Brawner Stefanie

From the minute I heard about Gangster Squad - back around the time Emma Stone was cast, when it was still The Gangster Squad - I've been pretty much obsessed with this movie. I've always loved gangster movies, but more than that, I'm crazy about film noir and Los Angeles in the golden age of Hollywood, and it looks to me like Gangster Squad will embody everything I love about that era and those genres: the glitz and glamour right alongside the shadows and bloodshed, the world-weary detectives who've seen too much to be idealists and care too much to be cynics. Emma Stone's Grace looks like she's stepped right out of Lauren Bacall's spot in The Big Sleep, a woman with a good heart and bad company. As the movie's premiere grows closer, I've been counting down the weeks and, now, days. I've been marathoning old gangster movies and Ryan Gosling's work, too, including his last movie with Anthony Mackie, Half-Nelson. I just about devoured Gangster Squad by Paul Lieberman, and I'm on to L.A. Noir and a biography of Mickey Cohen now. I honestly can't remember ever being this excited about a movie before. Somehow, this one just happens to be the perfect intersection of so many things that I love, and I'm so eager to finally see it. Getting these prizes would absolutely make my month. I can promise you would make me incredibly happy with these and that they would be well-loved and much-used, and you're probably not going to see anyone else as crazy about this movie as I already am.