Man on Film: The Amazing Spider-Man

One could spend time, words, and effort lamenting the fact that Sam Raimi actually made the steaming shit-pile that was Spider-Man 3, but it happened and was deemed so disastrous by Marvel Films as to necessitate a reboot of the franchise. One could also use this as a jumping off point for whining about the idea-less state of Hollywood, but that is an incredibly tired topic of discussion that does not need to to be explored here either. 

On its own merits, The Amazing Spider-Man is not particularly good. On the creative side of the film, director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) and screenwriters James Vanderbilt (The Rundown, The Losers, Zodiac, Basic), Alvin Sargent (Paper Moon, Spider-Man 2 and 3, White Palace), and Steve Kloves (all of the Harry Potter films, Wonder Boys) fail to fully endear the characters to the audience. It does not take much to sell the audience on Peter Parker, but for nearly every other character the development is sorely lacking. The death of Uncle Ben in particular rings fairly hollow, which is sad because it means that the presence of Martin Sheen is wasted. The burgeoning relationship between Gwen Stacy and Peter is entirely rushed, going from zero to 60 in roughly three minutes of shared screen time, going from asking out to being in love without any cause being presented on-screen other than the simple passing of time. 

And this is all too bad, as from a basic level, they improved conceptually on what Raimi was doing. 

In this inception of the series, they elected to hew closer to the story arcs from the comics. The purist that resides somewhere within me was always bothered by the fact that Mary-Jane's introduction was moved to high school, negating the importance of the Gwen Stacy storyline. They also cast Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, both of whom I personally prefer to Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. I also like the explanation as to why Peter would be so naturally inclined to being a prodigious scientific mind. These facts leave me hopeful for the future of the franchise. It is just that the future hopefully involves different talent on the creative side because the talent because The Amazing Spider-Man certainly failed to carry the emotional weight that it should have, falling utterly flat and feeling roughly half an hour longer than its actual run-time--in a bad way.

Man on Film: Crazy, Stupid, Love.

As we were trying to choose which movie to head out to over the weekend, our choices narrowed down to a few films. When Crazy, Stupid, Love. came up, TSLF made a comment that rings truer than any positive buzz could have:

It's weird, but I sort of trust Ryan Gosling's choices.

She is right. Half Nelson, Lars and the Real Girl, and Blue Valentine were all great. The decisions to sign on to Stay and All Good Things (neither of which I've seen, but both of which were poorly received) were clearly defensible, as he was working with the man coming off of Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland on the former and Capturing the Friedman's on the latter. For what it was, The Notebook is fairly good. And as far as what's coming up for Gosling, Drive and The Ides of March both look to be promising if judged by the trailers.

As for Crazy, Stupid, Love., it seemed as though everyone who saw it came out loving it. Given that and Gosling's trustworthiness, it seemed like Crazy, Stupid, Love. could very conceivably overcome its awkward/awful title and lackluster trailer and actually be a decent flick.

For the most part, it was.

Sure, it is a romantic comedy, generally the kiss of death for dudes. Its trailer doesn't do it any favors on that front either. Somehow this film doesn't feel like a rom-com. Maybe it's the emotional rawness at its center as its protagonist has been cuckolded. The destruction of a marriage is not often at the center of a rom-com. In a world that deals almost exclusively with two singles who aren't supposed to be together getting together, seeing a separated couple trying to piece together their lives after one's infidelity tears them both apart is refreshing in a world other than that of the tiresome adult-oriented family melodrama.

Honestly, the film is just entertaining. The potential liability, Julianne Moore, has been cast in the only sort of role that she can actually pull off: the woman whose marriage is falling apart. While one has to wonder what this says about her own marriage, she is not thrust into the authoritarian roles that she is so ill-suited for like in Next or Children of Men where her inability to match the tone of the film grates one's nerves for every second that she's on screen. Past her, Carell is typically likeable, Gosling owns the role of lothario, Emma Stone gets to play an adult, and Marissa Tomei gets a great cameo. The narrative is well-crafted.

If Crazy, Stupid, Love. has a fault (other than that goddamn name), it is that its climax is too schmaltzy. It probably could have done without the About a Boy ending with a graduation speech supplanting the talent show performance, and the soul mate shit didn't work, but you can only punish a film so much for this. When a film is genuinely surprising for 110 minutes, an unsurprising eight minutes at the end don't necessarily sink the ship.

(After talking about how crappy the trailer was, you didn't think I was gonna put that up, did you?)