Still Alice

Still Alice was one of those Oscar nominees that significantly less people were aware of, but was incredibly well done, worth seeing and deserving of it's nomination. The story follows Alice Howland, a renowned linguistics professor at Columbia University. She is happily married with three grown children, but that begins to change when she strangely starts to forget words, directions and more. When her doctor diagnoses her with Early-onset Alzheimer's Disease, she must face the challenge of this terminal degenerative disease as it slowly progresses to it's dreadful and inevitable conclusion. Along the way, Alice struggles to not only to fight against this challenge, but to make the most of her remaining time to find the love and peace to make simply living worthwhile.

One of the many reasons that I liked this movie is because it took a disease that so many people are afraid to talk about, and it faced it head-on. Alzheimer's is a progressive disease that slowly destroys a person's memory and eventually other important mental functions. As the disease progresses, symptoms can include: disorientation, mood swings, not managing self care and eventually losing the ability to communicate effectively. I think that Julianne Moore did an incredible job in portraying the challenges of this disease. Not only was she honest in her portrayal of the physical and mental challenges that come with Alzheimer's disease, but also with the personal and emotional challenges that are faced in the process.

If you haven't seen this yet, it is absolutely a movie that I would recommend. Keeping in mind that this movie is incredibly emotionally charged and deals with a difficult topic, it is well done and worth watching.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

Crazy Stupid Love is a romantic comedy from 2011. It stars a whole host of actors including Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, John Carroll Lynch, Marisa Tomei, Analeigh Tipton, and Kevin Bacon. The movie starts out when Cal Weaver’s (Steve Carell) wife and former high school sweetheart, Emily (Julianne Moore), abruptly requests a divorce. Cal, who is not prepared for this in the slightest, ends up finding it difficult to cope with his new single life. He is absolutely clueless about finding love again, on top of the fact that his confidence and appearance are very low, as he wears sneakers, coats a size too big and a wounded heart on his sleeve.

 One night, a young, attractive man named Jacob (Ryan Gosling) pities him for sitting alone in a bar. He introduces himself, and then takes Cal under his wing to teach him all the right moves. Jacob’s own polished pick-up routines work on an array of different women, until one day he finds a girl, who turns out to be Cal’s daughter Hannah (Emma Stone) who actually causes him to want to settle down. Meanwhile, two other romances stumble along at the Weaver household: Son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) pines for his sister’s babysitter, Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), while his mom tries to make sense of her feelings for one of her co-workers (Kevin Bacon). 

The whole movie ultimately comes together at a family gathering in the Weavers’ backyard, when we learn how all the characters become inter-related to each other. This starts an uproar, but eventually all of the characters come together and are able to co-exist peacefully in the end.

I really enjoyed this movie. It had a good amount of humor, and was able to keep my attention and engagement throughout. I especially enjoyed the ending because it was full of twists and turns that the writers crafted in a way that they were able to keep it a secret from the audience. I honestly did not expect such a surprising ending. However, I did think that the film could have been made even better had it been able to explore its characters a little more in-depth. Perhaps this was caused by the fact that the movie contained too many characters and sub-plots to be able to explore them all in a thorough and satisfying manner.