After going to a grand total of one movie in the theater this summer, I've decided that this week is going to be the week of movies. I planned it out two nights ago; Tuesday is reserved for Crazy Stupid Love., Wednesday for The Help, Friday for Final Destination 5, and possibly Saturday for Captain America. Before you judge me too much, you should know that I acknowledge that one of these is completely a guilty pleasure. I'll let you guess which one. Anyway, my week of movies is right on track; yesterday, I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love..
I'm not going to bother summing up the premise of Crazy, Stupid, Love. to you. If you watch any amount of television, I'm sure you seen the trailer about five million times. Even if you haven't seen the trailer, I'm sure you can conclude from the title that it's a romantic comedy. Romantic comedies can easily stray into a groan worthy level of awfulness that is neither romantic nor comedic. However, I can gladly say that Crazy, Stupid, Love. delivers a satisfying amount of both. Towards the beginning of the film, the humor is less present and tinged with some sadness, particularly for Steve Carell's character. As the film progresses, the humor become a bit more traditional, with one scene in particular causing me to laugh more than I have in a while.
As for the romantic side of the movie, it largely succeeds because of its absolutely stellar cast. Steve Carell is a charming leading man, Emma Stone is one of my girl crushes of the moment, and Ryan Gosling won my admiration for his readings of the "Hey Girl" meme. All of these actors were, as I expected, completely winsome. I'm less familiar with the works of Julianne Moore and Marissa Tomei, but they were wonderful as well. The member of the cast that surprised me the most is Analeigh Tipton. I was a fan of hers on America's Next Top Model, but I was a bit wary of her acting skills. She impressively managed to hold her own among a great group of actors.
If I had to pick out a flaw in Crazy, Stupid, Love., it would be that there was almost too much going on in the movie, and at some point towards the middle, the movie seemed slightly unorganized. However, like I just stated, I was so charmed by all of the actors that this really didn't bother me. If I were to retool the film a bit, I might take out a little of the screen time given to Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) and Robbie (Jonah Bobo) and replace it with additional screen time of Hannah's (Emma Stone) and Jacob's (Ryan Gosling) relationship. While I enjoyed the Robbie and Jessica storyline, I feel that it could have been done in fewer scenes; Hannah and Jacob, on the other hand, weren't really given many scenes to built their relationship. To be fair, however, these flaws are relatively minor and don't take much away from the film.
One thing that I found odd about Crazy, Stupid, Love. was the amount of foot shots that were included. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone involved in the making of the film has a foot fetish. It's possible that the movie included a normal amount of foot shots, and I was just hypersensitive to them because Julianne Moore's shoes in the first scene caught my eye. While I'm on the subject of fashion, I have to comment that Emma Stone's wardrobe in Crazy, Stupid, Love. was fantastic. I don't think she wore one dress that I didn't like. Anyway, I think I should now move on from this strange little paragraph about dresses and foot fetishes.
If you don't like romantic comedies, you probably aren't going to like Crazy, Stupid, Love.. Despite the fact that it's one of the better movies in the genre to come out in a while, it still very much belongs in the genre. Also, if you aren't a fan of the cast of Crazy, Stupid, Love., you might want to skip it because the movie's success relies largely on their charm. Now, if you don't fall into either of those two categories, I'd definitely recommend Crazy, Stupid, Love. for you. I spent the whole movie being thoroughly entertained, and I left the theater with a smile.
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| Credit: 2011 Ben Glass / Warner Bros. |
I'm not going to bother summing up the premise of Crazy, Stupid, Love. to you. If you watch any amount of television, I'm sure you seen the trailer about five million times. Even if you haven't seen the trailer, I'm sure you can conclude from the title that it's a romantic comedy. Romantic comedies can easily stray into a groan worthy level of awfulness that is neither romantic nor comedic. However, I can gladly say that Crazy, Stupid, Love. delivers a satisfying amount of both. Towards the beginning of the film, the humor is less present and tinged with some sadness, particularly for Steve Carell's character. As the film progresses, the humor become a bit more traditional, with one scene in particular causing me to laugh more than I have in a while.
As for the romantic side of the movie, it largely succeeds because of its absolutely stellar cast. Steve Carell is a charming leading man, Emma Stone is one of my girl crushes of the moment, and Ryan Gosling won my admiration for his readings of the "Hey Girl" meme. All of these actors were, as I expected, completely winsome. I'm less familiar with the works of Julianne Moore and Marissa Tomei, but they were wonderful as well. The member of the cast that surprised me the most is Analeigh Tipton. I was a fan of hers on America's Next Top Model, but I was a bit wary of her acting skills. She impressively managed to hold her own among a great group of actors.
If I had to pick out a flaw in Crazy, Stupid, Love., it would be that there was almost too much going on in the movie, and at some point towards the middle, the movie seemed slightly unorganized. However, like I just stated, I was so charmed by all of the actors that this really didn't bother me. If I were to retool the film a bit, I might take out a little of the screen time given to Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) and Robbie (Jonah Bobo) and replace it with additional screen time of Hannah's (Emma Stone) and Jacob's (Ryan Gosling) relationship. While I enjoyed the Robbie and Jessica storyline, I feel that it could have been done in fewer scenes; Hannah and Jacob, on the other hand, weren't really given many scenes to built their relationship. To be fair, however, these flaws are relatively minor and don't take much away from the film.
One thing that I found odd about Crazy, Stupid, Love. was the amount of foot shots that were included. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone involved in the making of the film has a foot fetish. It's possible that the movie included a normal amount of foot shots, and I was just hypersensitive to them because Julianne Moore's shoes in the first scene caught my eye. While I'm on the subject of fashion, I have to comment that Emma Stone's wardrobe in Crazy, Stupid, Love. was fantastic. I don't think she wore one dress that I didn't like. Anyway, I think I should now move on from this strange little paragraph about dresses and foot fetishes.
If you don't like romantic comedies, you probably aren't going to like Crazy, Stupid, Love.. Despite the fact that it's one of the better movies in the genre to come out in a while, it still very much belongs in the genre. Also, if you aren't a fan of the cast of Crazy, Stupid, Love., you might want to skip it because the movie's success relies largely on their charm. Now, if you don't fall into either of those two categories, I'd definitely recommend Crazy, Stupid, Love. for you. I spent the whole movie being thoroughly entertained, and I left the theater with a smile.
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