Ryan Gosling loves Emma Stone a lot

On Friday I was playing a game of CineNerdle (discussed here if you don't know it), and one of the pivot answers -- in other words, an answer that helps you get the name of two different movies -- was "Ryan Gosling loves Emma Stone."

And I suppose if you do play CineNerdle but you haven't yet played Puzzle #469, this is your SPOILER WARNING.

The spoiler is: Neither of the movies was La La Land.

With an average worldwide score of 4.1 out of 5 for this particular puzzle, that told me that on average, players were getting better than four of the five movies. But I could only conclude one of the two movies that this clue ended up applying to, that being Crazy Stupid Love.

I ultimately did the desperation move that you do when you don't know the answer, where you start randomly moving around tiles until you get the yellow indicator that you have three in a row and only need the fourth. As it turned out, I got the three in the row on the first try so easily ended up solving the puzzle, even though I had not seen the movie in question.

That movie was Gangster Squad, which I still haven't seen even though I have actually written about it before on The Audient.

Anyway, the takeaway was that not only have these two actors already appeared together three times in their careers, but that in each of those three movies they were in a relationship.

Should we begin thinking of them as the modern-day Hepburn and Tracy?

Probably not, but I did find it interesting that they have this sort of professional relationship, because we don't really talk about them as actors who are known for appearing together more than once on screen. I guess people don't really talk about Gangster Squad much in general. (I only talked about it when anticipating its release, wondering whether we'd get the good version of director Ruben Fleischer that we saw in Zombieland, or the bad version that we saw in 30 Minutes or Less. I obviously never bothered to find out.)

I did a quick run through the rest of Gosling's filmography on IMDB and concluded that Stone wasn't in any of his other movies, and since I did Gosling I didn't need to do Stone.

I did wonder, though, who they could have played in each other's movies over the years, while still meeting the requirement of being in a relationship.

Stone could have been:

1) A Barbie, though after Margot Robbie there wasn't really any room for other A-list actresses, and Stone would never have been cast as Stereotypical Barbie;

2) A blow-up doll that Lars falls in love with, though that would have required even better acting skills than even Emma Stone has;

3) Micelle Williams in Blue Valentine (best fit, probably);

4) The Ana de Armas hologram in Blade Runner 2049, or

5) Neil Armstrong's wife.

Honorable mentions: Carey Mulligan in Drive, Eva Mendes in The Place Beyond the Pines

Gosling could have been:

1) Duncan Wedderburn, indulging in his fondness for comedy by playing a foppish rake;

2) Jonah Hill in Superbad;

3) Bradley Cooper in Aloha (best fit, probably);

4) Spider-Man, or

5) Joaquin Phoenix as a stand-in for Woody Allen? (Irrational Man)

Honorable mentions: Colin Firth in Magic in the Moonlight, Andrea Riseborough in Battle of the Sexes?? A cartoon caveman in The Croods or its sequel??

Anyway, this has been fun. 

A silver lining

The surest way to jinx your plans? Give voice to them.

In Wednesday's post, I announced my likelihood of being able to attend a 1:50 3D showing of Life of Pi. Then I didn't make it in time.

But really, is it a jinx if something was simply never realistic in the first place? First off, I was getting off work at 1:30, and you never leave at the exact minute you're supposed to clock out. Secondly, the drive to the theater would have taken the better part of 15 minutes even in normal traffic. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is most decidedly not normal traffic, and you should probably at least double your expected travel times. But even if it had taken only slightly longer than normal to drive there, there's still a parking garage you have to navigate, and a walk of three minutes or so to the theater, even if you are moving quickly. Never mind the fact that a large popcorn was going to be my lunch, and there's always at least one person ahead of you in the snack bar line.

Fortunately, it wasn't one of those situations where I was close enough to even chance it, making me commit a lot of time and energy to a fool's errand. At 1:48, when I was still more than a mile from the theater, I pulled over and jumped on my phone's web browser to figure out other options. I knew there were no more Pi showings that were at a convenient time, so now I was looking for something else.

And so, the silver lining to missing Life of Pi? Silver Linings Playbook.

Which was playing at 2:35 in downtown Culver City, about three miles from the theater where I meant to see Pi. 

I love the work of director David O. Russell, but until now, that had been based primarily on the strength of three movies that were all released in the 1990s: Spanking the Monkey, Flirting with Disaster and Three Kings. I hated I Heart Huckabees and ended up thinking The Fighter was good but not great.

Suffice it to say that Silver Linings Playbook had me wondering if it might rank up there with his two masterpieces, Flirting with Disaster and Three Kings.

The interesting thing about Russell as a filmmaker isn't that he consistently breaks new ground or blows your mind with some kind of unique technique. After his debut, which you could say was pretty unusual as it dealt with mother-son incest and featured a euphemism for masturbation as its title, I'd argue that Russell has mostly just been giving us really fresh takes on genres we're familiar with. Flirting with Disaster was a fresh take on a screwball comedy, while Three Kings was a fresh take on the war movie (albeit with some genuinely innovative camera and narrative techniques). Has there been a genre that's been more worked over throughout the history of cinema than the boxing movie? Yet most people felt that The Fighter was a really fresh take on that genre.

You could say that the only time Russell really gets himself into trouble is when he tries to indulge his more off-the-wall impulses. Enter I Heart Huckabees, a disaster that was much more than flirted with. A satire about commercialism featuring a pair of existential detectives, Huckabees was a misstep from minute one. It may be no coincidence that this shoot featured the short-fused director's most famous blow-up, a verbal scrum with Lily Tomlin that developed a life of its own on the internet. (He also reportedly nearly or actually came to blows with George Clooney on Three Kings, though that didn't hamper the brilliance of that film one bit.)

In fact, I considered calling this post (and wouldn't it have been clever) "Burning Bridges Playbook," because I realized that the director rarely works with the same actor twice. But then I recalled that not only was Huckabees his second (and obviously last) collaboration with Tomlin, after Flirting with Disaster, but Mark Wahlberg has worked with him three times: Three Kings, Huckabees and The Fighter. The last two were the important ones for this discussion, because Wahlberg continued on with him even after the famous Tomlin incident and his weakest film on a relatively short resume.

Besides, I didn't want to concentrate on the negative in a post about a film I liked as much as I liked this one.

Silver Linings Playbook finds Russell returning again to his success with reinvigorated genre films. In fact, as I was watching this movie, I was reminded most of last year's Crazy, Stupid, Love. Like that film, Playbook reminds us that a romantic comedy can really stick with you just by being cast and written well. And it doesn't even need to do anything particularly unconventional.

The difference is that Russell is a much better (or at least more established) filmmaker than Crazy's Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, and he brings elements of his best work into elevating his own script for Playbook. Watching the film, I was also reminded how well the director does chaotic scenes with multiple people arguing, which have been prominent components of especially Disaster and The Fighter. And the arguers have been cast perfectly here. Bradley Cooper won't get an Oscar nomination, but should -- Robert DeNiro and Jennifer Lawrence probably will, and Lawrence might even win. They're all that good. Heck, even Chris Tucker is really good in a small part. Cooper and Lawrence also succeed at something you rarely see these days -- a smoldering, undeniable chemistry.

But I have to wonder if part of what makes Silver Linings Playbook so satisfying is that it may be Russell's most personal film. At least in terms of what we've already discussed about him. A guy with bipolar disorder given to fits of rage and occasional violence? That could probably describe Russell himself just as well as it could describe Cooper's Pat Solitano. Which means Russell is uniquely qualified to dramatize that fugue that takes over during a panic attack, where sounds fade to the background and a ringing of the ears surfaces to the front.

What's amazing is that Russell tackles such serious issues and gives us several scenes that are intense to the point of disturbing, while still keeping the movie essentially light and "feel good" (in the best sense of that phrase).

Only the guy who brought us Spanking the Monkey, Flirting with Disaster and Three Kings, right?

Here's hoping that the director has found his own silver lining in a sometimes troubled career, and the plays he draws up in the future will be more masterpieces like this one.

The commas can stay

It was less than three minutes into Crazy Stupid Love (henceforth known as Crazy, Stupid, Love) that I realized my anti-comma campaign was a losing battle.

Despite not being advertised with them in the print ads, commas are clearly part of the title when it comes on screen.

In fact, not only are there commas, but there's also a problematic period -- the kind that makes it difficult to include the title in the middle of a sentence without suggesting to your reader that you're coming to a full stop. If you want to get technical, I believe the title was also lower-cased, appearing as such:

crazy, stupid, love.

It was the same trick Good Night, and Good Luck. tried to pull on us. I don't include the period when talking about George Clooney's film (except here to illustrate its awkwardness), so I won't include it when talking about Glenn Ficarra & John Requa's film. (And it's going to take a long time for me to actually remember their names whenever I have to refer to them.) I won't give a variance on the capitalization, either -- I believe sex, lies and videotape is the only title I allow to be written in lower case on my watch.

But the commas can stay.

I guess. I mean, whether I like them or not, they do appear on screen.

And I think I'm going to need to learn Glenn Ficarra's and John Requa's names, because I sure the hell liked this film a lot. I thought there was a good chance I would, since several critics I respect have given it a glowing review. However, I nearly pre-sabotaged my screening when I made the curious decision to listen to a podcast in which it was discussed, just hours before I was scheduled to go. One of the co-hosts echoed the general love for Love, but one poo-pooed the movie. Not only that, but they discussed the movie in a level of detail that removed some surprises from the plot.

And I still loved it. Did I say I liked it a lot, or "sure the hell liked this film a lot?" Let's say "love," just as the title does.

I'll do you the favor of not going into too much detail, but what you've heard is true: It's kind of like the perfect romantic comedy. It's formulaic in quite a lot of ways, but formula can really work, if done correctly. There are some surprises, too, which of course I won't reveal here (one which the podcasters did not ruin either, to their credit). But at its core, Crazy, Stupid, Love is a pretty traditional romantic comedy. It just fires on all cylinders and gets great performances from its leads.

Such as Steve Carell, who has made at least as many films I don't like as films I do.

Such as Julianne Moore, who has not always been my favorite actress, but in the last five to seven years has come to be someone I really look forward to.

Such as Ryan Gosling, who was starting to take himself way too seriously (witness his twitchy, affected performance in Blue Valentine).

Such as Emma Stone, who I have already praised no less than 37 separate times on this blog.

Such as a pair of teenage actors -- Jonah Bobo and Analeigh Tipton -- from whom you'll be hearing quite a lot more.

Such as Kevin Bacon, who is having quite the career resurgence this year.

Such as Marisa Tomei. The podcaster who had qualms about this film singled her out, yet I found her scenes to be funny, if a tad "big."

All I know is that I had a crazy stupid grin on my face when I left Crazy, Stupid, Love.

A grin that turned into a frown as soon I snuck into 30 Minutes or Less immediately afterward ... but I won't taint this post with that movie's particular wretchedness. A rant for another day ...

19 days of Emma Stone

Actors are not always as busy as we may think they are. Sometimes it's just a timing issue.

We tend to think that if an actor or actress has a couple movies coming out in quick succession, it means he or she was a real workaholic about 11 months earlier. When in reality, movies just have different gestation periods from principle photography to final cut. An actor may work on these movies at different times, and seeing them all come out around the same time is just a coincidence.

Which has just happened with Emma Stone. If you're a Stone fan, you've had reason to be thankful the last three weeks.

First she appeared in a supporting role in Friends With Benefits, which came out July 22nd. A week later she had one of the leads in the ensemble romantic comedy Crazy Stupid Love. Now 12 days after that, she's out with The Help today.

This kind of thing can actually be sort of damaging to an actor, if it leads to perceptions of overexposure. (Actually, all overexposure is a function of individual perception, so I guess that statement is redundant.) Instead of getting our Emma Stone spaced out throughout our year, we get a big dose of her all at once. Some people might say "She's in this movie too? She's in everything." Disillusionment soon sets in.

I hope that's not happening with Stone, because she is simply fantastic. I've sung her praises before -- four different times, actually, according to a quick search of my blog. So I won't contribute more print on why she's so great today.

However, I do start wondering when she's going to finally graduate from her status as "an up-and-comer" or "a face you recognize, but name you don't know." I thought we were past that with Stone, but then she did the cover of the August Vanity Fair:

If you can't read the fine print under her name, it says: "You may not know her, but given she's got three big movies between now and the end of August -- including The Help -- you will!"

Stone must think, "Jeez, what do I have to do for people to 'know' me?"

Let's consider some of the titles from which a person might "know" Emma Stone, even before this summer:

Superbad
The House Bunny
The Rocker
Zombieland
Easy A

And if you're a geek, you know she's been cast as the romantic lead in The Amazing Spider-Man. I wouldn't think it would take a blockbuster like that to give her the credit she deserves, but you never know.

All five of the comedies mentioned above had a decent amount of prominence, and Superbad and Zombieland were downright phenomena. Plus, didn't she get a Golden Globe nomination for Easy A? Confirmed. She did. Maybe it's just the older-skewing Vanity Fair audience she needs to be introduced to. Still, I tend to think of her as the opposite of forgettable, so it's very discouraging that Vanity Fair takes the implied position that people keep forgetting who she is.

Well, I've sat out the 19 days of Emma Stone so far, despite great reviews for Crazy Stupid Love and the strong likelihood that Friends With Benefits is better than No Strings Attached, which I did not like. As for The Help, I don't actually know much about it despite a decent amount of hype. More than anything, I'm glad to see a studio get behind a period piece that addresses the issue of racism. It seems like an anomaly in 2011, especially in the summer landscape.

And maybe, if it crosses over from Stone's familiar realm of "mere" comedy, it'll be a big Help in people finally learning Anna Stallone's name.

A Stupid use of commas

I hear Crazy Stupid Love is pretty, possibly very, good. At least two critics I respect have praised it in the highest possible terms.

Good for it. I had my doubts, I must say. I distrust Steve Carell at the movies, and I was actually at one point going to write a speculatively disparaging post about this movie called "Ryan Gosling sells out." But since few of my regular readers will allow me to make such blind indictments of an actor's role choices -- and probably for good reason -- I decided not to damn the movie without giving it a chance.

However, today I want to damn something that's not related to its actual quality.

Like, the use of commas in the title.

There are no commas when I wrote the title above, just as there are no commas on any of the posters you see. Yet over half the time I see this title in print, it is being listed as Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Given that commas tend to confuse people, particularly in a title, why include them here, especially when the grammar is not even correct?

In order to understand my argument, we have to parse the meaning of the title. At its most obvious level, the title is talking about love with two modifier words: "crazy" and "stupid." The two adjectives may separately modify the word "love," or one may modify the other, as in "That's crazy stupid." ("Crazy" is loosely translated as "really" in the latter example.)

If the title is talking about love that's "crazy stupid," the title should be Crazy Stupid Love or possibly Crazy-Stupid Love. If the love is both crazy and stupid, but not "crazy stupid," then the title should be Crazy, Stupid Love.

In no context does Crazy, Stupid, Love make sense. Unless you are just listing three things, two of which are adjectives and one of which is a noun. Which in itself does not have any overt meaning.

I'll grant you that the effective advertising campaign does lend some credence to the "listing three things" argument. As you see, the poster above says "This is stupid." Then there are these two below that concentrate on each of the other words in the title:


I'll also grant you that each of the three words can finish a sentence that starts with "This is." But that doesn't mean each is the same part of speech, or that those three sentences would be grammatically parsed the same way. "Crazy" and "stupid" are predicate adjectives, and "love" is a predicate nominative.

The commas don't work. Just nix them.

And then you might have a pretty good movie.