CRAZY LOVE
Director(s): Dan Klores + Fisher Stevens (a lot of minor acting + production)Starring: documentary about Burt + Linda Pugash (crazy people)
Not quite what I was expecting, crazy love is a documentary about a couple who once appeared on Geraldo. The old afternoon Geraldo talk show? Remember it? Remember when he was hit by the chair:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1KT1QoSCT8
Yeah, classy.
This film isn't quite on that level, but while thoroughly engaging, I can't honestly claim it's any better than Mr. Rivera. The film follows the "love" story of a rich ambulance-chasing lawyer and the woman he becomes obsessed with (literally obsessed). To cut through the hour long rambling that slowly reveals their respective levels of loneliness, selfishness, insanity, and greed, the lawyer tells the woman he wants to marry her. Then he cheats on her. Then she breaks it off when she finds out he's already married. Then he hires a couple of thugs from Harlem to blind her with lye, which they do. Then the story gets really weird, and slowly sadder. At least after he gets out of prison many years later it does.
Like I said this is an undeniably engrossing tale, although entirely in a gossip magazine kind of way. I watched in rapt attention as their story became more and more absurd. In the end, there isn't any redemptive value in this though. It's trash TV on film. It may feel more substanstive because it's a "documentary film", but it's still the same game that Geraldo Rivera played for ratings. The one difference is instead of amping up the childish tension like Geraldo did/does, the film plays these disgusting people purely for laughs. In the end that might be even worse. These people aren't funny. The screen is nearly always full of terrible, twisted, worthless individuals, entirely interested in themselves. At it's heart this tale might have in it a pretty good story about human nature, and I think it tried for some of that, but in the end Crazy Love didn't succeed at being meaningful. It was just a low-brow freakshow. And like a freak biting the head off of a chicken, it probably demeans both the biter and the guy who pulled out a buck to watch.
Standouts: Entertainment value. It's really interesting to watch nutballs.
Blowouts: Easy entertainment. There are some horrid people here.
Grade: C+
Not quite what I was expecting, crazy love is a documentary about a couple who once appeared on Geraldo. The old afternoon Geraldo talk show? Remember it? Remember when he was hit by the chair:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1KT1QoSCT8
Yeah, classy.
This film isn't quite on that level, but while thoroughly engaging, I can't honestly claim it's any better than Mr. Rivera. The film follows the "love" story of a rich ambulance-chasing lawyer and the woman he becomes obsessed with (literally obsessed). To cut through the hour long rambling that slowly reveals their respective levels of loneliness, selfishness, insanity, and greed, the lawyer tells the woman he wants to marry her. Then he cheats on her. Then she breaks it off when she finds out he's already married. Then he hires a couple of thugs from Harlem to blind her with lye, which they do. Then the story gets really weird, and slowly sadder. At least after he gets out of prison many years later it does.
Like I said this is an undeniably engrossing tale, although entirely in a gossip magazine kind of way. I watched in rapt attention as their story became more and more absurd. In the end, there isn't any redemptive value in this though. It's trash TV on film. It may feel more substanstive because it's a "documentary film", but it's still the same game that Geraldo Rivera played for ratings. The one difference is instead of amping up the childish tension like Geraldo did/does, the film plays these disgusting people purely for laughs. In the end that might be even worse. These people aren't funny. The screen is nearly always full of terrible, twisted, worthless individuals, entirely interested in themselves. At it's heart this tale might have in it a pretty good story about human nature, and I think it tried for some of that, but in the end Crazy Love didn't succeed at being meaningful. It was just a low-brow freakshow. And like a freak biting the head off of a chicken, it probably demeans both the biter and the guy who pulled out a buck to watch.
Standouts: Entertainment value. It's really interesting to watch nutballs.
Blowouts: Easy entertainment. There are some horrid people here.
Grade: C+
posted by Brian @ 10:39 AM
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