A New Jersey guy dedicated to his family, friends, and church, develops unrealistic expectations from watching porn and works to find happiness and intimacy with his potential true love.
Director:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Stars:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt,
Scarlett Johansson,
Julianne Moore
An adventurous mountain climber becomes trapped under a boulder while canyoneering alone near Moab, Utah and resorts to desperate measures in order to survive.
For fun-loving party animal Ben Stone, the last thing he ever expected was for his one-night stand to show up on his doorstep eight weeks later to tell him she's pregnant with his child.
After a stint in a mental institution, former teacher Pat Solitano moves back in with his parents and tries to reconcile with his ex-wife. Things get more challenging when Pat meets Tiffany, a mysterious girl with problems of her own.
Director:
David O. Russell
Stars:
Bradley Cooper,
Jennifer Lawrence,
Robert De Niro
Adam is a 27 year old writer of radio programs and is diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer. With the help of his best friend, his mother, and a young therapist at the cancer center, Adam learns what and who the most important things in his life are.Written by
Calikeane
While being interviewed by Terry Gross on her National Public Radio program "Fresh Air," Will Reiser said that he gave Adam's character a job at a Seattle NPR station because Reiser is a big fan of NPR, but he had not ever donated any money to any of their pledge drives. See more »
Kyle:
[to Adam, the night before Adam's surgery]
Driving! That's what you want to do? That's your "Make A Wish"? To drive? We could be having sex with hookers while skydiving, and instead you want to do something I learned to do when I was fifteen!
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Yellow Ledbetter
Written by Jeff Ament (as Jeffrey Ament), Mike McCready (as Michael McCready) and Eddie Vedder
Performed by Pearl Jam
Courtesy of Epic Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing See more »
How does a filmmaker combine humor and drama in a story about a 27 year old man diagnosed with cancer? Easy: Just give them equal measure with the title 50/50 -- light treatment of a dark subject.
Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has to deal not only with his own emotions when he is diagnosed, but also those of a close friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen), an inveterate partier and ribald quipper, and his chronically worrisome mother (Anjelica Huston). Losing his girlfriend, Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) along the way adds to the potential downbeat.
Yet director Jonathan Levine and writer Will Reiser keep it all as upbeat as possible, not in small part due to Rogen's constantly funny chatter, which comes at just the right times as the plot gets heavy with cancer surviving techniques (the film turns out to show the way to battle: with humor).
Of course, Rogen has had training playing a similar role in Funny People with Adam Sandler. No one plays a weed-smoking buddy better than he. Gordon-Levitt is also an actor who can just about better than anyone else play the soulful, endearing, slow-moving romantic as he did in (500) Days. As a cancer victim, he engages the audience in observation of a vulnerable hero, who fights with a serenity and equanimity that could be a model for those wishing to survive and those who wish to help.
50/50 is a comedy with compassion, a distant cousin to the prevalent bromances that rarely treat the support men give each other in times of real danger. Usually it's vacuous women who supply that danger and significant support. Hooray for the men this time.
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How does a filmmaker combine humor and drama in a story about a 27 year old man diagnosed with cancer? Easy: Just give them equal measure with the title 50/50 -- light treatment of a dark subject.
Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has to deal not only with his own emotions when he is diagnosed, but also those of a close friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen), an inveterate partier and ribald quipper, and his chronically worrisome mother (Anjelica Huston). Losing his girlfriend, Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) along the way adds to the potential downbeat.
Yet director Jonathan Levine and writer Will Reiser keep it all as upbeat as possible, not in small part due to Rogen's constantly funny chatter, which comes at just the right times as the plot gets heavy with cancer surviving techniques (the film turns out to show the way to battle: with humor).
Of course, Rogen has had training playing a similar role in Funny People with Adam Sandler. No one plays a weed-smoking buddy better than he. Gordon-Levitt is also an actor who can just about better than anyone else play the soulful, endearing, slow-moving romantic as he did in (500) Days. As a cancer victim, he engages the audience in observation of a vulnerable hero, who fights with a serenity and equanimity that could be a model for those wishing to survive and those who wish to help.
50/50 is a comedy with compassion, a distant cousin to the prevalent bromances that rarely treat the support men give each other in times of real danger. Usually it's vacuous women who supply that danger and significant support. Hooray for the men this time.