100 movies: Crazy, Stupid Love

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100 movies of 2012
Every year I set myself a target, usually of about 100, of films to watch. These are new films. Not new, new films. But films that are new to me. Any time I’ve seen a new one, I post a bit of a brain dump of my thoughts on the film here. Enjoy!

Crazy, Stupid, LoveCrazy, Stupid, Love (03/11/12)

A middle-aged husband’s life changes dramatically when his wife asks him for a divorce. He seeks to rediscover his manhood with the help of a newfound friend, Jacob, learning to pick up girls at bars.

Now this is a good film. Surprisingly good. See, I have a problem with Steve Carell. 90% of the time I don’t find him funny or even enjoyable to watch. Little Miss Sunshine and Crazy, Stupid, Love are the exceptions to said rule. Could be because I was very, very distracted by Ryan Gosling 90% of the time. Does that maths work out?

So, Crazy, Stupid, Love. A solid comedy/drama/romance film all successfully rolled into one. It’s a clever film. Or rather, it’s cleverly put together. Halfway through the film I was sitting there thinking whether the two sub-plots that were going on were going to meet at some point and they did! Even if the sub-plots connection is painfully obvious, it’s only obvious after it happens. That whole hindsight is 20-20 thing.

The cast in the film is impeccable. Golden boy and girl Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are perfect in their roles. Steve Carell, strangely, brings almost a sense of reality to the film. Making it grounded. Even if some of the things Steve Carell’s Cal did were somewhat unbelievable in the circumstances.

It’s funny. Crazy, Stupid, Love, on paper, is your average romantic comedy. But it’s just got so much charm stuffed in it, it’s hard not to enjoy ever second of it.
Rating: 4/5

Read on to see all the films watched this year…

79 Films so far this year

  1. The Tourist 1/5 (02/01/12)
  2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 5/5 (03/01/12)
  3. World’s Greatest Dad 2/5 (14/01/12)
  4. Haywire 3/5 (19/01/12)
  5. Dead Snow 3/5 (20/01/12)
  6. The Artist 5/5 (21/01/12)
  7. Priest 2/5 (05/02/12)
  8. The Muppets 5/5 (15/02/12)
  9. Faster 4/5 (19/02/12)
  10. Chronicle 4/5 (22/02/12)
  11. Safe House 4/5 (24/02/12)
  12. Reservoir Dogs 4/5 (25/02/12)
  13. This Means War 4/5 (02/03/12)
  14. The Royal Tenenbaums 3/5 (03/03/12)
  15. Reign of Fire 3/5 (04/03/12)
  16. Dear John 2/5 (04/03/12)
  17. Road to Perdition 5/5 (05/03/12)
  18. The Three Musketeers 3/5 (06/03/12)
  19. The Eagle 2/5 (10/03/12)
  20. Everybody’s Fine 2/5 (14/03/12)
  21. Frankenstein 4/5 (15/03/12)
  22. Love and Other Drugs 2/5 (15/03/12)
  23. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger 2/5 (17/03/12)
  24. The Big Lebowski 5/5 (18/03/12)
  25. The Hunger Games 3/5 (23/03/12)
  26. Headhunters 4/5 (07/04/12)
  27. Super 1/5 (07/04/12)
  28. The Cabin in the Woods 5/5 (13/04/12)
  29. Watchmen 4/5 (14/04/12)
  30. The Hurt Locker 3/5 (21/04/12)
  31. Avengers Assemble 5/5 (26/04/12)
  32. 22 Bullets 2/5 (28/04/12)
  33. Bad Teacher 1/5 (29/04/12)
  34. Red Riding Hood 1/5 (04/05/12)
  35. A Perfect Getaway 4/5 (05/05/12)
  36. Ca$h 1/5 (13/05/12)
  37. Kung Fu Panda 2 3/5 (14/05/12)
  38. Everything Must Go 2/5 (24/05/12)
  39. New York, I Love You 2/5 (25/05/12)
  40. Beginners 4/5 (26/05/12)
  41. Prometheus 4/5 (03/06/12)
  42. The Tree of Life 2/5 (04/06/12)
  43. The Lovely Bones 3/5 (05/06/12)
  44. Snow White and the Huntsman 3/5 (06/06/12)
  45. The Devil’s Backbone 4/5 (07/06/12)
  46. Britain in a Day 5/5 (11/06/12)
  47. The French Connection 4/5 (15/06/12)
  48. Insomnia 3/5 (16/06/12)
  49. Rebel Without a Cause 4/5 (22/06/12)
  50. A Lonely Place to Die 3/5 (26/06/12)
  51. Killer Joe 3/5 (29/06/12)
  52. The Amazing Spider-Man 4/5 (03/07/12)
  53. Raising Arizona 4/5 (04/07/12)
  54. Horrible Bosses 4/5 (06/07/12)
  55. Broadcast News 3/5 (07/07/12)
  56. We Need to Talk About Kevin 4/5 (07/07/12)
  57. Miller’s Crossing 4/5 (18/07/12)
  58. The Dark Knight Rises 5/5 (20/07/12)
  59. 21 Jump Street 5/5 (29/07/12)
  60. The Mystery Team 3/5 (07/08/12)
  61. The Help 4/5 (11/08/12)
  62. The Bourne Legacy 3/5 (13/08/12)
  63. The Expendables 2 4/5 (17/08/12)
  64. Brave 5/5 (19/08/12)
  65. Dracula 3/5 (19/08/12)
  66. The Woman in Black 3/5 (24/08/12)
  67. The Mummy 4/5 (28/08/12)
  68. Lawless 3/5 (30/08/12)
  69. Real Steel 2/5 (31/08/12)
  70. [REC] 3 Genesis 2/5 (04/09/12)
  71. Take Shelter 4/5 (15/09/12)
  72. Dredd 3D 3/5 (19/09/12)
  73. The Apartment 5/5 (23/09/12)
  74. Young Frankenstein 5/5 (25/09/12)
  75. Looper 5/5 (28/09/12)
  76. Sinister 3/5 (10/10/12)
  77. Skyfall 5/5 (26/10/12)
  78. The Prince & Me 3/5 (31/10/12)
  79. Crazy, Stupid, Love 4/5 (03/11/12)

31 Comments

  1. Glad you like it! I’m actually a big fan of Carrel, really liked his work here and Gosling was so funny too. One of my favorite romantic comedies.

    • Carell is very much more miss than hit for me. Something about him. Though saying that, I do really want to see “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World”.

    • The romcom drama is littered with such awfully trite films, so it was good to see a genuinely great one.

      I’ll go check out your review šŸ™‚

  2. I really enjoyed this movie as well. It’s been sort of forgotten since it’s release, but it was fun. I found the relationship between Gosling and Stone the most memorable and find it fantastic we’ll see more of them together in Gangster Squad. The childrens’ romance sort of bothered me though. While it’s realistic, its still so very wrong.

    • Completely forgot we’ll be seeing Stone and Gosling together in Gangster Squad – excellent!!

      The children’s romance was just downright bizarre. And weird. Did not like it at all. Especially the hand over of the sexy photos! That’s not right!

  3. I liked the cast, but that’s about it. The trailers made it look like it was going to be a great comedy, but the “jokes” were few and far between. Worst of all was the painful underutilization of Marisa Tomei. This movie propagates the typical Hollywood bullshit that if you break up, you can get back together without any apologies, and everything will be hunky-dory, ignoring the fact that the couple did nothing to resolve their previous differences.

    • Don’t disagree there, Brik. It is the usual Hollywood romcom story. But I got swept away with the cast a whole lot. Liked the characters. Thought Kevin Bacon was a bit of an odd choice… considering he was barely in it. Marisa Tomei was painfully underused too.

      Still.. enjoyed it a whole lot.

  4. Good review Jaina. It’s a bit of an uneven movie, although the cast definitely makes it a lot more entertaining that it had any right to be. Still, the promise was there and it never fully came-around for me.

  5. I have yet to see this movie! I mean, I love a lot of the actors in it. Sorry to hear that you don’t like Steve Carrell. I like him. Little Miss Sunshine made me see Carrell as a serious actor. In The Office, he will always be a tad irritating, but I think that’s the point.

    Yes, I would be distracted by Ryan Gosling’s face, ABs, mouth, hand, etc. LOL

    Great review. I’m adding it to my ever growing list!

    • Another Ryan Gosling follower…. Emma Stone’s character has a great line in the film, said to Gosling’s, “You’re photoshopped!”. SO TRUE!

  6. I didn’t have high expectations when I watched this, but it was a great movie. Funny and surprisingly good. Glad to see you enjoyed this as well Jaina šŸ™‚

  7. I LOVED ‘Crazy. Stupid. Love’ when I saw it at the movies… so much so I watched it three times this week alone as I’m now the proud owner of it on DVD. The cast is fantastic and I LOVE both Ryan Gosling (who doesn’t?!) and Emma Stone.

  8. Funnily, you are the second person to recommend this film to me in the last 48hours. Will have to watch it now. šŸ™‚

  9. You love this movie more than I do. I think why I disliked it, was because it’s a bit overrated and I read accidentally the spoiler at someone’s review, so it was ruined. But nice that you love it.

  10. I wasn’t going to watch this but going by your review, i’ve added it to my sky box and will give it a go šŸ™‚

  11. I really enjoyed this one…eventually that is. At first I found myself distanced – I thought…this is going to end up being like She’s All That where someone loses the glasses and gets a new wardrobe which prompts a complete change in social standing and personality. But it wasn’t like that…it was warmhearted, charming and funny.

    • Yeah, with you on that one Dan, it does start out that way. But glad it didn’t quite go alone those lines. Even though She’s All That is one of my fave teen flicks!

  12. I thought this was a pretty decent film, but it would have been even better if it ended after the big dinner fight. The extra speech at the end kind of killed it for me. Definitely better than a lot of the typical Hollywood romcoms, though.

  13. Totally agree! Much better than expected! All the cast were great and it was so much smarter than most romantic comedies!

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