Bradley Cooper stars as a man down-on-his luck and experiencing a prolonged writer's block, who runs into an old acquaintance, accepts a designer pill and suddenly he can concentrate and focus like nobody else. He becomes successful overnight, but when the drug wears off he's back to his old, ordinary self. He now must choose between the side effects of continuing to take the drug or losing everything. Also with Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish, Andrew Howard, Anna Friel and Johnny Whitworth. Directed by Neil Burger. [1:45]

SEX/NUDITY 6 - A man and a woman have sex: we see the man's bare lower legs as he lies on a bed and we hear the woman moaning as he climaxes (we do not see the woman). A man and a woman have sex in a nightclub bathroom: we see the woman's foot with her panties dangling around it propped on a sink and we hear moaning.
► A woman takes a man to a hotel room, she unfastens her dress (we see the top portion of her bare chest), they kiss and fall onto the bed and sex is implied. A man and a woman kiss while taking off their clothes, they lie back on a sofa and continue to kiss (sex is implied). A man and a woman kiss in several scenes and in several places.
► Men and women dance in a couple of club scenes and one shows a man and a woman dancing close together and moving suggestively. A woman caresses a man's face tenderly.
► A man asks a woman to move in with him. A man talks about a teaching assistant that he was "trying to mate." A man talks about another man taking a "straight shot of sperm."
► A man sits on a toilet and we see his underwear around his ankles. We see a female statue and the buttocks are visible. A man wearing a robe reveals a bit of his bare chest. A man's bare chest is shown when he wakes up in bed and we see him wearing only boxer briefs when he gets out of bed.

VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A man is shot three times in the chest and falls back onto the ground (we see the holes open in his clothing and a bit of blood is visible). A man is shot: we hear the gun blast and see him fall to the floor (no blood is visible).
► A man stabs another man in the stomach, he drives the knife deep in his abdomen, blood spurts and we see blood pool on the floor under the man after he falls dead. A man with a knife stabs two men; one man is stabbed and we hear a crunch and see blood spraying from his abdomen and the other is stabbed three times (we hear crunching but do not see blood).
► A man with a hypodermic needle in his mouth stabs another man in the eye with it (the man screams, we see the needle sticking out of his eye and we see blood on and around his eye). A woman runs from a man and onto an ice skating rink, she lifts a young skater, twirls her around and her skates slash the man following her on the face (we see a large bloody gash on his cheek).
► A dead man sits on a sofa with a large, bloody bullet hole in his forehead, blood splattered on his chest and blood and tissue on a chair near him. Two men lie motionless on an office floor (presumably dead but no wounds or blood are visible). A man pushes a piano into a man, breaking through a plate glass window and we see the man lying dead with blood on his face.
► Blood pools on the floor under a dead man and moves toward an injured man, who licks up some of the blood. A man opens a box and we see the severed hands of two men inside (blood shown on the hands). We see the severed hands of two men locked inside a safe and one is posed in an obscene hand gesture.
► A man is surrounded by other men in a train station and they fight with punches and kicks: he sticks his thumbs on one man's mouth, he strikes another men in the throat, he kicks another man in the groin and his leg is injured when he is kicked (no blood is evident). A man beats another man on the back and head with a TV. Two men hold a man and another man punches him in the stomach. A man shoves another man against a gate and then a door, and punches him in the stomach (the man falls to the floor). A man is bound and gagged and lies on a floor with another man sitting near him and holding a knife.
► A man climbs into a taxi where a woman is, she gets out and runs, the man chases her and she hides among rocks in a park. A man runs from another man, they run through busy city streets, one man is nearly struck by a truck and the truck crashes into a car (no one is shown to be injured).
► A man has a bruised face with bloody cuts on his nose and chest. A man is shown with a cut on his nose and bloody knuckles. We see blood on a knife. A man is shown with a large cut across his cheek. We see a man lying dead in a hospital bed and his face is covered with a sheet.
► A man shoots around an apartment erratically trying to shoot someone that he cannot see. A man finds a dead man in an apartment; he panics when he hears a noise and arms himself with a golf club (no one is there).
► A van crashes into the back of a taxi (we see the taxi driver being jolted but no injuries are shown). A man driving a fast car speeds through narrow streets, avoiding a pedestrian and a truck.
► A man stands on a balcony ledge on a tall building and moves toward the edge preparing to jump. We hear pounding on a heavy door and men yelling on the outside. A man stands on a large rock formation over the ocean and dives in (he is unharmed). A man threatens another man, who grabs the threatening man's chest and tells him that his heart is racing.
► A man opens a cloth wrap to show a number of knives, pliers and torture implements.
► A man threatens another man and says, "I will cut you at the waist and peel your skin up over your head so you suffocate." A woman yells at and insults a man that owes her money. A man says, "The only thing I'd have an impact on it the sidewalk" while standing on a ledge high above the street. A man talks about "having a knife in your back." We hear that several people are either sick and in the hospital or dead. A woman talks about getting sick after taking a drug. A man tells another man, "I'll shoot you." A man tells another man, "You get hit by a car, you don't die." We hear that a man is in a coma and that he's dying. A man says he is going to "flay" another man. A man talks about wondering how long the large and small intestines are and threatens to open a man's abdomen to find out. We hear a news report about a woman having been found dead in a hotel room.
► A man vomits twice on a sidewalk (we see vomit spraying from his mouth and hear gagging and splattering). Vomit splatters on a desk and on a man's hand and chest and we hear retching.
► We see tissue and blood pulsing through a brain. We see the inside of a mouth and throat as a pill is being swallowed. We see a stylized image of a human skull and brain. A man has a splint on his finger. A man scrapes his feet with a pedicure implement. A man eats a piece of pizza while sitting on a toilet. A man's apartment is a filthy mess with old food lying around and dirty dishes piled in a sink.
► A man finds his hotel room ransacked. A woman sounds frightened on the telephone and thinks someone is following her. A man is alarmed when he finds himself in a bar and doesn't remember getting there. A man stands in a line-up in a police station. A man stumbles and appears to be dizzy. A man's vision changes after he ingests a pill and then the scene becomes clearer and brighter. A man looks sick in several scenes. A man looks weak and uses a cane to walk.

LANGUAGE 5 - At least 1 F-word, a severed hand is posed in an obscene hand gesture, 14 scatological terms, 8 anatomical terms, 3 mild obscenities, name-calling (pathetic, constipating, anal retentive, cocky, careless), 6 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A man takes a designer drug in pill form in several scenes, a woman takes a designer drug in pill form, a man talks about upping the dosage of a pill he has been taking, a man injects himself in the arm with a drug (we see the needle puncture his arm) and we see many pill canisters on a counter top and pills are scattered around. A woman drinks a glass of champagne, a man pours himself a glass of alcohol and drinks it, a man drinks a beer, people drink beer at a bar, people drink wine in a restaurant with dinner and a man drinks a shot of alcohol in a bar. A man smokes a cigarette in a few scenes.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Success, failure, love, disappointment, discouragement, writer's block, pharmaceuticals, designer drugs, financial markets, infidelity, bribery, stock trading, politics, political contributions, self-sabotage, mergers and acquisitions, brain capacity, the Oracle of Delphi.

MESSAGE - It's amazing what you can do if you actually use your whole brain.