One might be able to argue that Dane Cook or Nickelback’s success is funny, but one of the big taboos in comedy is cancer. You typically don’t see much humor derived from an ailment that affects millions each year. Screenwriter Will Reiser though effectively manages to take the topic of cancer and turn it into a honest, genuine, and surprisingly funny look on the craziness surrounding an already terrible predicament in 50/50.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, essentially a stand-in for Reiser, who learns he has a rare form of cancer along his spine in the peak of his life. Seth Rogen, from reports who basically plays himself as he did to Reiser, is the supportive, opportunistic, and (of course) foul-mouthed friend to help along the way. We also meet Adam’s super-supportive girlfriend Rachel (Bryce Dallas Howard), his overbearing mother (Anjelica Huston), and his new-to-the-field therapist (Anna Kendrick) as they try and support Adam though the diagnosis, treatment, and aftermath.

While the previews mostly portrayed this film as more comedic in tone, 50/50 is primarily a drama with a sprinkling of comedy, usually courtesy of Rogen. There is only so much light you can make of a film about a debilitating illness without it coming across as inappropriate or crass. Fortunately, Reiser’s script walks a pretty fine line between making a mockery of the suffering of millions and taking what comes from life in stride. The film succeeds on this front as it is not a heavy-handed “live your life to the fullest” affair but also addresses the hardship that comes with the plights of Adam’s fellow cancer buddies played by Philip Baker Hall and Trashcan Man Matt Frewer.

Not many actors can pull of such a varied performance as Gordon-Levitt did as he hits every stage of the process in perfect form with scenes filled with joy, anger or grief and some all combined together. I would say it is an award-worthy performance but apparently the powers that be do not agree. The rest of the actors merely revolve around Adam in some shape or form with Rogen not breaking too much new ground and Kendrick playing the same young and sensitive, yet inexperienced role that she has in other films. Huston in minimal screentime had quite an impact as the mother that Adam purposefully distances himself from yet relies on when everything comes down to the wire.

Director Jonathan Levine takes what you would anticipate being an ensemble effort and focuses superbly on Adam and his struggle. From the first diagnosis when the “State University” doctor remarks that his cancer is quite interesting because it is rare and yada yada yada, Levine pulls back and focuses solely on the ear of the patient as he tries to comprehend the words being causally tossed at him. We follow Adam throughout the entire ordeal as he has his first chemotherapy, gets high on weed-laced macaroons, and comes to terms with the probable outcome that he will die. The emphasis on Adam and the events in his life during his treatment put you in the mindset of someone in that situation. It is not a joyous, “to hell with rules” mindset but one of reason, despair, and sorrow.

On one hand, 50/50 is not a feel-good movie as it evokes many emotions that most (including myself) would disregard while watching a film. But it is not only a strong movie off the back of Gordon-Levitt’s great performance, but also one that can help you see the bright side in even the worst situation.

You might have noticed that it was over a year ago that I reviewed the first and third parts of the Twilight soap opera, err … saga, but not this one. That isn’t by accident nor is it entirely due to my extreme laziness. As much as I kind of liked Eclipse and was sort of okay with Twilight, this movie did absolutely nothing for me to the extent that I wished to rewatch and review it. Yet, the gap in reviews for the series has constantly bugged me and with a forthcoming review for the newest installment (hopefully not by myself), I figured I would suffer for the loyal fan or two that we still have and watch New Moon. And I hate myself for it.

Look, I know that the first movie was nothing great or special to the population at large (excepting certain groups of course). The dialogue is trite, the acting is not very good (or downright horrid, K-Stew!), and it is merely an inconsequential teenage love affair that happens to feature “vampires.” Yet, even with all of that going against it, Twilight is probably close to ranking as a guilty pleasure just because I love the cinematography and the music. Oh, and Billy Burke. He’s pretty awesome too. Yet, the producers of New Moon seemed to extract from my dreams what I liked about the first and exclude those from this film because … hey, this isn’t a series for me.

The stupid teenage angst is still front-and-center with the awkwardly non-descript Bella (Kristen Stewart) smitten with her “vampire” beau Edward (Robert Pattinson) to the detriment of everyone else in her life. On her birthday, she attends a celebration of sorts at the Cullens’ which threatens to turn interesting after she gets a papercut and blood-thirsty Jasper lunges after her. Sadly, he does not succeed and Bella is still breathing afterwards. In turn, Edward decides that she is in danger around them and the vampire clan move off to sunny southern California or wherever leaving her behind. She fills the Edward-shaped void in her life with Jacob (Taylor Lautner) since he’s around, young, naive, and has a pretty nice six-pack if I do say so.

Imagine Bella’s heartbreak (!) when Jacob abandons her to run around half-naked with a bunch of other guys in the woods. I mean, it’s not like she’s bothered to cultivate any other emotional connections with anyone else other than a vampire and a shape-shifting wolf boy. So anyways, Jacob alludes to Edward that Bella is dead to which the distraught Edward decides to out himself as a vampire to provoke some the Godfather mafia of the vampire world. Oh, and there’s a few fleeting scenes of Victoria coming back to Forks to kill Bella but that makes up no more than ten minutes or so of this unbearably long film.

Replacing Catherine Hardwicke in the director’s chair this go-around is Chris Weitz, who is competent enough but has nowhere near the skill to make me remotely care about these stock characters and asinine situations. Or at least, he has nothing to distract me from them. Even worse though is the script from Melissa Rosenberg, who I can’t really fault based on the source material, because … nothing freakin’ happens other than Bella being a tease to Jacob and pouting over Edward. You could say the same thing about the first in which the main threat didn’t meet the core cast until the final twenty minutes or so but at least there was a threat. As I mentioned, Victoria and the other guy appear but their appearances are very brief and never really consequential to the story. Instead, we are treated to Bella acting like a damn fool just to have hallucinations of Edward saying “Bitch, please!” or something. And don’t get me started on the lazy and completely inept narration as Bella emails Alice at a non-functional address as a poor attempt to give her any sort of depth.

The final act if you can call it that is nothing more than the movie trying to interject some sense of tension or tragedy into the story. It’s sad that I don’t really care if Edward kills himself or Bella dies so that didn’t really register and it served more as (from what I hear) set up for following stories than anything noteworthy here. It was quite funny though when head vampy Aro (Michael Sheen) looks into Bella’s thoughts and remarks “I see nothing” since it perfectly describes Bella as a character who is defined only by whoever she happens to be around at the time. K-Stew’s performance doesn’t help as she’s just as frustratingly bad as the first film. I’ve seen Adventureland at least and know that she is capable of more but this character isn’t helping her portfolio. Pattinson is barely in the movie and Lautner swings from bad to decent pretty easily. And there is a severe lack of both Billy Burke and Anna Kendrick this time around so no acting points for you movie!

As I said, pretty much anything that I could give faint praise to the first film for has been left out here. Other than Bella and Jacob’s bonding sessions and the revelation that Jacob’s crew are werewolf-things, there is nothing necessary in this story. The Cullens leave town but return before the end, Edward ditches Bella but then asks her to marry him in the final seconds, and Victoria is still out for Bella’s blood when it’s all said and done. If you were to watch just the first and third films, there would be very little questions or confusion because this film is so useless. I can’t quite give it the crap category solely for the fact that my crap-o-meter is probably out of whack still from Halloween: Resurrection but this is easily the worst film in the franchise thus far. That should be damning enough.

Film series typically do not get better over time. I could point to any collection of recurring films but you can draw your own examples of multiple movies that fall victim to the effect of diminishing results. The Twilight series is possibly an exception as it is based on a series of books by a first-time author, which as you might be able to attest from reading this site, who could only get better over time.

The story of Eclipse falls within the same awkward teenage love-fest between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, a person’s person and a vampire respectively. After the events of the last film, Edward and Bella are back together while Jacob is immersing himself in whatever shape-shifter tribes do. Whereas this would be an appropriate summary for the film if it were in the same vein as the last two, something else actually happens other than Bella lusting for Edward and/or Jacob and the convoluted love triangle between them. There seems to be some disturbing behavior happening in nearby Seattle with the rising of a vampire army, the reasons of which are supposed to be unknown but really are apparent if you pay attention. With the army heading for Forks, the Cullens and the wolfish tribe work together to battle them.

The primary complaint that I, and many others, can fault the Twilight series for is the importance of an otherwise inconsequential teenage relationship drama taking center stage in a story about freaking vampires! In Eclipse however, there is an actual plot other than horny young adults and it is in fact quite good. Other than the threat of physical violence from the aforementioned vampire army, Bella has been elevated into a character that actually has thoughts of her own to deal with the consequences of turning into a vampire while in the midst of a love struggle. As such, the conflict between Edward and Jacob seems a bit more serious this go around as time grows short with regards to Bella’s future.

In fact, this is more of a grown-up film compared to the previous two. Here we see and learn of the consequences of Bella’s decision to join the vampire clan and the impacts it will have on her friends and family. Compared to previously, Bella is not merely contained within a fantasy with her actions as she is told the real consequences of her decision. This counters greatly to the graduation speech given by the lovely Anna Kendrick which embraces the gift of mistakes and bad decisions. Bella instead has chosen with reservations a future to which there is no turning back from much to the chagrin of others.

With a grown-up movie comes a grown-up director (not to say anything about the ages or maturity of the previous two directors) as David Slade comes to rescue the material from the ire of cinematic fans everywhere. While it is still painfully present, the Bella/Edward/Jacob cluster takes a back seat for a good portion of the film as the threat of the vampire army ramps up as compared to the last film where almost nothing went on outside of the love triangle. The bad vampire clan is real and dangerous and that escalates the story in this film far beyond what the previous movies could have accomplished with just a trio of misfit blood-suckers. I was a bit disappointed that this element of the story was not more front and center as the previews may have otherwise lead us to believe. Regardless, these tense moments of actual fear as the vampires grow in numbers and make their way to our protagonists, while seemingly minimal in the actual film, are the best this series has offered in the form of real horror and conflict. The score by Howard Shore (yeah, of Se7en) also has more gravitas than previously making this seem like more of a typical film, less of a teenage girl’s fantasy.

In an about-face, almost everything has improved in this film over the previous installments. While the previously mentioned outside threat has a great deal to do with this, the existing characters are expanded in ways not realized before. Previously a source of my distaste for the franchise, Kristen Stewart has either aged quite a bit in the past two years or grown more accustomed to the character as she delivers a fairly good performance as Bella. Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, while I did not have a problem with them before, have settled into their characters leading to much less awkward moments other than what the script calls for. Even a chunk of the largely ignored supporting cast, especially Jackson Rathbone and Nikki Reed as the prime examples, are given far more weight in the story than they were previously afforded. Even while Billy Burke, sidelined from the last film, is back with a vengeance as one of the sources of humor, there are other moments of self-reflection from the characters that are worth a chuckle.

For all the praise I can give this movie about its momentum beyond a romance saga, there are plenty of reasons to deny me from doing so. While the romance is somewhat sidelined here, when it does appear, it runs on the field in an inappropriate display forcing the game to be significantly delayed. The most obviously scene to this effect is while Jacob, Edward, and Bella are camping at the top of a mountain in snowy terrain and Jacob is compelled to cuddle with Bella to preserve her body temperature. While this is going on Jacob and Edward talk man-to-man about who Bella really loves and why. In short bursts, this sort of thing is tolerable but this scene goes on approximately a billion times too long as the two Alpha-males argue over who is better for Bella. (Sigh) Movie, you almost had it right.

So, Eclipse is not a perfect movie. If you want a love story, then watch a romance. If you want a horror movie, then watch a slasher. Eclipse is a remarkably good combination of all the things a typical rom-com has with the trappings of a decent horror flick. If this forward momentum keeps up, I have somewhat high hopes for the next two installments.

Twilight is one of only a few movies that I like in spite of the underlying story. As I am not a seventeen-year-old girl or a woman-of-a-certain-age or any other female in between, the bulk of the movie just does not appeal to me in the same fashion as other forbidden-romance movies do not. I watch movies to see things I cannot see otherwise and an angst-ridden love story can be found many times over without the fawning of females or the ire of everyone else in the middle.

If you have not been living under a rock, you might know that the Twilight series is a very divisive body of work. The series of novels feature Bella Swan, a recent transplate from sunny Phoenix to rainy Washington state, as she attempts to integrate while smitten with a boy from a local clan of vampires. The main point of contention for many is this classification of the Cullen family as vampires as they bear only slight resemblance to the bloodsuckers of old. These beings are not killed by sunlight or silver, they do not have visible fangs, but apparently they ooze sex appeal as most everyone with female bits thinks Robert Pattinson walks on the water reserved solely for the gorgeous.

The changes in the vampiric behavior does not bother me as much as vampires are not the focus of the movie. The Cullens could really be lepers, circus-midgets, or the mutant family from The Hills Have Eyes and it does not change the underlying structure of the film which is primarily concerned with the budding relationship between Bella and Edward, her sparkling vampire beau. Just like other classic characters, Bella and Edward are determined to be together but destined to be apart due to their … differences. In and of itself, this is a fine plot for a movie but that means that just like many other sappy romance movies (of which I will not deny that I have no interest in), very little happens. We see as Bella fawns over Edward, Edward pulls away from Bella, Edward rescues Bella, Bella embraces Edward and his differences. Again, there is nothing here that you have not seen in another romance movie between two people from different sides of the tracks.

Now I will say there are elements of this movie that I like. Regardless of the fact that he has been thrust upon a pedestal by millions of fans everywhere, Pattinson does a pretty decent job with the character of Edward, heavy makeup job aside. From his glares and his withdrawn personality, you can feel the sense that Edward is either a really disturbed boy or a pseudo-vampire running in the woods hunting elk or water buffalo or whatever. But, as much as she may be the most perfect actress for Bella, Kristen Stewart did not fare as well as her other cast mates here. While I am willing to accept that the character is written with weird looks and stuttering, Stewart delivered one of the most awkward and cringe-inducing performances I have seen in a professional film.

The other members of the Cullen pride do well to sell the absurdity of the existence of vampires while still embracing the fresh-blooded with Peter Facinelli, Ashley Greene, and Nikki Reed all having similar, somewhat off, qualities as they try to pass as normal. Of the real normal characters, my Up In the Air favorite Anna Kendrick is entertaining as the somewhat vapid best friend while Billy Burke threatens to steal the show as the obtuse, yet endearing father to Bella. Even the real vampires are cast well to the point that they look and act dangerous but I would have much preferred if their introduction to the core cast was not in the final thirty minutes of the film. This is somewhat rectified in the later stories but the random thrust of action-like characters in this lovey-dovey romance story was quite awkward even if they did lead to a fairly satisfying finale.

While it is unfortunate that director Catherine Hardwicke could not have infused a bit more life into the romance angle (as that does take up about two-thirds of the film), she certainly created a distinct looking movie with an almost depressive atmosphere in this rainy town. I really dug the blue hues that a good portion of the movie is shot in, certainly fitting to a town bombarded with precipitation more than any other in the country. If it were really direct sun rays that killed vampires, Forks would most definitely be the town they would flock to as portrayed here. Also the original music from composer Carter Burwell as well as the random sampling of pop songs from various genres were not only excellent but fit the mood of the film well.

In any case, if you are reading this review you have likely either decided that Twilight is the devil or Twilight is God’s work and my random thoughts will not change much there. But while I was fully expecting to hate this movie, I did not. Story-wise, I was quite ambivalent as this is not my cup of tea in any stretch. But film-wise, I have certainly seen better but seen much, much worse. Surprisingly to some, there are some things to like in Twilight as long as you can get past the emptiness of the story and the sparkliness of the leading villains.

As we had discussed in a previous episode, I had a general distaste for movies that were Best Picture nominees as they seem to be pretentious and boring, much like another George Clooney movie that I did not care for. This movie, much like the director’s previous effort Juno, make me rethink this position but with reservations.

As we are introduced to Clooney’s Ryan Bingham, we are thrust into his world of constant motion. He works for a contracted firm to break the bad news to workers that they are now unemployed. This job requires frequent traveling to the point that a vast majority of his time is spent in airplanes and hotels. He is for all intents and purposes a voluntary vagrant and he enjoys it. This is all threatened when fresh graduate Natalie Keener tries to revolutionize his industry by telecommuting and saving all of the travel expenses. As Ryan takes Natalie on the road to show her what she is getting into, he meets Alex, another wayward traveler with the same penchant for loose relationships in various locales. As Ryan mingles with the two ladies, he begins to question his life choice to stay distant.

This movie worked well on a number of different fronts. I have never refuted the belief that Clooney is not only very charismatic but a very good actor. Even in his other efforts, even if I did not like the overall film, he delivered a good performance (obviously, Batman & Robin excluded). Even here, this is a character that in lesser hands would have been the bad guy as he is fairly dismissive of family and relationships and also fires people for a living. While the effect that this job takes on him is not really addressed (that is reserved for Natalie), he does not come across as the smug, arrogant asshole that we’ve all sat on the other side of a desk with. His counterpart with a vagina Alex, played by Vera Farmiga, is equally compelling but we are left in the dark as to her story or life before she and Ryan connected.

The real standout though was Anna Kendrick playing the young ideologue. I would argue the film is really her character’s as Natalie is the only one out of the three who really have a full character arc. The script, written by director Jason Reitman, almost cleverly sidesteps the weight that the story would normally carry as it is certainly more relevant now than in the mid 2000s when it was developed. But Natalie acts almost as the moral check to Ryan who has been doing this for the better part of a few decades. The thing that I did not expect was the lack of change for any of the other characters. In a way, you could say their futures are ‘Up in the Air’.

In a typical film, you would expect Ryan to abandon his fleeting ways to settle down with his equal. And while ||| SLIGHT SPOILER IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN A MOVIE BEFORE ||| that doesn’t happen, the path the characters take lead you to believe everything will end happily with love and flowers and champagne and all of that standard bullshit. Ryan, who also makes a killing on giving speeches advocating the abandonment of family and relationships and anything that might tie you down, does have a slight change of heart especially as he interacts with Alex and his neglected family. And I must say it is quite touching to see two people so isolated from the world other than on airplanes and hotel lobbies get together essentially throwing out the rules and dictates from the past some-odd years of their lives.

So far, so good right? The direction by Reitman was quite good, proving that just like Juno (I haven’t seen Thank You For Smoking) that he can create fairly realistic characters and situations that are quite entertaining. For a movie that is more or less people conversing and reflecting on their lives and their pasts, the film as a whole was quite enthralling. The problem comes from the same place that I had with Juno. While I can see the obvious benefit to this movie as a whole, after watching it I cannot say I have any real desire to see it ever again. Now, to be fair this does not mean I would actively avoid it. But only if I caught it on a midday TNT screening could I see myself watching this film another time.

It is not a bad film at all. It has good acting, good direction, and hell … even Jason Bateman and Zach Galifianakis. But, like Juno, it does not seem to carry any real weight to it beyond it’s seemingly pretentious acclaim. While I feel it tries, the film does not convey the eye-opening undertones of something like American Beauty. I would fathom this is not a movie destined to be highly regarded in the next decade. Like many others before it, it was a good movie for the time but it will fall out of flavor within the next few years. Jason Reitman will still continue to make great movies. George Clooney will still have a very commanding on-screen presence. And, if she can ever get away from that sparkley-vampire series, Anna Kendrick will be one of the great performers to watch in the coming years. Maybe yet another viewing would change this but I can’t say I am really in a great rush to revisit.