Love...sweet, sweet, complicated love

Hello everyone, I’m TheCinemaChick and once again, I’m quite behind on my reviews.  It can’t be helped sadly because I am having some major problems in the vehicular department.  My poor Malibu has decided to crap out on me and I’ve been spending a lot of time in the shop lately.  

But, enough about my crappy car problems, lets get to the real reason you (hopefully) read this blog.  You want to hear about movies!  And trust me; I have some good movies to talk about today.  I got the chance to see Crazy Stupid Love with Butterfly, followed by Fright Night with Fry.  As of right now, I haven’t decided if I’m going to make an extra long review or split this into two, but we’ll find out as I go along.

I’ve got my mug of soda and I’m ready to roll.

So, Crazy, Stupid Love.  The previews don’t do it justice.  It is a romantic comedy and as we all know, I despise nearly every romantic comedy out there.  After a while, they became formulaic.  They meet, love at first sight, obstacle, separation, joyous reunion and marriage.  This movie does not follow that formula.

It’s about a married couple on the brink of divorce.  The wife admits to infidelity and that she wants a divorce.  Throughout the movie, we get to see what happens in their lives as the marriage crumbles and Cal (played by Steve Carrel) tries to move on.  There’s only one thing that can make this situation even more awkward.  Let’s add some Bacon…Kevin Bacon that is.  That’s right Emily, played by Julianne Moore, cheats on Cal with the one and only Kevin Bacon, who plays a character named David Lindhagen.  Trust me, you’ll hear it so many times in the movie you’ll remember it.

So, Cal gets his own place but his children have problems with all this.  It’s easy to understand why.  Divorce is hard on kids that age.  To cope with everything, Cal starts going to a bar where he meets Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling).  In order to help Cal, Jacob offers to take him under his wing and teach him how to be a man…I guess.  It’s a nice little bromantic side plot there. 

There is also a side plot involving Hannah, who is in law school.  She’s with some guy…I forgot his name honestly.  He shows up a whopping two times in the whole film and he’s just so bland that I didn’t even care about him.  If I’m correct and IMDB has not lied to me, his name is Richard and he is played by the one and only Josh Groban.  Yeah…saw the movie days ago and just now found out this information.  Sadly, his film debut is not a memorable one.  I love his music but if he wants to try acting, get a better role.  

But the movie does center around Cal.  He becomes a ladies man and a man-slut.  After a while, he realizes that he really loves his wife and he wants to be with her, so he begins to find a way to get back with her.

This brings me to the major plot twist of the whole movie.  It turns out Hannah is the oldest daughter of Cal and Emily, and she just happens to fall in love with Jacob!  There’s a shocker for you.  Of course this cause issues between father and boyfriend, who end up having a fight over this.  Oh yeah, the babysitter’s father is also involved because of some naked photos that were found.

In case you’re wondering, I’m not going to talk about the babysitter and the whole naked photo thing.  It made me highly uncomfortable considering the character is supposed to be underage.  Yeah…there are some things out there I won’t touch.

The movie does have a happy ending.  Cal and Emily reconcile, Cal gives his permission to Jacob to date Emily and the babysitter gives the thirteen year old son the naked photos.  Life is…weird.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to what I really think about the movie.  Overall, yes, I liked it.  I love movies that are relatable.  Having been in a rocky relationship that I tried to reconcile, I know how hard love is.  I know that at times, it really sucks and it can hurt.  While I didn’t get the guy in the end, the movie still was worth a watch.  Yeah, yeah, it ends up perfect with everyone getting what they want but everything leading up to the ending was great.  However, the movie is very slow.  There were several times where Butterfly and I looked at each other and said “I’m bored.”

Crazy, Stupid Love.  I recommend it.  Despite the slowness, the awkwardness and at times, downright uncomfortable parts, it was a fantastic film.  Steve Carell can play a serious, dramatic role really well so he’s not destined to be just a comedy star.  Julianne Moore was decent and let me bring it back up, Kevin Bacon.  Also, go see it to check out Josh Groban’s mediocre acting debut.    I see potential in him to be a good actor, but again…pick a better role.

There you go.  Crazy, Stupid Love gets my seal of approval.

And now, I will eat a sandwich, drink some more Coke, then do my review for Fright Night.  Don’t worry, Part 4 of the Twilight Rant is coming soon, along with an article on Terrance Zdunich.  Why am I doing an article over someone you’ve probably never heard of?

I have my reasons.

Well, I’m TheCinemaChick and I’m standing behind you right now…watching…

…not really.  I’m not a creepy stalker.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll keep reviewing them.