Cool and the Crazy

One of the first movies that had Alicia Silverstone in it and it was certainly not the reason why I was watching, why should I care about one of the most overrated actresses ever? But it stuck me though that for once Madame Silverstone played a normal role (Completely fed up with her Beverly Hills-characters. The story itself couldn't be any simplier as after all it's about two young people who are married and who are facing up the useless relationshipproblems and if you add some 50's atmosphere in it (the Cadillacs, brillantine, smoothy jazzmusic) you quickly have some movie but it's just because of it's sober approach (even if that'd be more moneywise) "The cool and the crazy" is rather watchable. Mind you, you'll soon forget it but stay on the screen for 90 minutes nonetheless.

Unhappily married couple Roslyn (Alicia Silverstone) and Michael (Jared Leto) lead separate affairs that lead to violent repercussions for all.

This was one of the last films from American International Pictures, produced by Lou Arkoff and Debra Hill. The director was Ralph Bakshi, who had made his name with "Fritz the Cat" and "Heavy Traffic".

Some credit should be given for the casting, as both leads have now gone on to bigger things and most likely few people have ever seen or even heard of this picture (hardly a gem).

What is most strange is the morality of the narrative. Cheating is not so much a bad thing in itself (according to this film), but bad when things turn violent with the competition. So, I guess, if married women choose better men to have affairs with, the whole thing is no big deal...

I really liked this movie. It is very hard to find since it is out of production. It is about Roslyn, played very well by Alicia Silverstone,who is a young newly-wed with marital problem. She goes out wtih her friend, played by Jennifer Blanc, to a dance and meets bad boy, Joey, played by Matthew Flint. Joey is no good, and is married himself, and this affair is hopeless from the beginning. What I like about this movie is that Alicia is EXTREMELY believeable when she is on the beach with Joey and she tells him to stop his advances, but she also wants him to continue. She whispers desperately, out a different era in American high school dating, for him to stop, "someone will see us", etc. The choice of soft backround music from the 50's really set the mood, also. Why this movie has had so little attention, and why your other writers do not seem to forcast the eventual greatness of Alicia Silverstone from this movie is beyond me. Of course, now the only edition of this movie is in PALS, in German.

A melodrama, sketches from the lives of three couples celebrating their weddings at the same time. All of them decide to get married early, although by the standards of the 1950s this fact is not really something special. Despite the seemingly serious attitude at first, and the fact that two couples have children, they themselves are in many ways far from understanding adult life and the concept of responsibility as such - they quarrel like teenagers, without looking, go on spontaneous benders, commit rash acts, confusing one thing or another with some abstract freedom, which they themselves cannot define. As usual, petty squabbles and random connections eventually accumulate like a snowball and one day can / will come out sideways. As a result, it can be concluded that watching the twists and turns of young and sometimes hysterical newlyweds who are not particularly smart is more boring than interesting, regardless of the relative vitality of the stories in question, as real life can be very different.

There is a 1958 film with the same name, "The Cool and the Crazy", but apart from the name and some subtleties, it does not have any common plot features with the 1994 version, which, among other things, separately suggests the idea of how much the later film adaptations are in fact a free narrative with a predominance of the vision of the directors of the 1990s and how much they actually reflect the spirit of the past.

I think it actually does need to be viewed. Its awfulness is actually compelling.