Star on the rise: Emma Stone

By Sarah Sluis

Emma Stone has juicy roles in two films this summer (and a bit part in a third), and each one proves that she's a star on the rise. Yesterday I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love, which comes out on Friday. As a young law school grad looking for true love, Stone holds her own against an all-star cast that includes Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, and Ryan Gosling's abs. Stone has a Julia Roberts-level star magnetism that can only go up. In her other film, The Help, which comes out in a few weeks, Stone mixes comedy with more serious subject matter. Even in this different environment, her trademark mix of sarcasm, determination, and a self-effacing manner remain intact. So far, every role I've seen her in has been enriched by a current running through the personality that is oh-so-distinctly Stone.

Stone has mainly stayed in a sweet spot of comedy, with other roles in movies such as Easy A, Superbad, The House Bunny, and Zombieland. But now she's being tapped for Gangster Squad, a 1940s crime drama. The movie would re-team her not only with Gosling but also with her Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer. Unlike other stars in Hollywood with difficult reputations (Katherine Heigl, for example), Stone appears to create good working relationships. How else could it be so easy for her to be cast in her most serious film to date? Stone would play a woman torn between her love for the good cop (Gosling) and the gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn).

The surest sign of Stone's success is her casting as Spider-Man's love interest Gwen Stacey in The Amazing Spider-Man, which is coming out next summer. Appearing in an action tentpole is one checkmark on the path to being an A-list star. Other young ingnues like Bryce Dallas Howard and Kirsten Dunst have occupied that role in the past, when they too were stars on the rise. Stone's charming sarcasm has put her on my must-see list. Now let's hope she continues to find good roles that utilize her strengths--and no more superhero films after Spider-Man!

Trailer review: 'Crazy, Stupid, Love'

By Sarah Sluis

Steve Carell nailed the sexually innocent, romantically awkward character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and it appears that he's returning to the same territory in Crazy, Stupid, Love. The romantic comedy has a well-known cast: Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Marisa Tomei, Emma Stone, and Kevin Bacon play supporting roles. The trailer for Crazy, Stupid, Love just came out, and it exceeded my expectations.

First, Crazy, Stupid, Love appears to put story first, comedy second, which for me is more likely to result in appreciative laughter. Unfortunately, I know the movie puts story first because the trailer all but gives away the ending. Oh well. Carell plays a husband who just found out his high school sweetheart wife (Moore) cheated on him. He ends up meeting a player (Gosling), who helps him up his game enough to snag a cute woman (Tomei). But Carell still loves his wife! And Gosling just fell in love, not lust, with another woman (Stone)! It seems like the story will end with Carell back in the arms of his wife and Gosling learning from Carell how to commit. It's really too bad that the trailer had to give that story arc away--I think the idea of the player learning from the longtime husband is really sweet, and unexpected. In a lot of these movies, only the main character undergoes a transformation.

Of all the performances, I was most surprised by Gosling's take on a ladies' man. I know him mainly for his dramatic role in Blue Valentine, so seeing him as a slick, fast-talking guy was something of a surprise. The rest of the cast plays versions of their already established star personas. For the second year in a row, Moore is playing a likeable cheater (The Kids Are All Right). Stone again plays a smart girl skeptical of male intentions (Easy A), and Tomei is doing her sexually assertive thing.

The trailer cuts out some of the more suggestive punchlines, so I'm going to bet this movie is going for a PG-13 vibe, especially because the movie also includes teen romance, Carell and Moore's son's lusting after his babysitter. Back in December, Warner Bros. moved the comedy from April 22 to July 29, the surest sign that this romantic comedy can stand up to the heat of summer.