CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE (2011)

Rated: PG-13

Stars: Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei, Analeigh Tipton, Jonah Bobo , Kevin Bacon

Directors: Glen Ficarra, John Requa

Genre: Comedy/ Drama/ Romance

It takes a little getting used to, watching Steve Carell playing it straight, while those around him--Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, Emma Stone, and others--steal the show in Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Carell is Cal Weaver-- just a regular, unremarkable guy. He has a lovely wife and some great kids. One night he goes out to dinner with his spouse, Emily, (Julianne Moore). Suddenly, she blurts out that she's been unfaithful to him and wants a divorce. Thrown into a tailspin, Cal hits the bars, where he is befriended by the quintessential smooth operator, Jacob, (Ryan Gosling) who essentially snaps his fingers and the ladies are ready to go home with him. Learning that Cal has never had another woman but Emily, Jacob offers to take him under his wing and show him the ropes of womanizing. Feeling he has nothing to lose, Cal agrees to an "extreme makeover" of his style--not only in clothes, but the way he approaches women, with some cringe-worthy and humorous results.

Trial and error begins to yield results, and before you know it, the pupil is outshining the teacher. Here's where a wickedly funny turn from Marisa Tomei comes in, as a gal who is hot to jump Cal's bones. But throughout his resurrection, Cal never allows the torch he is carrying for his wife to flame out, while Emily starts to have second thoughts about whether she might have been too hasty in her decision. Sound familiar, anyone?

When their 13 year old son, Robbie, (Jonah Bobo) gets into some hot water at school for the overuse of a certain expletive, Cal and Emily are summoned to a parent-teacher conference, which will yield its own delicious surprise. Waiting out in the hall. Attempting small talk. Wanting to say more, but hesitant to say more. What is great about Crazy, Stupid, Love is that one moment you're busting out laughing, and the next you're furtively brushing a tear from your eye at the poignancy of it all. Finding that delicate balance isn't easy, but it all works here.

Up until now I've kept it simple, but suffice it to say that the plot of Crazy, Stupid, Love has more interchanges than a clover leaf highway--most involving someone who has the hots for someone else who has the hots for someone who isn't the one who has the hots for them. (Follow?)

Complications abound, building to a climactic scene that is truly as CRAZY (and funny) as anything you're likely to see, along with a major plot twist that had the audience reeling with UH-OH surprise.

Analeigh Tipton is an up-and-comer who plays Robbie and his younger sister's 17-year old babysitter. Robbie has a major league crush on her. What she does to help him deal with it at the end undoubtedly will have some straight-laced older folks shaking their heads...BUT I LOVED IT! Those who know me will say, "Yeah, HE would!"

In the film's major subplot, Emma Stone shines as Hannah, a young bar hopper who hooks up with Lothario Jacob, destined to be just another one of his easy conquests...or IS she?

Julianne Moore gives us her typically brilliant performance.

Kevin Bacon is here too, and why not, if you're familiar with the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game.

There's even a cameo from the ever maudlin Josh Groban, in a non-singing role.

Along with Horrible Bosses, Crazy, Stupid, Love now gives us two brightly gleaming summer comedy gems--a rarity in any year!

Grade: A

TIMMY'S OVERLOOKED GEMS AND CURIOSITIES

DON JUAN De MARCO--1994

Rated: PG-13

Stars: Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway

Director: Jeremy Leven

Genre: Drama/romance

Assessment: GEM!

Any movie that can lift you out of the hypnotic, auto-pilot state of your everyday existence and show you a world where there is greater depth of living and loving, and do it in a thoroughly captivating manner, is one that I will rave about! Don Juan DeMarco is such a film.

A young man (Johnny Depp) wearing a cape and a mask is convinced that he is the legendary Don Juan, "the world's greatest lover." He has made love to over fifteen hundred women. But he ends up in a psychiatric hospital following an apparent suicide attempt because the only woman he has ever really love has rejected him. He is under the care of Dr. Jack Mickler, (Marlon Brando) who is under pressure to start medicating the guy because the dude is obviously delusional. But not so fast...the patient regales his psychiatrist with tales of growing up in Mexico, where he made love for the first time at age 16, avenged his father's death in a sword fight, and later ended up in an Arabian sultan's harem where he took on a "service" oriented role.

Fascinated by the young man's sincerity, (as he charms the pants off of the female employees of the facility) Mickler falls under his patient's spell, and comes to believe that he may actually be who he claims to be.

Don Juan tells his doctor that there are only four questions in life:

What is sacred?

Of what is the spirit made?

What is worth living for?

What is worth dying for?

The answer to each of these questions is: "ONLY LOVE."

The tail begins to wag the dog, and Dr. Mickler soon finds his spirit rejuvenated. He goes home to his wife, Marilyn, (Faye Dunaway) and says: "We've surrendered our lives to the momentum of mediocrity. What happened to the celestial fire that used to light our way?"

He also says: "GODDAMN, YOU'RE A GREAT BROAD, REALLY!" This is classic Brando, so reminiscent of his character in Last Tango In Paris that I wondered if there wasn't some subtle tongue-in-cheek parody of that role going on here, especially when he takes a piece of gum out of his mouth and disposes of it, another deja vu moment from the aforementioned film. (Am I the only one who notices these things?) Or maybe it's just that Marlon Brando, with all his idiosyncrasies, could never truly be anything other than himself. (Even in his blimped- out state of 300 pounds, or whatever he was for this movie.)

Don Juan DeMarco got a PG-13 rating when it came out, but there are as many bare naked ladies flitting about (and delightfully so) as there were in Eyes Wide Shut! Probably would have received an R by today's standards.

In the end, the fundamental question of Don Juan DeMarco isn't whether Depp's character really is who he thinks he is--but rather, are any of us really who WE think we are?

BLUE VALENTINE--2010

Rated: R

Stars: Michelle Williams, Ryan Gosling

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Genre: drama/romance

When Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) first meet, they are a couple of rather likable young adults. Cute kids, as it were. She is playful, with a wicked sense of humor. He's the sensitive type, who has a soft spot in his heart for old people and children. What happens to them in Blue Valentine is an all too common tale (told in an uncommon manner) of relationships struggling to survive, in a world where the rules have changed since the days of 2.3 kids and a house with a white picket fence being the ideal. The film hops, skips, and jumps around in non-linear fashion, so we alternately see the hopeful beginnings of Dean and Cindy's relationship juxtaposed with what they have become today, which is akin to the last minutes of the Titanic treading water.

They have a young daughter who is Dean's pride and joy. And he's good with her. Perhaps he should use some of that charm on his wife, who, as each of them approaches middle-age, has gained weight and doesn't like sex anymore (at least not with him). When people tie the knot, they awaken to the stark reality of who the other person REALLY is...and things that they may have glossed over in their initial romantic haze begin to stick out like a sore bum. But give Dean credit for trying to rekindle the spark, when he sets up a "romantic" weekend at one of those cheesy love hotels. He tries to make it work with her in a steamy shower scene, which only serves to illustrate the depths of Cindy's sexual ennui.

The plot of Blue Valentine never points directly to the root cause of their marital discord, other than the old saw that familiarity breeds contempt. Dean is a high school dropout with a menial job. Cindy tells him that he has no ambition. Maybe because of this, he drinks and smokes too much. It's amazing how a sensitive man can seem just the opposite when he shows up at his wife's workplace, careening in a drunken daze and picking a fight with her boss. (A truly wild scene!)

Cindy was a tad promiscuous in her youth, and when she informs Dean that she's pregnant, he asks her if it's his. She doesn't know. She says probably not. He takes it in stride because he loves her. Years later. she runs into the truly unlikable guy who probably is the real dad, and she's uncomfortable talking with him. Is there something still there? Cindy's dad was a butthole, and they say girls grow up looking for their fathers, so maybe she's more attracted to the bad guys. Not an uncommon thing. Maybe you'll get a different impression. That's what's intriguing about Blue Valentine. It's open to interpretation.

Good, and often times raw performances from the two leads. Michelle Williams gives us a double whammy--she's a true talent AND she's willing to do about any kind of raunchy scene just short of hardcore in her movies. In the old days, it was just the up and coming actresses who would do that--trying to get noticed and make a name for themselves. But now, more and more established talents--like Marisa Tomei and Anne Hathaway--are willing to "give their all for their art." Whether it's for the sake of gritty realism--or, in Tomei's case--just to explore her exhibitionistic tendencies as she did in The Wrestler.

The growing number of celebrity sex tapes out there are laying (pardon the pun) the groundwork for established actors to someday do the real thing in a serious film. When that happens, the last vestiges of let's pretend will be stripped away, and films will be as real life as anything you can imagine. And we'll shrug our shoulders, because the envelope keeps getting pushed farther and farther in the name of the almighty dollar.

GRADE: B +