50/50 movie

scored free passes to see two of the movies' most adorable actors, joseph gordon-levitt and seth rogen, in 50/50 last night.

story: a young man who finds out he has a tumor on his spine, and for the next hour and a half, tries to work through his therapies, and his friends' and family's attempts at supporting him. also loses a girlfriend, but picks up a dog, rookie therapist, and chemo friends.

joseph gordon-levitt: plays a full range of emotions very effectively, somehow without changing his facial expressions so much. you're with him all the way, and feel like you really "get" him, even when noone else in the movie seems to. seth rogen as bromantic best friend: you know this role from rogen, and it fits. angelica huston as his mom: a little more emotional than most of her roles, and that works very well.

regarding the rookie therapist: with all the other "top-notch" surgeons and doctors surrounding the patient, i wondered why the hospital would stick him with a grad student therapist. but maybe this is the way it's done, what do i know. cute back and forth between her and him, though, which didn't wreck the movie.

by the end of the movie, you may be tearing up. or bawling. it's no brian's song, so don't worry about embarrassing yourself excessively, but do be prepared (kleenex, dark glasses). i didn't come out feeling emotionally manipulated, like i did in terms of endearment; it seemed fairly low-key, and entirely genuine.

highly recommended.

the green hornet

seth rogen is the most adorable man in show business. apparently, that doesn't translate well to an action character, though pineapple express made a much stronger argument than the green hornet. (do see pineapple express!)

i went in thinking / hoping this might be good, but it wasn't. it wasn't bad; it just wasn't good. seth rogen plays that seth rogen character, his sidekick wasn't interesting, cameron diaz wasn't onscreen enough, the bad guy wasn't scary (a plot point that was surprisingly on target).

the movie was gadget-heavy, though not compellingly so. 3-D was rarely put to good use, let alone worthy of IMAX-size screening. there were moments of scott pilgrim -esque graphics embedded into the movie, but not done so well, and not done anywhere near enough to being an interruption when they did appear.

wow. i wanted to like it...sorry, can't recommend it.

dvd / on-demand weekend

the mist: interesting combination of the fog, cloverfield, lord of the flies, and whatever else. the alien invaders were mysteriously obscure when they needed to be, and creepily real at other times. the pessimistic ending was fairly poignant, in that these movies rarely have such an outcome.
observe and report: it must be known that i really like seth rogen. that being the case, even a probably-not-so-good movie like this one was still entertaining. though anne faris played that goofy blonde role (again) perfectly (again); and seth knows how to rock 90's sweater-and-gold-chain outfits rather well; this movie was so, SO, not politically correct that it was...funny.
defiance: to be truthful, i was only watching this from the corner of my eye, so i can't really comment on it. interesting enough; like a very earnest (and thus, less entertaining) version of glorious basterds.
the god who wasn't there: (documentary) private (christian) high school graduate goes on a research binge to prove his high school wrong in their attempts to convert children into a fundamentalist christian POV. comes off a bit too self-centered by the end of the movie.