Crazy Stupid Love (2011)

4/5

Crazy Stupid Love has commas in the official title that I am intentionally omitting because they annoy me. The movie itself does not annoy me. In fact, it surprised me with its humor and heart. The plot follows Cal (Carell) and Emily (Moore) Weaver. Emily wants a divorce, and in fact she has already cheated on him with her co-worker David Lindhagen (Bacon). Cal's son (Bobo) is in love with his babysitter (Tipton), who is in fact in love with Cal. Cal starts frequenting bars, whining to no one in particular nonstop for two weeks about the impending divorce, until Jacob (Gosling) becomes so annoyed that he takes him under his wing and shows him how to assert his manhood and pick up women for one-night stands. Cal's first "success" is with a crazy teacher (Tomei) who seems excited by his honesty, but he never calls her back. Jacob, on the other hand, meets Hannah (Stone), who shakes him of his womanizing ways and turns him into a boyfriend.

There is one fantastic scene in the middle of the film that involves Cal and Emily talking on the phone, and it becomes evident that she still loves him and cares for him and misses him even if she can't live with him. It is a tender moment that is filled with genuine emotion and more complexity than you might at first assume. It almost forced a tear out of my eye. In fact, almost the entire plot seems very simple superficially but becomes much more multi-faceted just below the surface.

The acting by the entire ensemble is wonderful; everyone is able to juggle empathy with wit in fluid harmony. The directing as a whole was very effective, although it felt somewhat choppy as people were ignored for chunks at a time. On the whole, Crazy Stupid Love impressed me unexpectedly, much like Bandslam. If you had any interest in the actors or the plot, I would not hesitate to recommend this movie.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1570728/

X-Men: First Class (2011)

3/5

X-Men: First Class is just another mediocre superhero movie. The movie tracks the origins of Professor X (McAvoy) and Magneto (Fassbender) when they battled together against a common enemy, Sebastian Shaw (Bacon), during the Cold War. The plot is trite and unoriginal, the side characters are forgettable cardboard cut-outs, and the dialogue is nauseating. And Beast is just laughable. The rest was a mixed bag. The special effects were either seamless (yay) or appallingly bad (boo). The action sequences were usually pretty tense and exciting. What the movie had going for it was the character development in the young Xavier and Magneto. They were given much more depth and humanity than in the previous X-Men movies, but unfortunately not enough to recommend this movie to any but the most devout of comic book nerds. Overall, I was thoroughly underwhelmed by this movie.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270798/

Frost/Nixon (2008)

3/5

Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon is better than most of Ron Howard's recent movies (Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code), but it's still a Ron Howard movie, which means it's still not great. The movie overdramatizes a series of long-winded and forgettable interviews between British talk show host David Frost (Sheen) and former president Richard Nixon (Langella) surrounding Watergate. There's a lot of build-up without a satisfying climax or conclusion (it takes about 100 minutes before the unfulfilling, deflated admission of guilt). Interspersed throughout the film are a number of fake interviews with the characters at some unknown time looking back on the Frost/Nixon interviews and how they affected them; maybe it would have been better if they were interviews with the actual people instead of the actors. The sole purpose of their inclusion seemed to be to explain what was going on emotionally and cerebrally instead of leaving it up to the viewer to understand by themselves.

The best part of the movie was the characterization and acting. I was surprised by how well-rounded, human, and fair Howard allowed his characters. The actors did more than their fair share, fully infusing their characters with nuance, tragedy, and comedy. The cinematography was also crisp and sharp, although at times a bit overwrought. If only the writing and pacing were better, this might have been a much better movie on the whole. Still, though, I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone who isn't already intrigued by the relevant events.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0870111/