Crazy, Stupid, Love. is a terrific, lighthearted romantic comedy. In many of my reviews, I’ve stated that 2010 was the best year for movie releases, despite not having that one super scary or laugh-out-loud funny movie that you would expect a great year to have, I have also noted this to be the case. While 2011 has yet to come close to measuring up to 2010 (based on what I’ve been seeing/reading about the fall/award season releases), it has had some good movies. It’s had three films already that I would put in my Top 20 comedies of all time. I don’t think any of these are in that Top 10 range, but
Horrible Bosses,
The Hangover Part 2, and
Crazy, Stupid, Love. All fall into that second tier. I believe
Bridesmaids will also fall into this group once I see it. In terms of pure comedy,
Crazy, Stupid, Love. doesn’t have as many laughs until your stomach hurts movies, but I would say that it is the best overall movie in this group. This movie had the potential to be great, but like many good movies that don’t reach that elevated status, there is a flaw in the screenplay that is very hard to ignore.
Continue reading Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) →
After watching Blue Valentine about 5 or 6 times within my first month of owning it and then re-watching Brokeback Mountain a couple of months ago (the first time I saw it was in the movie theater), I’ve been itching to go on a Michelle Williams streak. I had no idea her filmography was already so long, and while I’m not going to watch some of the films very early on in her career (such as Halloween H20 or But I’m a Cheerleader), I’m anxious to see the movies she’s starred in since her Dawson’s Creek days. One of those movies was Sharon Maguire’s (in just her second directorial effort, following the highly popular Bridget Jones’s Diary) Incendiary.
Subtitled movies don’t bother me as much as they used to. There used to be a day when I would only watch a subtitled film if someone forced me to watch one in one of my high school classes. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I seek out movies with subtitles, but I no longer instantly reject them. In fact, before watching Leaving (Partir), I watched two other Kristin Scott Thomas French subtitled movies (Tell No One) e le Dis à Personne and (I’ve Loved You So Long) Il y a Longtemps que Je T’aime. I was a huge fan of I’ve Loved You So Long. I would have enjoyed Tell No One more had I been paying more attention to it. I may be willing to give it another chance one day. This brings up my next point with subtitled movies. If you hope to get anything out of a subtitled film, you’ve got to devote your 100% attention. I did that with I’ve Loved You So Long, and I did that with 2009’s Leaving as well.
Original review – September 18, 2011 | Updated review August 12, 2013
To say that Michael McGowan’s One Week suffered from the wrong movie/wrong time syndrome would be an understatement. Much like the beautiful movie Walk The Line, Joaquin Phoenix’s performance and the film were overshadowed by Jamie Foxx’s Ray, which came out a year earlier. From most critics’ perspectives, Ray was a slightly better movie. While Phoenix received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination, there was no chance he would win it because Foxx won the award a year before. The Academy wasn’t going to reward essentially the same movie with a nearly identical lead performance. The unfortunate part was that these movies were based on legendary actors (Johnny Cash in Walk The Line, Ray Charles in Ray), and each actor portrayed each man correctly.