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It is never made clear just why Emily (Julianne Moore) no longer wants to be married to Cal (Steve Carell) in Crazy Stupid Love (2011), but that is the point at which the movie’s plot takes off.  Early on, a splendid scene crops up in which Cal drives a 17-year-old girl home and all the while–knowing of Cal’s upcoming divorce, aware of current disaster–the girl nervously and silently longs to tell the man she adores him.  Later, another well-done scene has a schoolteacher played by Marisa Tomei furiously rail at Cal at a parent-teacher conference for Cal’s romantic mistreatment of her, and this she does in front of Emily!  Such footage is certainly to the credit of this contemporary screwball comedy directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa.

Unfortunately, the film is only sometimes funny.  But its narrative is fun and curious and twisty.  (And preposterous.)  The pacing is as good as the editing, and the picture’s look is pleasingly unadorned.

This is the first time I’ve seen Emma Stone, who, although she is talented, mildly overacts in a long sequence with Ryan Gosling.  Tomei does better with the schoolteacher; it’s a comparatively small role and she works memorably hard to create a character here. 

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The Japanese writer Shusaku Endo’s interest in the silence of God led him to provide his 1969 novel on the subject with the mere title, Silence.

The time is the 1600s.  Two Catholic priests from Portugal sail to Japan to spiritually aid the Christians there and to find out why a fellow priest called Father Ferreira apparently apostatized.  The shocking torture of Christians both Japanese and European has routinely occurred in Japan (at the hands of Japanese authorities) any time a believer has refused to trample on the engraved image of Jesus called the fumie.  The novel’s hero, Father Rodrigues, is a godly man, but he is bothered by God’s silence in the face of the suffering he beholds–and he perforce confronts the possibility of becoming a “fallen priest” in such a treacherous land.

Is there a form of Christian “fallenness” that is justified, at least when faith remains in the heart?

Clumsy prose prevails in Silence (“Banging his head against the wall he kept murmuring monotonously:  “It cannot be so . . .”), but the novel is sobering.  I must ask, however:  Are persecuted born-again Catholic priests really concerned about the silence–or “silence”– of God?  Perhaps it depends on the nature of the persecution.  Much of the novel’s meaning, in any case, is rather questionable.  It is not as fine an accomplishment as the novels of Mauriac and Bernanos, who, like the late Endo, were devout Catholics.  But it is assuredly religious and hardly uninteresting.   

Cover of Clockstoppers

Clockstoppers (2002), directed by Jonathan Frakes, is about adolescents who are empowered by science for moving in hypertime, namely, so fast that everything around them appears as though it were in suspended animation.  A stimulating pop piece for a while, the film delivers a narrative about domestic terrorists that is sheer rubbish.  When we don’t see this narrative, we witness the film singing the praises of teen mischief (mischief in hypertime).  Clockstoppers is worthless.  The movie stars Jesse Bradford and Paula Garces, both undistinguished.  Miss Garces often displays her navel and in one scene wears nothing but a towel but–sorry, Paramount Pictures–because she is just a kid there is no sexiness here. 

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To me Fast Five (2011), the latest fast-and-furious item, is fairly enjoyable.  But only fairly.  Its best action sequence comes way too early; it’s superior to the final action sequence.  It involves a train targeted by Dominic Toretto (a smug Vin Diesel) and several other criminals, and it’s explosive fun.

Nevertheless, why should the details of the movie’s plot be so crazily childish, as when Toretto’s relatives spring him from captivity by savagely wrecking a prison bus?  Or when Toretto manages to free himself from chains while suspended from a ceiling?  Or when a bikini-clad babe is able to get Mr. Gangster’s handprint on her clothes in order to–oh, never mind.  It’s too silly to go into.  The Westerns I read make a heckuva lot more sense than this thing.

Oh, well.  I still had a good time at Fast Five.  Director Justin Lin is talented at filming car chases, etc.  FF‘s women are comely, and there are interesting shots of Rio, where the action takes place.  Too bad the criminals and a couple of honorable police officers destroy the poor city.   

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I’m not buying the premise of The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), all about a rich boy who, for some reason, beats prostitutes to a pulp.  It’s a ho-hum legal thriller.

Marisa Tomei, Josh Lucas, Frances Fisher, Bryan Cranston and even Matthew McConaughey should all be put to better histrionic use.