Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Directed by: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Starring:  Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone

Apparently it’s horrible wife week on In The Queue Reviews.  In the very first scene of Crazy, Stupid, Love, Emily Weaver (Julianne Moore) informs her husband of 25 years, Cal (Steve Carell) that she slept with a co-worker and wants a divorce. Not good wife behavior.

How has Cal’s husband behavior been?  Not bad, but not great either.  He wears sneakers with his slacks, dress shirts and suit jacket to a nice dinner with his wife.  He doesn’t seem to be interested in understanding why she’s unhappy, and is ready to move out and sign divorce papers without a fuss. In short, he seems to have given up on…well, every hope of being attractive.

Someone is attracted to him, though. There’s only two problems.  One, she’s the 17-year-old babysitter of the Weaver kids.  Two, 8^th grader Robbie Weaver (Jonah Bobo) is madly in love with her and isn’t afraid to let her (and anyone else without shouting distance…with the exception of his parents) know it.  And saying Robbie is philosophical beyond his years is like saying Steven Spielberg directed a couple good movies.

To further reinforce Cal hasn’t got a clue, he attempts to break into the singles scene at a trendy watering hole where he broadcasts his romantic woes to anyone within bemoaning distance.  Jacob (Ryan Gosling), the suave and sexy local pick-up artist takes pity on the shell of a man Cal has become.  With Jacob’s coaching, Cal learns to wear the right suit size, get a nice haircut and get women to leave the bar with him.  Problem solved, right?

The refreshing thing about Crazy, Stupid, Love is that it’s not all that predictable.  Sure, some things have to happen. Cal has to succeed at being a suave guy who can score with the ladies.  Jacob has to encounter that one woman who is so much better than a string of one night stands. However, every time you think the storyline is going to fall into the same old summer blockbuster shtick, the plot gets a little twist.

Crazy, Stupid, Love is truly a drama dressed up as a comedy.  The funny scenes are REALLY funny – generally in a witty way without too much slapstick (although the point where all the real and assumed love connections collapse involves fisticuffs among four grown men).  It is a good thing I never encountered anything like Robbie’s tirade about how the ‘A’ in The Scarlet Letter should stand for ‘assholes’ rather than ‘adulterer’ when I was teaching 8^th grade English because I probably would have found it difficult to punish the kid for such an astute observation.

However, the scenes that show how much serious relationships hinge on basic acts of vulnerability, nurturing and validation can be extremely poignant. The characters don’t always know what they want or what will make them happy.  They’re struggling, relatable people with more depth than you typically see on the silver screen.

If you:

• Hated The Scarlet Letter
• Understand that a serious, long-term relationship can be kind of like caring for your lawn and landscaping
• Understand the pursuit of romantic love does make people act like assholes sometime

Put it in the queue!

However, if you:

• Think it’s OK to wear New Balance sneakers out to a nice dinner with your significant other (unless you have a medical excuse, or perhaps your significant other also steps out in similar footwear)
• Have never experienced unrequited love
• Cannot appreciate what Kevin Bacon and Marisa Tomei bring to a movie, even in small supporting roles

Don’t put it in the queue.

p.s. I would like to apologize to my husband and guest blogger Ryan Venson for my horrible wife behavior;  I frequently commented on the hotness that is Ryan Gosling is while watching the movie.

The Amazing Spider-Man (second opinion)

Directed by: Marc Webb
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans

Maybe it was all the hype around how amazing the new Spider-Man film was supposed to be.  Maybe it was a stat I saw about how marketing for this movie was so heavy that 18% of the footage was used in various trailers/featurettes/etc.  Maybe it’s that I was so disappointed by the overly weepy omnishambles of Spider-Man 3 I was just a little afraid to believe the 2012 reboot could live up to expectations.  After all, the wisecracking webslinger is my all time favorite superhero.

I was a fool to hold out for Blu-Ray. The Amazing Spider-Man amazed me.

Peter Parker as a skateboarding, semi-loner emo kid (well portrayed by Andrew Garfield) made sense to me.  He’s a smart guy, but known more for his prowess at photography than for solving complex mathematic equations (though he can definitely do both).  He has some baggage – specifically, a leather briefcase he finds in the basement of his aunt & uncle’s basement.  It belonged to the father he barely remembers and contains a hidden, top secret file.

Intensely curious about the file, a photo of his dad with another scientist Uncle Ben vaguely remembers as Dr. Connors and how this ties to his father’s hasty departure so many years ago, Parker does a bit of sleuthing on the interwebz. He finagles his way into Oscorp, where his father once worked and Dr. Connors (Rhys Ifans) still presides over mysterious – and urgent – genetic research. In fact, Dr. Connors is also currently mentoring Parker’s crush, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), who is interning at Oscorp.  Of course she recognizes Parker and realizes he’s got a hidden agenda – but not before she is duly impressed with his knowledge of Oscorp’s work (internet research/reading the company webpage, for the win!)

While snooping around Oscorp, Parker wanders into a lab where genetically-enhanced spiders are making super-strong web fibers – one of Oscorp’s specialty products.  One of such spiders bites the future Amazing Spider-Man…and all of a sudden we’re into the core of the creation story.

All you true believers already know that with great power comes great responsibility.  Parker isn’t very responsible with his newfound powers at first.  He accidentally perpetrates a subway fight scene that looks like something out of a 1980s action flick.  He humiliates the school bully.  He works on some skateboarding tricks.  He also starts becoming buddies with Dr. Connors after correcting a flaw in his father’s original equation – thus leading to a key breakthrough on the top secret Oscorp project.

Parker’s acting like the sometimes self-indulgent, rebellious teenager he is, brings about events that inspire him to become the quasi-luchadore mask/spandex unitard-wearing, high-tech web-slinging superhero we know and love.  (Or initially loathe, if you are Police Captain Stacy.)

The city is Spider-Man’s playground, and the cinematography is superb.  It was ridiculously exciting to see Spider-Man heckle a car thief, swing across a bridge shouting his trademark “Wooo-hooooo!” and crouch atop a skyscraper looking over the city.  All classic moves.

Oh, but there’s still the other storyline to contend with.  Genetic research gone wrong, which brings its own exciting action sequences, amazing visual effects, and a cadre of lizards flocking into the NYC sewers.

In short, The Amazing Spider-Man delivers amazing. This incarnation of Peter Parker really captures the complexity and depth of his transformation:

• the conflicting emotions of being a teenager – especially one that doesn’t really fit into any of the high school stereotypes – in and of itself
• the tension between being a generally good and responsible kid but still wanting to be surly or a rule-breaker sometimes
• the guilt over his actions inadvertently contributing to Uncle Ben’s death
• the weight of his secret identity, and his attempts to shield Aunt May from worrying about it

…and to add insult to injury, he’s still misunderstood by the police as they don’t see him as trying to help fight crime, they see him as getting in the way.  Parents just don’t understand…

Despite the level of awesomeness the movie brings, it’s not perfect.  The pre-transformation setup probably could have been shorter, Aunt May’s character doesn’t have a lot of personality, Spider-Man does cry a little (hey, he’s emo, and it’s not nearly as obnoxious as it was in Spider-Man 3).  That said, it is a fantastic re-boot, and I am looking forward to the next amazing installment in 2014.

If you:

• Like a wise-ass version of Spider-Man
• Can identify with Peter Parker, the kid who doesn’t fit neatly into high school society
• Enjoy the action, adventure and ridiculously good visual effects inherent in a summer blockbuster

Put it in the queue!

However, if you:

• Prefer to believe the NYC sewers are inhabited by alligators, not a mutant lizard
• Don’t like coincidences (we just happened to have this machine sitting around for 10+ years gathering dust, but it’s still fully functional as either a bioterrorist weapon OR a tool that will sprinkle the entire city with the lizard monster antidote)
• Don’t agree with the emo interpretation of Spider-Man

Don’t put it in the queue.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Directed by: Marc Webb
Starring:  Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans

The Amazing Spider-Man is Sony’s most recent attempt to cash in on one of their most profitable licenses, following the success of other Marvel Universe-inspired movies such as Iron Man (2008), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Thor (2011) and The Avengers (2012).

Unfortunately, unlike those flicks, The Amazing Spider-Man deviates from the true essence of the comic book born character, and ends up resulting in a long, boring film with a plot full of holes that is more in line with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) than any of the other films above mentioned.

Last year Sony declared they had decided to move away from Sam Raimi’s proposed Spider-Man 4 to start a fresh approach to the character. The director announced was Marc Webb of 500 Days of Summer (2009) fame. The new take was sold not as a reboot, but as ‘the untold story.’

Make no mistake, this is a complete story reboot; one which, in a forced attempt to bring something new to the Spider-Man mythos, misses the mark of the story by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko published in Amazing Fantasy #14.

The story follows the life of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield): how he becomes Spider-Man, falls in love with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and saves the city from the menace of The Lizard (Rhys Ifans). The story penned by James Vanderbilt is ambitious and tries to make the situations ‘dramatic’ and ‘realistic’ á la Batman Begins (2005), but relies too much on coincidences and forced situations and forgets the basic aspect of character development.

It also rips off so many plotlines and visuals from other superhero movies that the result is a garbled, confusing mess where almost everyone acts illogically, characters appear and disappear at random without any consequence whatsoever to the plot…but that looks ‘amazing.’

Visuals are the best part of this movie in terms of casting, special effects and photography. Many of the shots come straight out from pages of the comic books, and it makes the film look beautiful. Andrew Garfield captures the weird poses Spider-Man is usually drawn in to a ‘T,’ and looks physically much more appropriate than Tobey Maguire for the title role. Emma Stone brings charm and looks lovely as Gwen Stacy.  Even The Lizard looks scary, and an improvement to the original press release photos which made him resemble King Koopa from the infamous Super Mario Bros. (1993) movie.

The 3D aspect, which tends to darken the film, actually works in it is favor, fleshing out the contrast of colors. At some points, the audience can feel the ‘thrill’ of being Spider-Man and swinging across the buildings in New York. The special effects are fantastic, certainly surpassing those early renders used in the first Spider-Man (2002).

But good visuals are not the only thing needed for a good movie. The main problem with The Amazing Spider-Man is that it misses on capturing the spirit of Peter Parker. Andrew Garfield gives his best to what is written, but James Vanderbilt is no Aaron Sorkin, Marc Webb is no David Fincher, and this movie is not The Social Network (2010). The character, as written, calls for Andrew Garfield to overplay the character’s lack of social adaptation: this Peter Parker is not just a shy, nerdy teenager; he is someone with deep psychological problems that makes it difficult for him to connect with the audience. Peter Parker’s appeal was that people could relate to him, but in this new approach Peter Parker is not relatable, and after bitten by the genetically enhanced spider, he becomes more of an angry vigilante than your friendly neighborhood super-hero.

As such, it is not surprising Captain George Stacy (Dennis Leary) – coincidentally Gwen Stacy’s father and New York chief of police – wants Spider-Man arrested and Peter Parker far away from his daughter. Emma Stone is believable as Gwen Stacy, but one is left wondering what she sees in a guy like Peter Parker. The romantic aspect is so forced that the movie reminded me of Twilight (2008) and The Hunger Games (2012), where in one scene the characters can barely stand each other and ten minutes later they pledge endless love.

Another aspect that really bothered me is how the story mimics (or plays homage) to other superhero movies: there is the dichotomy of Batman creating the Joker, creating Batman of the 1989 Tim Burton film, the state of the art technology used in Iron-Man 2 (2010), the pledge to the dying character and bridge battle used in Spider-Man (2002), the villain-trying-to-mutate-all-of-New-York plotline used in X-Men (2000) and, of course, the attempt to make it ‘down to earth’ and ‘dark’ like Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy (even the reason Spider-Man wears a mask is influenced by ‘the dark knight’ or ‘the caped crusader’ as Batman is referred to in comics).

This got to a point where I wasn’t really following the plot because it was so inconsistent anyway, but having a trivia game on which was the next movie to get ripped-off… much like a teenage game of watching the Friday the 13^th movies, and guessing who and how are Jason’s victims going to be killed. Seriously, the amount of loose threads in this story…to keep the mystery going… is almost as large as the numbers of webs spawned by Spider-Man.

So, while the visuals of this movie may fit better with the new Marvel cinematic universe, The Amazing Spider-Man is a far cry from X-Men: First Class, Iron Man, Captain America,  The Avengers and the first two movies of the previous Spider-Man trilogy directed by Sam Raimi.

If you like…

• Blockbuster movies with great special effects but zero character development
• Teenage romance that does not require logical explanation
• Visually appealing films with stories that ‘bit off more than they can chew’

Then put it in the queue.

But it you are looking for the definitive Spider-Man movie, well, you may have to wait for another 10 years for a new reboot… maybe that time Sony will get it right.

Written by Enrique Guemez