"Crazy Stupid Love" with Ryan Gosling

Film directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, written by Dan Fogelman, and starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Bacon. The film was released on July 29, 2011

Would you ever take the advice of your thirteen-year-old self?  Would you look back to your days as a batch of hormones and angst and say, “I was so wise back then.  What happened?”  Crazy, Stupid, Love. takes an “out of the mouths of babes” approach to serious romantic relationships and as a result an honest but funny relationship dramedy gets a saccharine sheen that completely overwhelms the film in the final act.  Ultimately, great performances and cute humor.

Playing off of Carell allows Gosling to explore a comic side we’ve rarely seen from him before.  Gosling seems to be having a blast as the smooth-talking, completely confident Jacob.  It’s an incredibly smart performance because Gosling tinges everything with a little bit of innocence and softness so that Jacob never comes off as sleazy or insecure.

So much of Crazy, Stupid, Love. is working against its cloying script.  The entire adult cast turns in great performances that are sweet without being sappy, emotional without being manipulative, and funny without being obvious.

Julianne Moore in Savage Grace

Savage Grace is a 2007 film directed by Tom Kalin and written by Howard Rodman, based on the book Savage Grace by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson. The story is based on the dysfunctional, allegedly incestuous relationship between heiress and socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland and her son, Antony. Julianne Moore makes an incredible interpretation. She is distant and close to us at the same time, and she transmits her lonelyness and sadness and at the same time keep us wondering about who is she in reality.

Barbara Baekeland's former lover, Sam Green, wrote an article pointing out events in the film that did not match reality. Referring in particular to the scene of Barbara, her son Antony, and Sam having a ménage à trois, he wrote, "it is true that almost 40 years ago I did have an affair with Barbara, but I certainly never slept with her son, and nor did she, to the best of my knowledge. Nor am I bisexual... She started telling people she had had an incestuous relationship with her son as a way of 'curing' him of homosexuality ... But I don't believe she had sex with Tony. I think she simply enjoyed shocking people."

It was an official selection at the 2007 London Film Festival, the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.