CRAZY STUPID LOVE

Written by Dan Fogelman

Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Starring Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone

Jacob: Be better than the Gap.

Well, I'll give them "crazy" and "stupid" but that's pretty much where the love stops for me. CRAZY STUPID LOVE is yet another romantic comedy that gets lost in all the crazy highs and stupid lows we have all come to associate with that elusive and all-encompassing emotion we call love. And while love certainly causes all of us to exercise poor judgment from time to time without question, a good chunk of us still crave its complexity regardless. We've all certainly been there but hopefully when we were there, we were nowhere near as pathetic as this ensemble comedy is.

CRAZY STUPID LOVE is the second directorial effort from duo, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS), and even though two heads should be better than one, you would think no one was in charge from how aimless and tired this plot plays out. Their choices, whey they actually make some, are simple enough for any love struck idiot to understand. We know from the moment the film starts that the love is gone for Cal and Emily (Steve Carell and Julianne Moore) by what they're wearing on their feet. Everyone at the restaurant is playing footsie under the table with their fancy footwear except for these two. Cal is wearing running shoes so we know that he's given up trying. He also drinks from a straw and his wife does the driving so we know he's a sad man. At one point, they end up in an argument in a school parking lot, shortly after it looks like they might reconcile no less, and it begins to rain down heavily on Carell after Moore walks away from him dramatically. "What a cliche," he exclaims and I could not have agreed any more.

After Cal and Emily separate at the beginning of the film, Cal tries to get back out there. This is where he meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a smooth operator, who for some inexplicable reason, takes pity on Cal and decides to help him become a real man. Of course, becoming a man people can respect means buying into a world of materialism and detachment, two paths that certainly do not lead to love. As fantastic as it is to watch Gosling let loose for a change, it is clear from the start that ultimately it will be his womanizing ways that will need adjusting in order for him to find true happiness, especially if he intends to land the beautiful Hannah (Emma Stone). And as if there weren't enough tumultuous sub-plots intersecting already, screenwriter, Dan Fogelman (TANGLED), gives us a few more love conundrums to ponder involving a babysitter with an inappropriate crush, a 13-year-old lovesick boy and Kevin Bacon. The point is to distract and make us laugh but all it does is weight the whole project down with heavy awkwardness.

I will not pretend to know too much about love. It seems to me it comes in many different forms and we can only know what it does to us as individuals when we're in it. I can say that my experience has been that it is a transformative emotion well worth every pain that comes with it. It is tricky enough to navigate in the real world though and hard to take seriously in a world as contrived as the one created in CRAZY STUPID LOVE. While Ficarra and Requa attempt to convey how our modern society has made it even more difficult to find love and hold on to it once we have it, they still hold true to the archaic notion that we all have one perfect partner, a "soul mate" if you will, waiting out there for us to find. As far as love in the present day goes, that notion is about as stupid and crazy as they come.

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X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Written by Ahsley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughan

Directed by Matthew Vaughan

Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence

and Kevin Bacon

Charles Xavier: I believe that true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the X-Men within the ever-expanding realm of comic book film adaptations. Given my own, and what I imagine are most people’s insecurities, it is easy to identify with people who feel they don’t belong amongst regular society, people who genuinely believe themselves to be freaks. Only these particular freaks aren’t ashamed of who they are, rather they are more advanced specimens because of their abnormalities. That confidence can perhaps be no better pinpointed that at its moment of inception. And so X-MEN: FIRST CLASS tells us the tale of how a mutant comes of age.

It is 1944 when Matthew Vaughan’s first adult superhero movie opens. (He also directed KICK-ASS but that’s more pubescent superhero-ish really.) The man who would become Magneto, Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), is but a boy, being separated from his mother in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. Across the world, a boy named Charles Xavier (played in adult form by James McAvoy) is alone with his thoughts in a Westchester, New York, mansion. They don’t know it yet but they will grow to become sworn adversaries in an eternal debate surrounding the true nature of humanity – are we in fact inherently good, hopeful and open to change or are we just hateful beings acting out of fear and desperation attempting to destroy everything we cannot understand? One believes is harmony while the other doesn’t believe humanity capable of it.

A little less than 20 years later and these boys are now adults. Charles is bit of a cad with the ladies, finishing his doctorate on genetics at Oxford University. Erik however has focused his ability to manipulate and control all metals to a fine art and is determined to find the Nazi officer that ruined his life. Unbeknownst to either of them, this particular Nazi is a mutant himself and one with grand plans at that. Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) wants to start World War III by pitting the Russians against the Americans in what we would know as the Cuban missile crisis. As nuclear radioactivity gave birth to mutation in humanity, Shaw believes a post nuclear war world will be a mutant utopia. Charles and Erik must band together, along with a group of misfit mutants who have barely become adults, to defeat a common enemy. Their idea of defeating him though differs drastically.

I’ve always known Professor X and Magneto to be enemies. I knew they had a respect for each other, which at times bordered on admiration but all the same, they ruled on opposing sides. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS provides the insight as to just how complex their relationship truly is. They are not really enemies after all; they are equals and even brothers who have fundamentally different values. The fact that they each adhere to their core beliefs so passionately and with such unflinching resolve is what inspires the respect that each accords the other. The strength of their fraternity is testament to the great depth Fassbender and McAvoy bring to the roles, all of which allows Vaughan to bring a great deal of class to a franchise that was going the route of crass.

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