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Critics single out memorable performances by Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell in this 'crazy smart film.'
By Kara Warner

Ryan Gosling in "Crazy, Stupid, Love."
Photo: WB

Although the summer season is packed with big, noisy, CGI-enhanced blockbusters, studio executives are wise to the fact that not everyone wants to see flashy, action-heavy films, so they smartly offer up counter-programming in the form of romantic comedies. This week's star-studded "Crazy, Stupid, Love." is a perfect example, underscored by its 74 percent "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

The film revolves around Cal Weaver (Steve Carell), whose wife (Julianne Moore) has recently announced her infidelity (the "other man" is played by Kevin Bacon) and requested a divorce. Cal takes his sorrows to a singles' bar, where he's adopted by local ladies' man Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling). Jacob educates Cal in the new ways of wooing the ladies, and although Cal picks up some decent skills, his heart is in the wrong place: He's looking for that elusive true love, a soul mate.

Cal is also dealing with the fact that his adolescent son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) is in love with his teenage babysitter (Analeigh Tipton), who in turn is in love with Cal. Meanwhile, Jacob eventually realizes that he's still pining for the woman (Emma Stone) who got away.

Critics seem to be most pleased with the film's ensemble cast, with only a few grumbles about clichéd plot twists and turns. Without further ado, let's dive into the "Crazy, Stupid, Love." reviews.

The Story
"Just because it stars smart actors and isn't aggressively dumb doesn't automatically make it good, and while 'Crazy, Stupid, Love.' works in fits and starts, its wildly inconsistent tone and Dan Fogelman's overwritten screenplay make it too frustrating to properly enjoy. Every time one of the many plot threads hits its stride, another careens wildly out of control, leading up to a conclusion so clichéd it seems the movie has moved into parody." — Katey Rich, Cinema Blend

Ensemble Cast and Performances
"Frequently, the zaniness stops and some genuinely impressive acting breaks out. The accomplished Moore is an obvious candidate and, even in a confined role, she delivers — here a nervous look, there a tender gesture. Cast against type, his customarily troubled characters, Gosling is all dressed up (and occasionally undressed) in a fashion guaranteed to set hearts aflutter. But the guy is too skilled to settle for a hunky stereotype; rather, he rescues the roué from cliché by adding a certain delicacy, a repressed yet palpable sensitivity. ... Although not in their performing league, Carell is blessed to have a faint hint of Buster Keaton in his otherwise handsome face — a mug whose deadpan stare is fraught with comic nuance. Even the kid actor is a cut above here. Jonah Bobo brings to Robbie that adolescent knack of travelling at warp speed from deep cynicism to idealistic innocence." — Rick Groen, The Globe and Mail

The Final Word
"It's hard to ignore the fact that very little in the movie feels true — no one clicks as a couple, and there are carefully contrived coincidences around every corner. ... But while the filmmakers bungle the romance, they handle the comedy with skillful precision. I laughed all the way through, thanks to both consistently clever dialogue and deft delivery from Carell and Gosling, who clearly relished a chance to flex his comic muscles." — Elizabeth Weitzman, Daily News

"This film is the total of all its parts, from the string-bean beauty Tipton to the sly adolescent Bobo and all the veterans. It's notable that no one — not even Bacon's character — is a villain in this film. They're all just people looking for, wrestling with and falling in love. ... This is the sort of film that Oscar generally ignores come awards season. It shouldn't. "Crazy, Stupid, Love," is a crazy smart film." — Tom Long, Detroit News

Check out everything we've got on "Crazy, Stupid, Love."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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Steven Spielberg and Guillermo del Toro advised director, who aimed to 'maintain some mystery and surprises.'
By Eric Ditzian

Daniel Craig in "Cowboys & Aliens"
Photo: Universal Pictures

How do you surprise someone who's seen it all — aliens who snatch bodies and aliens with dreadlocks and aliens who bloodily birth themselves from your stomach and aliens who phone home and aliens who eat cat food and great big blue aliens with tails they use for sex?

Forget about the decades of classic extraterrestrial flicks that stream daily on TV, tablets and desktops. This year alone, movies like "Battle: Los Angeles," "Super 8," "Green Lantern" and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" have hit the big screen, each trying to deliver not only eye-popping visuals but the post-credits comment between friends, "Damn, dude, have you ever seen something like that?"

The answer, all too often and quite understandably, is, "Yes, yes, I have." That's the challenge "Cowboys & Aliens" director Jon Favreau faced as he sought to bring alien baddies to the Old West for a genre mash-up that hit theaters Friday (July 29). Favreau, though, counts himself lucky that he was able to lean on some of the most-established sci-fi players in Hollywood for help. The cinematic result is a race of aliens that land in a down-on-its-luck mining town, start to kidnap residents and eventually reveal themselves as extraterrestrial superfreaks on par with anything we've seen at the theater in recent years.

Earlier this month in Montana, Favreau talked with MTV News about what makes a great big-screen alien, the special-effects decisions that helped his filmmaking process and the advice Steven Spielberg and Guillermo del Toro gave him along the way. (Beware of spoilers below.)

"When you set out to make a movie like 'Cowboys & Aliens,' if you just play it as one joke for the whole movie, you're in trouble," Favreau explained. "You run out of gas after about the length of an 'SNL' sketch. So we really wanted to find an approach that could bear out a whole story. Part of it was identifying what kind of alien movie to make and what kind of cowboy movie to make."

The answer to the alien question was to reach back to classics of the '70s and '80s, before CG glam overtook practical effects as the preferred method of creating otherworldly creatures. "The alien movies I like the most are the ones I grew up with," he said. "It was the pre-CG, almost verging on horror versions of alien films, like 'Alien,' 'Aliens,' 'Predator' and all the Spielberg stuff, and I include 'Jaws' in that, too. They were all the same kind of movie.

"It was before you had computer effects, so you had to, through lighting and mystery and music, slowly reveal the creature. That technique has some somewhat been lost now, thanks to CGI. Even though we have CGI creatures eventually, we do use animatronics and we do use lighting and all the old techniques to reveal them."

The aliens in "Cowboys" have landed in an Arizona town to mine for gold — a metal as precious to humans as it is to these space travelers. What's truly cool about them is their transformative quality: Their faces move and shift to expose layers below, and their bodies open up to unleash hidden, gooey hands. Gross and fascinating and scary, all at once. That's exactly what Favreau was hoping to accomplish.

" 'Predator' and 'Alien': What was fun about those films is, as you saw the creatures, more and more layers were revealed, whether it was armor coming off with 'Predator' [and] weaponry, or in the case of 'Alien,' with the second set of teeth or the metamorphosis that it did from its egg state to the face-hugger to whatever that larval phase was when it busts out of your chest and finally into the big [creature]," he said. "It's the shape-shifting quality of the aliens that I thought was really cool. We wanted to maintain some mystery and surprises with our creature."

To create those surprises, Favreau not only depended on his team of artists and effects masters, but on Spielberg and del Toro. "[Spielberg] was very involved with certain aspects of it preproduction, and one of those aspects was the alien design, because he's been involved with so many," he said. "And now seeing 'Falling Skies' and seeing 'Super 8,' I see that he was not just involved with his own films, but other films and projects he's been producing and overseeing. He had a lot of specific insight into what things were important.

"And Guillermo del Toro, I also know him, and he's masterful," Favreau added. "He always said you've got to get the silhouette right first and then you got to get the color right and then you got to get the detail right, in that order. He's actually somebody who helped out and came in the editing room. I was showing him our animatronic work, because he's very picky about that stuff, and when I knew it passed his muster, I felt very good."

Check out everything we've got on "Cowboys & Aliens."

For breaking news and previews of the latest comic book movies — updated around the clock — visit SplashPage.MTV.com.

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From musical prodigy to production heavyweight, Maor Levi is still going from strength to strength - his recent big room remix of Super8 & Tab's "Slow To Learn" the latest in a string of anthems this year. From his first major track "Lital" six years ago, Maor's style has continually expanded and experimented - blending a range of influences and genres into a uniquely potent force.

Here we chat to the Israeli producer about his recent "Slow to Learn" remix, his musical motivations and his future aspirations.



You released your first major track, "Lital", on Anjunadeep at the age of 17. Has your production style changed much since then?
"Quite a lot. As time went by I was listening to more genres and was open things that I didn’t listen to before. I was mostly a trancehead! I learnt new techniques and explored lots of new software, articles and hardware gear and developed the quality of my sound. Also, gear-wise, I’ve earned some money and upgraded my studio.


Who influenced your work in the early days?
"People like Tiesto and, of course, Above & Beyond, but I was also listening to some hard-trance and psy-trance by Infected Mushroom, Doof, Astrix and also lots of old musicians such as Beastie Boys, Pink Floyd and Rage Against the Machine. They have all somehow blended inside my music ever since!

Living in Israeli, you spent three years doing national service full time. Did you take a complete break from music or did you get the opportunity to keep producing while you were serving?
"Not a complete break but yeah I was quite silent while serving. I had too much stuff to do before I went back to basecamp, and while working on music I need my inner peace, which I didn’t have."


What is the main difference between Maor Levi and your alias, 123XYZ?
"Maor Levi is towards melodic trance & progressive house/trance and 123XYZ is more on the underground side of things...such as techno,tech house, minimal, jackin house etc. I prefer dividing the two, like a Twin and his Evil Twin."

How do you approach remixing other peoples work?
"I basically get a lot of offers from record labels to remix other people's work. I prefer staying loyal to record labels I know and that I can benefit and earn promotion from, which is what I deserve from my hard work. Certain labels these days won’t really do any promotion or pay their artists for their hard work! However, with bootleg remixes, ideas come to mind and you can quickly translate them to music."

What has been your favourite track to remix?
"I really enjoyed remixing Hybrid's ‘Disappear Here’, which started off as a bootleg and ended up released on Distinctive with another remix by me. It was fun because I’ve never worked with Hybrid. It was quite fun messing around with the awesome stems from the original and turning it into something different, yet keeping the original feeling in it."


Did you have a clear vision of where you wanted to take Super8 & Tab’s “Slow To Learn?” How did the remix take shape?
"Not at all, I always had a problem remixing vocal tracks...but once I had the baseline ready on this remix, I had it all basically written in my head. Call it a good blend of house & trance I guess, and I finished that remix three days after I was asked to remix it. Inspiration came on a golden tray!"

What did you like about the original?
"The original track's simplicity is what makes it a winner, it has a very old school atmosphere to it and reminds me of the old progressive trance style I used to listen to when I was 14. Top work!"

Your sound is constantly changing and evolving. What’s next for Maor Levi?
Quite a lot, I try not to stick to one signature sound, but expect more stuff towards the house genre as well!

Maor Levi's remix of Super8 & Tab feat. Jan Burton "Slow To Learn" is featured on "Empire: Remixed", which is released on Anjunabeats on 22nd August. To pre-order on Anjunastore click HERE. Read full story

Above & Beyond and inthemix.com.au have teamed up to offer 5 aspiring DJs the chance to play the opening set on their upcoming Australia tour this September. Put together by local promoters, the Totem Onelove Group and Hardware Corporation, Above & Beyond’s Australian Group Therapy Album tour will take in dates in Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne. This string of headline shows will represent Above & Beyond's only Australia dates of 2011, and their first tour there since February of last year. What’s perhaps even more exciting is YOU could be opening the show! Do you have what it takes to play alongside the likes of Mat Zo, Jaytech and Above & Beyond?

To enter you need to create a 30-minute mix and upload it through the competition page at inthemix.com.au/competitions. You have until August 25th, 2011, to complete and upload your mix. The best in each state will be selected from all that enter, with finalists featured online through ITM-FM for public scrutiny. Then, based on a combination of public feedback and Above & Beyond’s own personal opinion, the winning five DJs will be selected and given the reward any up-and-comer would sell their left leg to win!

If you're keen to enter be sure to give your mix a lot of thought. Think about who you're warming up for (you’ll be on before Jaytech and another local DJ), and think of when in the night you'll be playing (early on, as doors open). A banging peak-time set isn't going to win you this competition; we're looking for something deep and melodic, and definitely below the 128 bpm mark. Show restraint, progression and consideration, and prove to us you can get the room ready for the party that's on the horizon! CLICK HERE to enter.

RULES: The competition starts July 22nd and ends on August 19 11.45pm. A winner will be chosen from every state, if a winner cannot be chosen from the state, winners from other states will be offered the prize. The prize does not include travel or accommodation. Submissions must include a DJ name, full name as per state ID, contact number and email address. Entry is limited to Australian residents only. Any sets submitted which are over 31 minutes in length will be automatically disqualified. The actual duration of the set and time at the event will be the decision of Above & Beyond, Totem Onelove Group and Hardware. Read full story

Band will tour U.S. and Europe in October, singer tells MTV News.
By James Montgomery

Evanescence's Amy Lee
Photo: Jason Squires/ WireImage

Evanescence's self-titled album isn't due in stores until October 11, but that hasn't stopped the band from giving fans a preview of what they can expect to hear on the disc — or, you know, threepreviews: first single "What You Want," the booming "The Other Side" and the epic, ethereal "Lost in Paradise" — or from lining up a handful of early tour dates in support of the album.

So far, Amy Lee and Co. have committed to a one-off show in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 17, a pair of big-ticket gigs in Brazil and Puerto Rico in October and a run of concerts in the U.K. in November. That leaves a rather sizeable hole right around the time of the album's release — one the band plan to fill very quickly, Lee told MTV News.

"We'll be touring the U.S. and Europe in October. It's not all [confirmed], but it's going to happen," she said. "We're doing Rock in Rio on the 2nd, and then I think Puerto Rico, and that's going to be awesome, because we've never played [there]. ... That's the beginning of the tour; the tour will start there, we'll come back to the States, do a few weeks in the bigger cities, and then go do the same thing in Europe, and then the next thing will happen."

So just when will the full slate of Evanescence tour dates be revealed? Soon. A spokesperson for the band's label, Wind-Up Records, told MTV News the band will begin announcing dates in two weeks, something Lee seemed to confirm Thursday when she took to Twitter to let her fans know the wait is almost over.

"Guys, the tour dates that have been announced are only the beginning!" she wrote. "Don't be sad if you don't see a date in your town yet! We're coming!"

Are you excited to see Evanescence on tour? Tell us below!

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