re: TulaneLSU's official 2011 movie reviews thread

Why not? The Bible was the first, and has been the best to write of a character that personifies evil. Throughout literature and cinema, other characters exist, some as interesting as the Satan figure of the Bible, but that cannot be said for the red-faced leader of the Germans in Captain America.

Please make more sense when responding. Condescendingly vague answers that leave one to assume that cynicism is the enlightened, evolved position in matters of faith are rude and unimaginative.

Crazy, Stupid, Love: At first glance, one might conclude that this is a movie about divorce and the tremendous pain to individuals, family, and the community at large that it causes. A deeper inspection, however, reveals that the movie is about romantic love: how we lose it, how we find it, how we fight for it.

Romantic comedies are almost always told through the female perspective, but this movie flips the genre on its head, and we see romance from male eyes. It's quite refreshing, for in it, we see that the ways males approach romantic love are just as crazy, just as stupid, just as irrational as females. The journey to that romantic love brings males to the edges of insanity. What we find in the end, is that through our "wildly unhappy" times, we will find what we are looking for in our soulmate, who, one can only conclude, is a reflection of our own soul.

Men are melancholy beings, and in our melancholy, we become lonely, and in our loneliness, we find unsuitable pleasures that distract us from our loneliness, but do little from making us less lonely. The cure for our loneliness? The theme of the movie? Basically, that romantic love is life's ultimate telos and until we capture it, we will remain restless and yearning. Whether you agree with that philosophy is a matter of debate, but this movie, through a technique that borrows from Greek tragedy (the fall of a flawed character), 19th century Russian literature (emphasis on the character rather than the action and looking seriously at the human condition without being afraid to poke fun at it), and 1980's American sitcoms (a connective, universal conclusion), does a fine job of arguing its point.

My biggest criticisms of the movie are the casting of the males. I don't like Steve Carell as an actor. I cannot get his defining career scene: caught up in a bout of glossolalia in a television studio. He's a worthy slap-stick comedian, but it's hard to see him as anything but that, no matter how hard he tries to break that image. Ryan Gosling isn't very impressive either. I don't think he's handsome enough to pull off the playboy image. The women, on the other hand, even in their roles as support, are perfect. Julianne Moore is a fantastic actress who can play almost any character. Emma Stone, who isn't nearly as attractive as some say, gives another outstanding, if sarcastic, performance. I hope she will expand her repertoire because she has much more to offer. 8/10

I don't think I kept a record of it, but I did see it. Being far removed from viewing it, I don't want to write a review on it, but I do remember thinking it was an entertaining movie, one that was definitely inspired by Primal Fear. But unlike Primal Fear, I don't remember thinking that the accused (Ryan Phillippe) played a very convincing part. Entertaining for a watch, but not one that makes you think or changes your heart or mind.

Is that 3.75 out of 4 or out of 10? I give it 5/10.

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Crazy, Stupid, Love:

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. 8/10

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You are one of the few. My wife and some of her friends went and saw this. All agreed it was one of the worst movies they had ever seen.

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Julianne Moore is a fantastic actress who can play almost any character.

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lol

Smurfs 3D There is an emerging study of color in contemporary philosophy. Much of it derives from psychological and linguistic theories, but it is annoyingly and fruitlessly emerging in philosophy. While we can objectively differentiate colors based on the spectrum of visible light, the new studies of color are more often than not based on an anthropocentric rather than physical understanding of color. As such, colors are colors in so much as they can create an emotional response. Artists have long known this; why it took philosophers so long to figure out, you figure out. Entering the movie I loved the color blue. Exiting the movie, I detest the color blue.

How can a movie create such a metanoia in opinion? Consider why many children do not like the lima beans. I believe it is not the legume's taste, it the legume's color: similar to the color of children's vomit. Smurfs is no more than vomit on the big screen. And it made me want to vomit. I wish I had listened to the lady in the preview of the Never Say Never copycat, Glee 3D, when she said, "This movie sucks. Get your money back." But we cannot change the past; we cannot undo what we have seen, and what I saw in Smurfs was a raping of my soul by none other than Papa Smurf, whose voice sounds eerily similar to the Larry King voice in those Xtranormal self-make movies.

It was an Indecent Proposal. How else can you explain any actor or actress agreeing to lend their face or voice to this movie? I can see the directors going to Doogie Howser: "Here's $2 mill, will you do it?" If Doogie had actually taken the Hippocratic Oath, he couldn't. I guess moral character is not expected from an actor who does a cameo in a movie about White Castle burgers and semen in a car's backseat. I'm surprised we didn't see any White Castle burgers in the movie. At every turn of the camera angle, there was one more advertisement for some company. Yes, Smurfs is nothing more than a series of infomercials painted blue. The directors then slapped on a five cent sitcom story about being a dad and a few crude jokes, that I hope went over the kids' heads. The sad part is that all that blue turned to green at the box office. Satan is red in my eyes no longer. 0/10

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what I saw in Smurfs was a raping of my soul by none other than Papa Smurf

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I guess moral character is not expected from an actor who does a cameo in a movie about White Castle burgers and semen in a car's backseat

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I liked him in that role FWIW.

So just the other day you said you dont waste money on pointless/trash movies. Yet your reviews are littered with trash movies.