Crazy Love
by Dan Klores, Fisher Stevens
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DVD details
Actor: Burt Pugach, Evangeline Borja, Jimmy Breslin, Linda Pugach, Norman AckermanDirector: Dan Klores, Fisher Stevens
Brand: MAGNOLIA HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Producer: Dan Klores
Writer: Dan Klores
Producer: Fisher Stevens
Producer: David Zieff
Producer: Jake Bandman
Producer: John Miller-Monzon
Audio: English (Original Language); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 92 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-10-16
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Magnolia
DVD Reviews of Crazy Love
DVD Review: Two Bats in Love
Summary: 4 Stars
Would like to spend 92 minutes of your life sitting in slack-jaw sublime disbelief as you stare at your television, occasionally managing to close your mouth long enough to mutter the words "What is wrong with these people?" If the answer is "yes", Crazy Love is the documentary for you.
This film was a revelation to me. I stumbled across this gem not knowing the story and so I was expecting a sober documentary about an insane stalker and the damage he inflicted. Drop the "sober" part of the description and you've got half the story here. The directors of Crazy Love decided that in order to understand crazy you need to embrace crazy, starting with the soundtrack. How can a soundtrack be crazy, you ask? Well, what would you call including "Burning Love" by Elvis Presley as the song over the end credits in a documentary about the blinding of a love-one using lye? I rest my case.
This is a heartwarming story: boy meets girl, boy loses girl (when she finds out he's married and has a daughter), boy hires thug to blind girl, boy gets arrested and drags his trial out with a series of antics, boy goes to Attica, girl pluckily soldiers on, boy sends girl money, boy gets paroled, boy and girl are reunited by caring friends and ultimately remarry. I know. What kind of friend sets you up on a date with THE MAN WHO HAD LYE THROWN IN YOUR FACE? You can see just what they look like here. Apparently they thought that marrying her attacker would offer her financial security. Couldn't she have just sued him? Even Civil Rights lawyer William Kunstler acts as envoy of love for these two, proving that something really was in the water in NYC in the 70s.
You can also find here proof that before Jerry Springer and America Undercover and pretty much anything on ABC, Trainwreck TV was pioneered by former Disney Prince Charming Mike Douglas. Who but the Philadelphia-based talk show host and all around class act would have the "happy" couple on to discuss their "unlikely" love story? Not Merv and Dinah, that's for sure.
When lye-victim-and-spouse Linda says "I couldn't admit to myself I still cared for him" I nodded in agreement because I couldn't admit to myself I was actually watching this. As Jimmy Breslin so eloquently puts it, these are two of the "most visibly insane" people who "are not incarcerated." Yes, there is a story in here about the addictive allure of the tabloid spotlight but nothing distracts from the slow-motion horror of watching two people calmly recount their efforts to out-crazy each other. It's riveting film-making and creepy as hell.
This movie is missing two words from the beginning of the title. The first is "Bat".
DVD Review: A Pro-Stalker Love Story
Summary: 2 Stars
It's difficult to separate the story of this documentary from the way it is presented to create an objective review of the film itself. On the one hand, Burt Pugach is a madman who should have been stabbed in prison. He talks about the inequity of the legal system as if he didn't have two men disfigure and blind the woman he was obsessed with. You also have the story of Linda, his victim, who is somewhat mercenary in her initial interest in him and for whom a marriage with this demented stalker becomes the only viable option out of poverty and loneliness. The two of them become media [...] who revel in attention for their shared misery. There is a tawdry quality with which the two shamelessly place themselves in the spotlight. One might argue that these two did not seek the publicity; nevertheless, a person has to accept an invitation on to a talk show, which these two seem to have done repeatedly, to transform one's life into a sideshow.
The film itself spends a great deal of time (often tediously so) tracing the beginning of the story, giving details, etc., that could be skipped. The film seeks an ironic detachment throughout with 1950s love songs juxtaposed with details of the horrible crime for which Pugach was jailed. In the end, the filmmaker seems to transform the story into a quirky romance, showing the self-justifying Pugach and blinded nagging Linda bickering like any "charming" old Jewish couple one sees repeated in films endlessly.
However, this isn't simply an offbeat romance, it is a story in which the stalker wins; and the lesson it teaches is that if you are insane and obsessed long enough, and if you damage the object of your madness severely enough to ruin any future prospects she may have for happiness with a normal human being, you will eventually end up together. The film validates the crime, and the filmmakers do not in any way intervene to subject Pugach to difficult questioning. Toward the end, a racist lawyer friend of Pugach's states that he "likes Burt" as if the villain is simply a colorful character. I wonder how this person would have felt had good old Burt had two hired thugs splash acid in his eyes. At some point in the film, Pugach suggests that when he and Linda decided to marry (around the time he had his own biography published--something the public apparently swarmed upon like maggots on a dead muskrat), the media attention made him a lot of money--a sad commentary on the tastes of Americans, who would reward a monster with cash when they should have been ostracizing him from the community. I knew nothing of the actual story behind the documentary and would have chosen not to further the notoriety of these people by watching this had I previously known the depths of their attention-seeking.
DVD Review: Couldn't care less.
Summary: 1 Stars
The characters in this film, particularly Linda and her friends, are so shallow, vain, and unappealing (in every sense of the word) that it was impossible for me to care about them or their story. About 20 minutes was all I could take before I had to turn them off forever. DVD Review: Will Leave You Shaking Your Head In Disbelief!
Summary: 5 Stars
This may be the most amazing true-life documentary I've ever seen. If it wasn't all true, I'd never believe it. Who would? This is an insane "love story," and it really happened. Ask the citizens of New York City who lived through this tabloid story.
I hesitate to say too much for those who haven't watched this, but I highly recommend this DVD. The filmmakers did an outstanding job in presenting all the major figures in this fascinating tale of twisted lovers....and "twisted" is putting it mildly, especially in regard to the chief male: Burt Pugach, who is one of the most despicable no-conscience people I've ever seen.
If crazy people, obsession, romance, crime, loneliness, comedy, etc., are all something you find entertaining, this documentary has all of it. It might also disgust you that human beings can be so pathetic.
I couldn't stop shaking my head in disbelief after this watching this documentary. Kudos to everyone involved in this film for a job very well done.
DVD Review: Incredible Story, Decent Movie
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie was a great surprise. A friend of mine lent it to me and the story pulled me in right away. Many moments of 'are you serious?' and 'you must be kidding me!'. It's better going into the movie if you know absolutely nothing about the story. Otherwise, there are parts of the movie that are kind of slow, so the pacing can be a little off during certain portions of the film. But this was a minor flaw, in my opinion, because the story kept me intrigued throughout. Recommended.
Description of Crazy Love
The astonishing & unbelievable story of the obsessive roller-coaster relationship of burt & linda pugach. Their whirlwind romance culminated in a violent & psychologically complex set of actions which landed the pairs saga on the cover of endless newspapers & magazines. A true story. Studio: Magnolia Pict Hm Ent Release Date: 10/16/2007 Run time: 92 minutes Rating: Pg13If it were a novel, the story of Burt Pugach and Linda Riss would be rejected as ludicrous: When Pugach discovered that Riss was engaged to marry another man, he hired thugs to throw lye in her face, blinding her. But after almost two decades in prison, Pugach emerged as obsessively in love with Riss as ever and continued to woo her--successfully. This flabbergasting true story is slowly unveiled, thanks to marvelously adroit editing, through interviews with Pugach, Riss, many of their friends, and various media figures like Jimmy Breslin, who followed the twists and turns of this saga as it played out in the courts and the papers. The key to the movie, though, is not the plot so much as the characters: Not only are Pugach and Riss a fascinating psychological study, all of their friends are standout personalities as well, each with their own take on what happened. The big events are bizarre enough, but it's the strange small twists--just how Pugach and Riss were brought back together, for example--that push the story into the realm of tabloid surrealism. (One detail that doesn't give much away: Prior to meeting Riss, Pugach co-produced a movie called Death Over My Shoulder.) Skillful use of historical footage keeps the movie from just being a series of talking heads and provides period texture. Crazy Love is yet more evidence that we are living in a golden era of wildly entertaining and engaging documentaries. --Bret Fetzer
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