Lots of fun and somehow sweet, this story of Steve Carell finding his manly confidence with the help of womanizer Ryan Gosling has laughs, groans, and punctuation in its title. Carell (after I listed my favorites in Date Night, he was in Dinner for Schmucks) is adorable as awkward Cal and Gosling (more details in my post on Blue Valentine, after which he was great in All Good Things) is predictably smooth as Jacob. Julianne Moore (my faves are listed in A Single Man, other mentions in Chloe, and she was terrific in The Kids Are All Right) and Emma Stone (I still need to see Easy A (2010), loved Zombieland, and plan to see The Help, maybe tomorrow) are their smart, funny women, although Jacob has too many others to count, and Marisa Tomei (after I wrote about her in Cyrus she was in The Lincoln Lawyer) has a hilarious turn as someone Cal meets in the trendy pick-up bar he and Jacob frequent.
This is the sophomore effort of directing team Glenn Ficarra and John Requa after the excellent I Love You Phillip Morris and it's really good. The crisp screenplay is by Dan Fogelman (Tangled; I haven't seen Cars (2006)).
I counted 34 songs as the credits rolled but the official soundtrack lists only 12, though someone wrote in to the link above with a thirteenth. Composers Christophe Beck (after I wrote about him in Cedar Rapids he scored The Hangover II; his website hasn't been updated to include tracks from this one) and Nick Urata (he scored Phillip Morris) are both credited.
Sorry I've been away from these pages for so long--vacation and other obligations have intervened. I'll be filling in the gaps for a while and the posts may be shorter (which may please some of you!). Please be patient and keep reading!
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