Still No Sale? Episode 5. I rest my case! [SPOILERS]

The most side-splitting 30-seconds of comedy I have seen in years. It was so funny I must have played it 4 or 5 times. Dead hilarious.

Even without this scene I would have given The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) 10 Stars. It is not only one of the most perfectly cast films I've ever seen, the story is a rare exception to the gratuitously violent clichés (a mile wide, and an inch deep) typically on offer today.

This cast was Pitch Perfect: the vulnerability in Eva Mendes's first scene; the now immortal (to my mind) SCENE 5 which the more Ryan Gosling nuanced his part, the greater the space he created for not just Ben Mendelsohn but the viewer, as well, to laugh until it hurt . . . and then replay it, it's that good! (I dearly hope Springsteen has seen it, what a hoot!). Gosling's acting chops are so authentic, the performances of everyone playing to him are elevated.

This is my first experience of director Derek Cianfrance. I'm probably older than most of you, and I've never seen any of these actors before. But every generation deserves their own Marlon Brando, and Dane DeHaan looks like a front-runner to me. Bradley Cooper turned in a professional performance (most particularly playing to DeHaan) and his character proved not only to be as much of an opportunist as the bent cops treated to his Holier Than Thou contempt, the film itself is a dark exploration of privilege and class. Avery's son "AJ" — played by Emory Cohen — is the kind of spoiled rich-kid schoolyard bully we loathe. He is a letter sent to anyone, in any country, in any period of human history, reminding us that his is a class incubated from failure and champions of hypocrisy. As the meme goes:

A nation of Sheep
Ruled by Wolves
Owned by Pigs