has produced a film that looks much better than its $ 30 mio budget would lead you to suspect and I felt he handled the inevitable time travel paradoxa well enough so they don't interfere with the story. And while it is an entry in the well-defined time travel genre, Looper is also that rare beast -  a successful, non-sequel, non-adaptation, original property, the only one in my Top 5. While that alone should earn it a spot high up on my list, the film deserves it on its own terms and can bear comparison with any other film I saw in 2012.

Your Sister's Sister

Takes a very basic initial situation, puts three characters together in a house by a lake, complicates the situation and tells a satisfying story.

#3

Podcast

Hang up and Listen (Josh Levin, Mike Pesca, Stefan Fatsis)

Slate's sports podcast is the highbrow version of all the ESPN podcasts that where you hear either the most obvious or the most outrageous commentary and analysis imaginable. It sounds like it should be on NPR, which is no surprise, given that two of the three panelists also work for NPR. If you want discussions of what happened on fields the week before, this is generally not for you. HuaL usually talks about bigger issues rather than individual games or events and does so intelligently. There's also a weekly trivia question that is usually so convoluted that no one should be able to figure out the answer without extended research. To put it bluntly, HuaL is Nerds talking about Jocks, but not dismissively, more like they are something worthy of scientific inquiry.

TV Show

The Newsroom (Aaron Sorkin)

Here is where my Top 5 seriously deviates from what you will probably find in TV critics' Best of 2012 lists. Where Mad Men and Breaking Bad are critical darlings, The Newsroom' first season quickly turned into a critical punching bag. Yet here it is, square in the middle of my Top 5, and somehow I feel the urge to justify myself, which is plainly silly, because it is my Top 5 and practically no one is reading and even if someone is they don't care and even if they do so what?

And yet.

The show is basically the same as every Aaron Sorkin show except The West Wing, i.e. it's about the making of a TV show, in this case a cable news hour. Every episode deals with a real world event and how this fictional show dealt with its coverage. And here we encounter the first complaints. Hindsight is 20/20 and of course these guys'n'gals know better than the actual news coverage of the day. Speaking of the gals, they're all stupid or hysterical or silly or etc pp. And then we've got protagonist Will McAvoy, who we're all supposed to believe is a saint and that rarest of beasts, a card-carrying Republican that publically stands up to the bullshit of his party's fringe and speaks truth to power to boot.

I can see all these flaws. The thing is, they don't bother me all that much. The things Sorkin does well, he does really well. I, like pretty much everyone, love to listen to his characters talk. Even though he comes across as a pompous ass, I happen to agree with most of his politics and so it doesn't annoy me too much when his characters get up on a soapbox and preach. At least his shows do not consciously try to pander to the lowest common denominator. I usually also enjoy his workplace romances, even when all the characters involved act like morons. What can I say, I have yet to encounter a Sorkin show I didn't enjoy and, yes, that includes Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Book

When you are engulfed in Flames (David Sedaris)

When you are engulfed in flames is a collection of essays by American humorist David Sedaris. They deal with various different situations from Sedaris' life. I read it in the bathroom. It made me laugh.

Movie

The Hunger Games (Gary Ross)

The movie is higher on this list than the book was on its. This is not unusual for me. I liked the film version of Fight Club better than the book, same with Wonder Boys, and I liked both those books just fine. Before I give you the primary reason why this film is my #3,let me say this. This film could have been a disaster and it wasn't. It could have screwed up the world, it could have screwed up the games, it could have screwed up the characters and it did none of these.

The reason, however, why I like this film so much is very simple: Jennifer Lawrence is fantastic. She is the only actor/actress that is on my Top 5 list twice.She hadn't made much of an impression on me in X-Men : First Class but her role in Winter's Bone - where she plays a character not dissimilar to Katniss - prepared me for what she could do and she carries this movie. There really isn't mch more to say. I like the premise of the story and its execution on-screen, but it is her performance that puts it over the top for me.

Jack Reacher

If you don't mind male power fantasies - and given the current popularity of superhero movies enough of us don't - this Tom Cruise vehicle is going to entertain you for its 2+ hours, after which you probably won't ever think of it again.

#4

Podcast

This American Life (Ira Glass)

How to describe This American Life? It's a radio show on WBEZ Chicago. There's a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It's mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always.Sometimes there are fictional short stories on the theme. You can read more about it at thisamericanlife.org, where I found this brief description. The show is incredibly well produced and in a world where we either hear about school shootings, fiscal cliffs, natural desasters and wars on the one hand or about Honey Boo Boo's shoes, Kim Kardashian's boobs or Kate Middleton's hat on the other, it reassures my faith in humanity to hear these extraordinary stories about ordinary life. And there's really not much more I can say about it other than go and listen to it.

TV Show

 Breaking Bad (Vince Gilligan)

Breaking Bad is the story of Walter White's transformation - as series creator Vince Gilligan puts it - from Mr. Chips to Scarface. Diagnosed with cancer, chemistry teacher White (Bryan Cranston) begins to cook meth to cover his medical expenses to provide for his family. As his cancer goes into remission White is well on his way to becoming a criminal overlord. He has found something he excels at (cooking meth) and he is not willing to give it up even if it dooms everyone around him.

The eight episodes aired in 2012 constitute the first half of the fifth and final season of the show. With Giancarlo Esposito's Gus Fring meeting the glorious explodo in the season four finale, Walt is looking to inherit an empire and most of the season deals with the issues that arise. The first episode, though, opens with Walt alone in a diner celebrating his 52nd birthday (therefore, it takes place a year in the future) with guns in his trunk and a fake ID in his pocket. Seems like the endgame the whole series is moving toward. At the end of episode eight, the police, namely Walt's brother-in-law Hank, finally have a clue who this blue meth cookin' Heisenberg dude really is. This can only end badly.

It's hard to describe what makes this show so good. Clearly it's performances by Cranston and Aaron Paul, both Emmy winners for their roles on the show by now. It's beautifully shot and extremely well written, and you get an arc for the protagonist that you don't usually see on TV. Unless something unexpected happens it's not Walter White's redemption but his damnation that we're watching and the show is making us care about the fate of what turns out to be a human monster.

If you're not watching already mabe you should wait and watch the whole thing when it is finished. I, for one, can't wait to see how this turns out.

Book

Inherent Vice (Thomas Pynchon)

Thomas Pynchon published his first novel, the critically much acclaimed V., in 1963, after which the literary world's most notorious recluse spent much time in California. In his most recent novel, 2009's Inherent Vice, he returns to the California of the late 60's. It features much of the usual trappings of a Pynchon novel including a detective protagonist, a mysterious organization, the counterculture and the Man, too many characters to keep straight, lots of them with silly names, and humor that is sometimes easy to miss while one is busy decoding the language it is buried in.

Of Pynchon's seven novels The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland, and now Inherent Vice can be considered easy reads compared to his more sprawling efforts. While the latter have received the most critical acclaim and the most academic attention and Lot 49 is often used as an introduction to Pynchon because of its brevity, Vineland and Inherent Vice may be the most accessible. They are all, however, recognizably by the same author and they are all roughly about the same things. If I had to sum it up in one simple sentence I'd say Pynchon writes about the struggle for freedom and the temptation to give in to the forces of control. If you like him and his idiosyncratic style of constructing both sentences and plots - and having read all of his novels and his short stories I clearly do - you will enjoy Inherent Vice, even though it offers essentially nothing new.

Movie

The Avengers (Joss Whedon)
 

I can trace my involvement with the Avengers franchise to my early childhood. I'm sure I read my first Avengers comics while still in elementary school. When I started reading original issues instead of the  German reprints in the mid-80's, the Avengers were among the titles I had sent to my house from a comic book store in Munich. My love for the franchise has never really waned, unlike that for many other characters. And then they put it in the hands of Joss Whedon, creator of such nerd greatness as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. How could I not like this? 

Turns out I wasn't the only one that liked it. People liked it to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars. Of course, that movie was the culmination of years of build-up in the Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor movies. We've seen super hero groups on the big screen before, but this was different from The Fantastic Four and the X-Men. This was done by someone who had an idea how to capture the essence of these characters in their interactions without being on the nose, someone who can write funny dialogue, and someone who knows which buttons to push when. As a fan of both Whedon and the Avengers, I couldn't be happier.

Needless to say this is not a cinematic masterpiece, this is not Citizen Kane. This was an example of a summer blockbuster done extremely well while delivering something new that people had been anticipating for a while. It will be hard for Whedon to even reach that kind of success again, let alone top it. However, if either Spider-Man or Wolverine (or possibly both) show up in the sequel (and I've recently read the possibility exists) my nerd brain may have a nerdgasm and this vale of tears may be transformed into one unending nerdvana. And this is why I loved The Avengers: it was both the successful climax of a development years in the making and also the opening act of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which allows me to consider the Bendis era Avengers line-up as a big screen possibility.

#5

Podcast

Tie: The B.S. Report (Bill Simmons) and The Nerdist (Chris Hardwick)

It seems like I'm already trying to cheat on the first entry out of the gate, doesn't it? I mean, a tie? All this blather about Top 5's and you cant't whittle it down to 5? Bear with me.

The B.S. Report and The Nerdist are essentially the same show, one for nerds, the other ostensibly for jocks, or more like wanna-be jocks. They both created their own small, but well-respected media empires (grantland.com, nerdist.com) by sticking with their passions and being funny, interesting and - most important of all - relatable to the common fan. 

Their podcasts often sound like conversations between friends that you happen to listen in on (and often they are just that), but they also features celebrities of the highest caliber. Simmons' highest profile guest undoubtedly was the States sports-fan-in-chief President Obama, while Hardwick's most famous interviewee was probably Tom Hanks. As is typical for sports fans and nerds alike, they are both extremely emotionally invested in their respective subjects, but they never lose their sense of humor over it. There's very little negativity in either of these shows, both going for laughs as their primary source of entertainment.

If you consider yourself a sports fan whose interests are not restricted to a particular sport or team or are interested in all things nerdy, these podcasts will most likely make you laugh and may even point you towards things you didn't know you would enjoy.


TV Show

Mad Men (Matthew Weiner)

Perennial Emmy contender and critical darling Mad Men aired its 5th season in 2012. If conventional genre fare where a doctor treats a patient, a cop or PI catches a criminal, or a lawyer defends or convicts someone is what you want out of your hour of TV entertainment (and as you will see, I'm a fan of well-done genre), the stories of the advertising executives of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce are not for you. This is not for binge watching on a rainy Sunday afternoon. An episode of Mad Men is like a good piece of literature, that you must digest, that you can return to for a second time which will be as rewarding or more as the first. It is what's nowadays usually called a slow burn. There is no obvious and easy gratification of what we have been taught to expect as consumers of TV. There is no spectacle, only the lives of these men and women in the changing climate of the 60's. If you are not interested in seeing these characters struggle with themselves and their changing world, then this is not for you. If this is for you, then you have found a rare gem.

Book

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

I rediscovered my love for genre fiction in 2012, primarily by reading books I had previously seen on TV or in the movie theater. I finally picked up George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, but it was the much slimmer and faster paced Hunger Games that made my list. Like most readers, I think I like the first installment of the trilogy best. The story of young Katniss Everdeen hurtles along at breakneck speed as she first volunteers for the annual Hunger Games, a gladiatorial spectacle that allows only one survivor, to save her sister and then through cunning, strength and luck manages to survive and save fellow contestant Peeta Mellark in the process. Sure, you sometimes wish to find out a little more about this post-nuclear war US, but the story allows for no lengthy world building as every chapter ends in a cliff-hanger and just pulls you along as it races towards the finish line. This is not a ponderous piece of epic fantasy, that explores even the remotest corners of a whole world. This is a piece of YA literature and the love triangle is therefore unavoidable but it embeds this quintessentially adolescent trope in a particularly brutal context that doesn't afford its protagonists the time or luxury to wallow in the delicious misery of heartbreak. I was thoroughly entertained.

Movie

The Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)

The David O. Russell film starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence is based on Matthew Quick's novel of the same name, which I have not read, so unlike The Hunger Games, where I had seen the movie before I read the novels, I came to this film with only my experience with the romantic comedy genre to inform my viewing. What makes this film work beyond Cooper's and Lawrence's engaging performance is that it is not purely a romantic comedy, it's a look at how two people come to terms with and deal with their in these cases serious issues. Pat has just been released from an 8-month stay in a mental hospital and is determined to win back his wife, Tiffany is dealing with the death of her husband and is determined to compete in a local dance contest. Their paths cross and the inevitable hi-jinks ensue, but their story is intertwined mainly with the craziness surrounding Pat's family in a manner that nicely camouflages the rom com plot. Of course, the audience is aware of Tiffany's interest and eventually Pat catches on, too, but the film ends up more of a look at how we live with our obsessions, depressions and our less serious everyday ticks and quirks. If the film creates the impression that 'all we need is love (bah-bada-badaah)' to cure serious mental illness, then that I think is more due to the conditioning that the audience of the rom com genre undergoes rather than anything inherent in the film. Cooper's and Lawrence's characters are not magically cured, they will face their problems together. Or at least that's how I chose to view it.