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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DESPICABLE ME

Written by Ken Daurio

Directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud

Voices by Steve Carrell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand and Kristen Wiig

Gru: Good night, sleep tight.  Don’t let the bed bugs bite … because there are literally thousands of them … and there’s probably something in your closet too.

You’ve gotta love an imagined world where there are evil super villains lurking around stealing things like pyramids and what not right from under the world’s noses.  Arguably, super villains exist in our world but the consequences of their dastardly plots are  little too real for me.  Someone who wants to shrink the moon and hold it ransom though so he can be the biggest, baddest super villain in the world though – now that’s my kinda guy.  Or at least he would be if he weren’t trapped in such a predictable, hollow plot and bogged down by such tired, unfunny dialogue.

Gru is despicable.  As he is the center of his own universe, from his point of view, he is DESPICABLE ME.  Voiced with a pretty sturdy Russian American accent by Steve Carrell, Gru is so evil he pops kids’ balloons after he blows them up for them (gasp!) and freezes the long line of people waiting for their lattes at a local coffee shop so he can go to the front of the line.  I’m shaking in fear here.  What he does next is actually pretty gross when you think about it.  He adopts three little girls so that they can bring a shipment of cookies to his new nemesis, Vector, who is evil with “both direction and magnitude” and voiced delightfully by Jason Segel.  The cookies are really robots though and are designed to steal the shrink ray Gru needs for his moon heist.

In a not at all surprising turn of events, Gru, a man who is supposed to embody evil, finds himself caring for these adorable little girls.  When the girls’ dance recital poses a conflict with his moon heist, you can almost piece together every little lesson still to be learned.  Family films do not have to be complex or present a true face of evil to make their point but they have to try a little harder than this to remain original.  Instead, DESPICABLE ME almost ends up living up to its name and leaves you with little more than a few funny moments and some pretty awesome little minion characters.  Those guys made the movie!  Too bad it wasn’t about them.

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DATE NIGHT

Written by Josh Clausner
Directed by Shawn Levy
Starring Steve Carrell, Tina Fey and Mark Wahlberg

Claire Foster: No! When he says,” vagina”, he means your face.

Before the day has even started, it is already gone. Nasal strips are ripped off your face while miniature bodies pile drive into you before the alarm even has a chance to go off. In all honesty, the alarm probably hasn’t even needed setting in years. Something will inevitably wake the Foster’s up to their routine earlier than necessary. Phil and Claire, played by the king and queen of NBC comedy, Steve Carrell and Tina Fey, sit on opposite sides of their bed and stare into the separate abysses that await them. The message is clear; being married is hard, maybe even too hard. As you look at these two comedic geniuses though, you still see hope in their nearly defeated faces – hope for both the Foster’s themselves and for the movie you’re actually about to watch. What everybody needs is a good DATE NIGHT.

I am not married and nor do I have children. In fact, I saw DATE NIGHT in the middle of the afternoon, alone. I may not be the intended audience in regard to the marital doldrums theme we have seen plenty of times before but there is a whole other audience built in to DATE NIGHT that director, Shawn Levy, plays to more often than the first. That would be the legions of Carrell and Fey followers out there, of which I easily include myself among. Before this, I essentially avoided Levy’s work altogether. I’m not saying I’m about to go back and watch the NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM series but I must commend him for rising above the complete implausibility of the film’s mistaken identity premise by allowing his stars to shine when they should. Meanwhile, getting strong character actors, like James Franco, Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, for random bit parts also gives more credibility whenever it was needed.

Fey’s quick wit and Carrell’s endearing awkwardness may be strengths we are used to by now and just expect to some extent, but their mastery is only getting better and it is their chemistry that makes DATE NIGHT work when it so easily could have bombed. These two immensely funny people pull from their dramatic strengths to make sure the Foster’s are a real couple. They’re real because you can always see the fear on their faces – the fear that they could actually lose each other. This DATE NIGHT really needs to work. And it does.

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