Crazy, Stupid, Love looks GREAT!

I love Steve Carell.  I love Emma Stone.  Huge fan of Ryan Gosling.  Huge fan of Marisa Tomei and Julianne Moore as well!  And they're all in this film!  Take a look at the trailer and I'll tell you my thoughts after.

Emma Stone is all grown up, daaaang.  The great thing about the trailer is the contrast in the male characters.  Steve Carell's character seems stuck in a rut, while Ryan Gosling's character is living it up.  The banter back and forth between Gosling and Stone looks promising. 

The wild card?  Julianne Moore.  I love this woman's acting!  She's so good in everything she does.  How about Kevin Bacon making an appearance?  The scene with Marisa Tomei is hilarious as well.  What are your thoughts?  I'll shut up now.

"Despicable Me" Review

I thought Pixar had no competition whatsoever in the animated genre. I was wrong. Toy Story 3 was amazing, and will remain one of the best animated films of all time, but damn Despicable Me was good! I want to tell you what I liked and didn't like about the movie.

What I liked about the movie:
The Actors/Characters
I don't want to list every actor and what character they played, but this is an amazing cast. Steve Carell plays Gru, a local villain past his prime as far as great heists are concerned. He tries to out-villain the competition. His competition is an up-and-coming villain named Vector, voiced by Jason Segel. Gru adopts three girls to help in his plan, but ends up adoring the girls to death and changing his ways.

Then there's the minions! So cute and funny, but they did remind me of the pigeons in Finding Nemo. Still fantastic! The minions are the Worker Bees to Gru and are hilarious. They don't talk, at least not in a language the audience is supposed to understand. But the way they fight each other, and argue with one another is really great. The animators found a million ways to make the same back creators look different.

The Story

Truly original in every sense of the word. My wife and I walked out trying to find a movie with a story even close to this, and we couldn't think of any. A villain past his prime, adopts three little girls to help him with his heist, falls in love with them, and changes his ways? Come on! Priceless. The minions helping Gru every step of the way is so original.

The Visuals
This is something that we've almost come to expect perfection from in these kind of movies. But let me tell you, not many computer generated animated films look as good as this one does. Despicable is gorgeous to look at. There are rich environments full of color. Environments such as the carnival Gru takes the girls to is so detailed it's going to take multiple viewings to catch it all. Great job!


What I didn't like:
The Orphan's Story
I really liked the three orphan girls in the movie. I just wish the movie would have better developed their story. Why are they orphans? If it was mentioned, I missed it. Are they going to get revenge on the evil women running the orphanage? The relationship building between Gru and the girls is satisfactory, but should have been developed a bit more. Maybe a scene or two more of Gru getting closer to the girls would have been in order rather than a montage involving pancakes and the girls.

The Real Villain

Vector is such a weak antagonist. There is some really creative stuff surrounding the character, like all the booby-traps protecting his house; classic! But Vector himself is not that great of a character. And his "weapons" are stupid: a "piranha gun," "squid gun," come on. Hopefully they'll come up with something better in the future.


The movie is not at Pixar's level, but is still great! Such an original story, you can't predict what's going to happen because it hasn't been done before. I would totally recommend the movie to anyone, young and old. Thumbs up to the news of a sequel, I'm more than OK with that!

Quickie: Date Night picture

The movie is Date Night, and hopefully it lives up to its promises. It stars Tina Fey and Steve Carell as a couple who are bored with their lives. They take a night to go out on a date pretending they're people they are really not, and craziness ensues. There's a case of mistaken identity, and a mob is after them, etc. I can see this working, but ONLY with these two actors. I've seen a premise like this before, maybe not exactly the same, but I've seen it; and I don't like those movies. But I'm such a big fan of Carell and Fey, I'm willing to forgive what I've seen before.

Tina Fey's work on "30 Rock" gets her awards year after year; same goes for Carell's TV Show, "The Office". These are two very funny people, but can they carry all the work? Well the answer is no, they need a good script as well. I haven't seen the script, but let's hope we are blessed with something pretty special from these two. Keep an eye out for it, and we'll keep you posted as soon as something is announced.