Review: Crazy Stupid Love

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

There are some ways to change the wave of something that is a medium. That's how the term 'game changer' is described. For a movie that would make efforts to go against the norms of a rom-com using that term is fair enough because they're going for something different. For Crazy Stupid Love, it's not really a rom-com where the characters would find their soul mate but more of a dramedy trying to get back together. And that's all it is.

RANT: The Kids should get this Straight (no pun intended)

The Kids Are All Right


C- (3.1)


When The Kids Are All Right was released in the summer of last year, I was wondering what was the hype about this flick until I'd discovered its premise about a lesbian couple and their kids and given how much acclaim this get from the critics, I was dumbfounded by what they are talking about. This is a film with a subject matter that has a 90% success chance of getting an Oscar nomination especially Best Picture. Homosexuality is a darling with the critics and the Academy members which is just one thing I'd hate about these people. Critics would use a film's subject matter depending on how shocking or how observed, they could give this a high to low rating. While the members of each organisation that is active from December would give this a thumbs up just to boast again and again how liberal Hollywood had become. The problems I had with celbrities and politics is that they are so bias to one politics and the hypocritical thing is they don't usually support it even if they attend conventions or lectures of one.

Anyway, there are the very low expectations I have for and against this film and given that I was too mean for this film since it is indie and has an all star cast. Whatever. When I saw it, just at the end credits, I was right the first time and I am pissed.

The Kids Are All Right are about a family headed by a lesbian couple Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) with their teenage kids Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson). They look perfect and privilaged. Joni's heading off straight to college and Laser ask her if they could find their sperm donor and that person is Paul (Mark Ruffalo). With Paul, he;'s a hedonistic man of such desires and interests and when he meets Nic and Jules, they become polorised with one another. Nic believes that he is corrupting their kids and ruining them, while Jules was just happy to meet him.

The Kids Are All Right has to be the most pretentious, overrated film of last year. No matter what morals they give out, no matter how universally acclaimed this film is and no matter how observing this film is, it's neither special nor effective. What'll you'll see is a movie filled with liberal cliches thrown at you by Nic and Jules complaining and whining about what they think of Paul and what he's going to do to get their attention. The story of the film feels like a pilot episode of a kids show where the main kid is tired of life with her parents and try to find her real parents but then it's jumbled up.

I may be the only person on this entire planet not to like this film, but there are some issues and points people are missing out on. One point is where this film is completely misandrist - this is a man-hating movie. Ruffalo is a stag, Laser is the stupidest kid while his buddy is some adrenaline skate punk.

There is nothing humourous I find here. Bening and Moore having sex together. We already get that they've been together for 20 years but you can't bring up their infactuation of gay porn. That just make it cheesy. The relationships between Ruffalo and the two women makes this movie feel like watching a film that has the structure of a soap opera.

Despite the fact that the performances from the cast are good, The Kids Are All Right reminds me of being new at a prep school with the most over privilaged kids in town but then you realise that the only reason why you're at that school is not only your family's middle class, but that your parents are homosexuals.

But the good thing is at least the director got the balls to bring this topic up. This is an indie flick and they know what to do here. To be fair, I support gay rights. I really do. But every day and into the future, we get misleading stereotypes of these people. They're interested in fashion musicals, anything in the opposite gender. But in ten years time, the new stereotype of gay couples (and those who have a family) will be modelled as the family in this movie. Over-privileged, middle-class and educated aristocratic families. That's what they are.

Whatever the message The Kids are sending here, it was real. At least they are functioning as a conventional family and its high time that they stop portraying gay couples as overreative. But the worst thing is that this takes itself way too seriously. As you get into the matter, you'll gradually be forced to understand the concept about families all over and over again.

Look. It's an overrated film with no meaning and cannot be counted as a comedy. When this film is shown around your TV, no one will remember it and they never will!

Children Of Men

Children Of Men


8.4


At first when I saw the title Children Of Men, I thought it was just a typical horror flick. But then when I heard how good it was ( It was 2nd ranked by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone as one of the best movies of the last decade) I thought 'Yeah I should give it a try. Let's see how it is'.

Children Of Men takes place in 2027 and it has been 18 years since the last child was born. Now he then got killed and London bureaucrat Theo (Clive Owen) seems to cared since he used to be an activist for an unknown cause. Now, England is being controlled by British police and the government turns totalitarian with its policies on illegal immigrants. The immigrants also known as Fugees come in great numbers to England. Not only that, all of the world women's are infertile so there were no kids born between 2009 and the year the film is set.

Theo is asked by his ex-girlfriend Julian (Julianne Moore), the leader of The Fishes, an anti government organisation with a set of beliefs on human rights, to help an African refugee Kee to escape from England to the Human Project so she can be able to look after her unborn baby. Julian is killed afterwards and when Theo discovers that the Fishes' were responsible for Julian's death, he decided to bring Kee along with Fishes member Miriam themselves to a boat.

Children Of Men looks similar, in a way, to District 9 released last year. They're both set in the future and it's kinda has the same concept. Both have issues with immigration and racism. Even though District 9 focused on aliens, Children Of Men focused on humans and it is anything apart from science fiction.

The movie's cinematography and direction from Alfonso Cuaron (he directed Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkerban) is so gritty with an idealistic screenplay from Timothy J Sexton.

Clive Owen brings in subtlety towards his character. You would want to care for him as well as the pregnant Kee. Julianne Moore puts in a nice performance as well as Michael Caine who suprisingly plays a hippie with his posh accent.

Interestingly, Cuaron has the camera around in one take making it one scene held for a long time while things are still happening. This takes the film into and around the edge even when the film is put as an experiment. But unless you can handle it while watching, you're more likely to get sick because many scenes are shot hand held.

Cuaron takes the plot into more ideas as we predict of facing a crisis on illegal immigrants and infertility. One thing is that when Kee gave birth, the baby is a symbolism of hope during one scene where the Fishes and the British military are in conflict. This also takes up rebellion, as the Fishes show how violent activists are when are taking on the government over issues affecting them.

When Australia is facing a problem with our overpopulation, and just recently a Chinese dissentant who is a human rights activist is awarded the Nobel Peace Price, Children Of Men's main focus is human rights. Whenever you look in the background you see guards treating migrants as dirt and mostly putting them to death and it promotes this awareness through the mass media as you'll see slogans such as 'Report Illegal Immigrants' everywhere.

So is Children Of Men is as perfect as it should be? Quite not. I think it would have been better if Julianne Moore (I have to admit, I never seen her in film before) and Michael Caine had more screen time instead of just dying. That would have been character development had their characters never been killed

Children of Men is a futuristic movie with a difference. It is all about to keep the survival of a person holding the key of the endangered human race. To say that a science fiction needs ideas to keep us entertained can be an exagerration, but Children Of Men is one of those movies in the genres that has many ideas that will keep us in grips.