Crazy, Stupid, Love

{Blogger doesn't do captions very well.  If it did, the caption for this photo would be "C'mon, look at that lighting!"}

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Crazy, Stupid, Love is a romantic comedy that didn't make me laugh, but did charm me and provided a sweet, pleasant time at the movies. It's a nice movie, populated with basically good people mostly trying to do the right thing, and it benefits from a tight script that hits all the right notes.

Here's the setup: Steve Carrel, not challenging himself in a typical Steve Carrel role, asks wife Julianne Moore what she wants for dessert. Her reply: "A divorce." And away we go. Carrel and Moore both try to adapt to their new lives. Their kids experience dramas of their own, sometimes only tangentially related to that of their parents. They're all trying to figure this love thing out, as are the people they meet and the people they meet.

And so we rock through an entertaining hour and half during which Carrel gets lessons from pickup artist Ryan Gosling, who seems to have moved on from life-sized sex dolls; Moore agonizes over whether she should reunite with the star of the movie; and Marisa Tomei shows up to prove, once again, that there are no small roles.

It all works, largely due to an enormously likable cast including, in addition to the above, welcome presences Kevin Bacon and Emma Stone. More critically, it works due to a gem of a screenplay by Dan Fogelman. This is a screenplay that has been written, rewritten, edited and lathed into smooth perfection, with reveals and reversals timed just right, characters that feel like they have lives outside the confines of their scenes, and just enough unreality to keep things at a comic distance. This movie made me feel like I was being entertained by pros who knew exactly what they were doing and who were very good at their respective jobs.

So, there you have it: Crazy, Stupid, Love is a romantic comedy that's reasonably romantic, reasonably comedic, and altogether successful. It's a great way to spend some time on the couch with the one you love.

Ball of Fire

Ball of Fire has everything anyone could want in a movie: gangsters, dames, car chases, fist fights, and English professors. There's even a production number.

I know: I had you at "English professors." But wait - there's more! Barbara Stanwyck (CDNW) plays the dame, the star of a singin' and dancin' review who can neither sing nor dance, but who has more charisma than just about any actress of her day. [NOTE: Stanwyck came up as a chorus girl in the Ziegfield Follies. I can only assume that the wooden performance she gives during the number is intentional: suggesting, perhaps, that the character didn't get the job on talent alone, if ya know what I mean.] Gary Cooper plays the professor, and his job is to stumble around and act like a bookish innocent who happens to be the best-looking guy in the room.

So, what do they do? Well, Stanwyck's in trouble with the mob and she needs a place to hide out. Taking advantage of Cooper's innocence, she wiles her way into his academic sanctuary. The sanctuary is a New York mansion which Cooper shares with his colleagues in a decades-long effort to write a new encyclopedia, but don't pay too much attention to the mechanics. All you really need to know is that she's Snow White and Cooper & pals are the dwarves.

Naturally, Stanwyck and Cooper fall in love. This is inevitable because (a) who wouldn't fall in love with Barbara Stanwyck, and (b) chicks dig English majors. But, of course, he doesn't know that she's using him, the mobsters are going to have to come for her eventually, and all kinds of other complications must ensue before we get to the kiss and the credits.

And that's fine, and sufficiently madcap. Howard Hawks directed the picture, Billy Wilder co-wrote it, and Gregg Toland (hot off of Citizen Kane) filmed it, so you know Ball of Fire looks great and the jokes hit and everything works. The real revelation here (assuming you haven't seen the transcendent The Lady Eve) is Stanwyck, who is absolutely luminous as the bad girl with a good girl's heart. (Note to impressionable young English majors: in reality, bad girls have bad girls' hearts - that's why they're bad girls.) If you only know the actress as the matriarch in The Big Valley or as Evil with a capital E in Double Indemnity, stand by. The film's named appropriately - she really is a ball of fire.

So there you have it. With a fun story, slick production, and extraordinary performance from one of cinema's greatest stars, Ball of Fire is everything you could want from a night at the movies. I might just watch it again right now.

[NOTE:  Thanks to Thor Klippert for pointing out the Toland connection!]

American Reunion

American Reunion is awkward and unfunny, just like an actual high school reunion. It's a comedy that didn't make me crack a smile. It's a relationship picture in which not one single relationship feels authentic. It's a mess in which characters show up for the sole purpose of cashing a check and getting the heck out. And it's a considerable waste of the talents of Seann William Scott, who really won me over with Goon.

Here's the setup: it's 13 years since the events of the excellent American Pie. As one might expect with a successful ensemble piece, some of the players' careers have advanced and some haven't. So it is with the characters they play as the characters descend upon their home town, get themselves into awkward situations, and resolve a variety of relationship issues.

But it all feels forced and unfunny. Characters who aren't central to the narrative show up merely for the audience to say, "Hey, I remember that guy!" Rather than inspire guffaws, awkward situations only make us wish we were somewhere else. The story comes from its outline, as opposed to flowing organically. Something about the whole production reeks of desperation.

I felt icky and sad while watching American Reunion, much the same way I imagine I'd feel if I had to watch actual thirty-somethings recreate their high school years. Pass on this film. Forget it ever existed. Hopefully, they won't try to make another.