Crazy Eyes

An LA love affair starts between a couple who love booze as much as they might love each other.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office at each venue.


Image gallery

  • Director Adam Sherman
  • Producer Hagai Shaham
  • Screenwriter Adam Sherman, Rachel Hardisty, Dave Reeves
  • With Lukas Haas, Madeline Zima, Tania Raymonde
  • USA 2012
  • 95 mins
  • Production company Crazy Eyes LLC

Despite his evident wealth, Zach (Lukas Haas) appears to have little in his life other than problems; his ex-wife isn’t beyond using their young son in attempting to extract money from him, while his father is ill and his mother is struggling to cope with the idea of being alone. It is convenient that his best friend is a barman, as Zach seeks to find comfort in booze. He becomes infatuated with Rebecca (Madeline Zima), who stands apart from the women usually demanding his attention. Rebecca is a cute, working-class artisan, who has problems of her own, not least that she is as keen on a drink as Zach is. In alcoholic denial, the pair drift along, rendered incapable of confronting their emotions. Director Adam Sherman presents this LA bar-crawl in a dreamy haze, and the two lead actors put in terrific performances to make Crazy Eyes a convincingly sincere portrait of addiction, full of pathos and humour.
Michael Hayden

Director statement

I honestly don’t know why I write stories or make movies, but I always have. When I was a very small child, I vented these urges by telling my friends wild stories about dump trucks full of candy being delivered from my grandmother, or faraway islands at the bottom of the world that I visited with my dad. It wasn’t long before I realised that this was called lying, and the other kids did not like my stories. Eventually, I started quietly writing my lies down. It was more of a lonely process, but I have been doing it ever since. I discovered at an early age that friends were eager to get back involved in my mad little tales if I pointed a video camera at them. They would say whatever I wanted and do whatever I said. I could even put them in great danger, cause them to grow angry at one another, or watch them fall in love. As an adult, what started with childhood lying has manifested itself into autobiographical writing and filmmaking. I use basically the same process, it comes from the same desire and ends up as a story for people to see and hear.
Adam Sherman

Director biography

Born on a polygamous hippy commune in Vermont, he and his peers were home-schooled and never disciplined in any way. He learned to escape this environment by focusing on writing and experimenting with video before, at 19, leaving it; winding up in New York, and eventually Los Angeles. Without formal education, he began to expand his experimentation in film. His video horror-comedy Dead Doll was co-written with Azazel Jacobs, while his 2010 feature Happiness Runs was clearly rooted in the circumstances of his own upbringing, and starred Rutger Hauer as the presiding guru.

Filmography (selected)

2004 Dead Doll
2010 Happiness Runs
2012 Crazy Eyes