{"id":1701,"date":"2011-11-11T02:25:18","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T10:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=1701"},"modified":"2011-11-11T02:25:18","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T10:25:18","slug":"like-crazy-review-the-longest-90-minute-movie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=1701","title":{"rendered":"Like Crazy Review- The Longest 90 Minute Movie of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nWatching\u00a0 \u201cLike Crazy\u201d is a lot\u00a0 like listening to a blues song performed by a 16-year-old kid. Sure, the kid might know a little about hardship but odds are he is going to wail and moan about his parents sucking and an unrequited love he has for a girl in his 3rd<\/sup> period English class. Reason is, he just hasn\u2019t lived enough to tell anyone how tough living can be.<\/p>\n

Problem is \u201cLike Crazy\u201d is about puppy love. Sure that love is a tad rocky and is a glaring example of \u201con-again\/off-again\/on-again\/off\u2026.\u201d but it is too simple and easy to be focused on for any length of time. With very little to invest in, \u201cLike Crazy\u201d tries to be an intimate examination of first love but quickly becomes a tedious exercise in boredom.<\/p>\n

Anna (Felicity Jones) is a Londoner studying abroad in Los Angeles when she meets Jacob (Anton Yelchin). She: an aspiring writer and he: an aspiring furniture maker (?). The mousy-cute Anna leaves a note for the boyishly handsome Jacob under his windshield wiper professing her love and the two are into each other instantly. But, with an expiring student visa, Anna must return to her homeland. But she doesn\u2019t right away. So caught up, is she, in her romance she stays in L.A. an extra two months.
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\nThis violation of the U.S.\u2019s tough immigration laws forbids Anna to return to her beloved and the drama begins. Do they try to carry on a Trans-Atlantic affair? Do they date other people and, if so, do they answer each other\u2019s text messages when they are with said people? That\u2019s about the gist of \u201cLike Crazy\u201d. The ups and downs of long distance dating.<\/p>\n

This film tries so desperately to be a small,little film about real life emotions. Jones and Yelchin do well with the small-talking-to-the-point-of-unintelligible realism thing and the handheld camera is plenty shaky but the lack of any complex conflict sinks it. \u201cLike Crazy\u201d reminded me of last year\u2019s vastly superior \u201cBlue Valentine\u201d in style and substance. But that film dealt with a list of issues (pregnancy, tainted love) and presented the beginning of a love affair while showing the deteriorated outcome years later. \u201cLike Crazy\u201d only focuses on the simple parts.
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\nIn the film\u2019s defense a young Drake Doremus who is still in his late 20\u2019s directs \u201cLike Crazy\u201dand it is understandable that , at his age, he would think that this sort of thing is gut wrenching to watch. It\u2019s my 16-year-old blues singer analogy again. This is what he must think complicated love is. He should have watched Meryl Streep in \u201cIt\u2019s Complicated\u201d. That\u2019s complicated. This is only annoying.<\/p>\n

Also a note Doremus: Tighten it up!! This is the longest 90 minute movie I’ve seen since the deplorable “Jonah Hex”. If you have one character in London telling another character who resides in Los Angeles that they are coming for a\u00a0 visit, we do not need to spend time showing that character sitting on the plane staring aimless out the window for 48 seconds! The plane ride is implied.\u00a0 Of course if you cut out all the pointless shots like this one, you would only have a 50 minute movie….so, never mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watching\u00a0 \u201cLike Crazy\u201d is a lot\u00a0 like listening to a blues song performed by a 16-year-old kid. Sure, the kid might know a little about hardship but odds are he is going to wail and moan about his parents sucking and an unrequited love he has for a girl in his 3rd period English class. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1621,7471,9790,12386,17312],"class_list":["post-1701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-anton-yelchin","tag-felicity-jones","tag-indie-films","tag-like-crazy-movie-review","tag-romance-films"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}