The Conjuring

I envy James Wan.  He is all of 36 years of age – maybe a few months older.  And he already has given the world quite a few successful movies.  To mention one, there is Saw which was a commercial success but I didn’t quite like it more because of the gore and not because it was badly made.  He has already signed up for Fast & Furious 7 and after watching The Conjuring, I think he will improve on the franchise (at lease I hope so).

White House Down

There are bad movies and there are bad movies.  And if that is not sufficient then there are even more horrible movies.  What gets to your nerves is when otherwise excellent directors such as Roland Emmerich suddenly decide to tell you that you were wrong about them all this while.

Oz The Great And Powerful

Sam Raimi is no mean name in the business of entertainment.  He has given us a superbly webbed trilogy (how corny is that???) over the past decade – one that I am told, held the record for the best opening ever for a really long time.  With Oz The Great And Powerful, Raimi gives us yet another reason to celebrate.

Crazy Stupid Love

All Steve Carell fans in the house – raise your hands!!!! I am sure there would be millions of you out there. And I am definitely one of you. Always been a Carell fan – even though he does get gut wrenchingly slapstick at times. More often than not, he lives up to the high standards of comedy that he sets for himself. And there is something absolutely hilarious about his brand of “straight faced – expressionless” comedy. Very rarely would you see movements of muscle on the face but yet, you have to give it to the man for coming up with the goods more often than not.

This time around he plays the role of Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) who is a 40 something man and married to Emily Weaver (Julianne Moore) for over 20 years now. Cal seems to think he is happily married. But that may not be the case with Emily who doesn’t waste too much time over dinner and pops out those earth shattering four words – I want a divorce.

It would seem that while Cal has been the loyal husband, Emily thought that the spark was lost and was upto some hanky panky with her colleague David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon – why does he keep getting such roles). A crushed Cal decides to move out of his house asap and start the divorce proceedings. He gets into a life filled with self pity and can use only one line to hope and pick up women – My wife is sleeping with another man. Needless to say, his success rate hasn’t seen a curve going above the level of 0.

Around this time is when he meets Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) – ladies man par excellence who cannot stand Cal wallowing in his heart break and decides to “take Cal under his wing”. With some efficient coaching, Cal soon becomes a ladies man and the scores touch double figures. All going well till Jacob himself bumps into Hannah (Emma Stone) who believes that her stuck up boyfriend is actually going to propose. When he doesn’t, she decides to go out there and have a blast. Jacob becomes the object that is about to be used.

Much as the story may seem to be a soppy RomCom, it is actually far from it. The entire treatment by Glenn Ficarra & John Requa gives the movie a comic twist – and of course ably assisted by Steve Carrel. Good solid performances from most of the cast. Watch out for the bit part from the ever reliable Marisa Tomei – simply superb!!! If you haven’t seen Crazy Stupid Love yet, then please head out to the nearest DVD store and at least rent it if you don’t believe in buying DVDs. Will be well worth the 500 bucks. 7 on 10.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3722091801/