Sanjay's Super Team

I have a confession to make. Last weekend I movie hopped. I was with my boyfriend and we went to see The Night Before starring Seth Rogan and Joseph Gordon Levitt. Now don't get me wrong, that movie was phenomenal. Classic raunchy Christmas comedy, as anything would be with Seth Rogan in it. When the movie ended, it was only 7pm and right next door was The Good Dinosaur (Disney Pixar's newest movie) playing at 7:20. We decided to pop in, sit in the back and enjoy the easygoing film. The Good Dinosaur was also a great movie. I didn't last through the whole thing though, as sitting for 5 hours straight isn't really a hobby of mine. The best part of this whole movie-going experience however, was the Disney short at the beginning of our second feature. It's been all talked up and when it came on the screen, I couldn't have been more excited.

This Disney short is titled Sanjay's Super Team. Sanjay's Super Team leads Disney movies in a new direction. This is what I believe to be, the first time that Disney has covered religious topics in one of its films, intentionally and obviously that is at least. This story documents the bond between an Indian boy and his father. They are Hindu, and therefore Sanjay's father follows the ritual of meditation. He tries to teach Sanjay the importance of meditation, but Sanjay is preoccupied with his toys, coloring and television. However, once Sanjay sits down to meditate with his father, he accidentally extinguishes the oil lamp. As a consequence, he is a taken on a spiritual journey and meets the Hindu gods. Once he comes back into reality, his father is upset because he feels like he wasn't able to get through to his son. However, once Sanjay goes back to coloring, he draws a picture of the gods and presents it to his father. His father is ecstatic and we witness a major bond between the two. This is based off of a true story. Once again, Disney Pixar fails to disappoint!

Another Movie About Sex

Over Fall break, I saw the movie Don Jon, and I have to say, I wasn't too impressed. This movie was written by Joseph Gordon Levitt and depicts a character who is addicted to porn and ultimately prefers pornography over sex. Although there is definitely character development, I found some serious plot holes in this film. For example, Scarlett Johansson's character, Barbara is greatly emphasized in the beginning of the movie and the trailer, but by the end she is somewhat irrelevant to the plot line as a whole. From their initial introduction, Jon feels very attracted to her in the way that he has never been to anyone before. She represents a beautiful, seductive girl that everyone thinks is perfect for him (especially his family). Although he is falling in love with her, he still finds pornography to be more fulfilling. He tries to quit, but can't bring himself to do it. Ultimately, Barbara catches him watching pornography and accuses him of being addicted. They eventually break up, and that's the end of that. Totally independent of his situation with Barbara, Don starts talking to an older women in his night class named Esther (Julianne Moore).

Esther is very different from Barbara, as when she catches Jon watching porn on his phone, she surprises him with a 70s porn DVD during their next class. They start to hit it off and the relationship he forms with her is very different from his relationship with Barbara. After getting to know her and spending more time with her, he learns that Esther lost her son and husband in a car accident. She explains to him that the reason he is so addicted to porn over sex is because it is a one-sided affair. He has to be willing to let go with another person to let it be a two sided street. Therefore, because they are both somewhat disconnected, they form a pretty strong relationship. The other problem I had with this movie however, is that there doesn't really seem to be a conclusion in the end. It is never clarified if Jon gets over his addiction to sex or if he is just okay with it and continues to date Esther. Ultimately, I don't really think this movie has much of a point. The progression is somewhat disoriented and Esther isn't introduced until about halfway through the film. The two girls are completely unrelated and I'm not sure if or how they are supposed to connect. By the end of the film, Jon realizes some things about himself from Esther, but he doesn't really change as a person. I guess that's the biggest point I got out of it, that Esther accepts him for who he is, while Barbara was trying to change him. He says from the very beginning, "there are only a few things I really care about in life: my body, my pad, my ride, my family, my church, my boys, my girls and my porn."

Hammet in High School

When I was in high school I really loved mystery movies and noir films. Although it's been a while since I have watched any, I wanted to see if the genre had anything new to offer. I went on Netflix and saw that "Brick" was on, and although i had seen it before five years ago, I wanted to check it out again to see why it did not really stick with me the first time.

The movie was directed by Rian Johnson, who has recently received attention because of his sci-fi thriller "Looper." "Brick" stars Joseph Gordon Levitt, in one of his first break out indie roles, as Brendan Frye,  a high school outcast who discovers that his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emile DeRavin), has gone missing. Although it is a high school movie, the characters talk as if they are in a 1940s detective movie. With the help of his friend Brain (Matt O'Leary), Brendan gets involved with the drug underworld of his high school, while also dealing with jocks, stoners, the Vice Principal who acts like the chief of police to Brendan's Philip Marlowe.

The movie has beautiful cinematography and the music helps create tension in the most pivotal, tense scenes. The script, although sometimes hard to follow, creates a great mystery thriller from beginning to end. Seeing it a second time, I think I understood the characters' motivations more and how everything fit together. I really think its one of the more underrated movies to come out in the last decade and should not be overlooked by film lovers just because of the high school setting.

 I highly recommend this movie if you like noir, off beat high school movies, or Joseph Gordon Levitt.

50/50 Beats the Odds

This past weekend I went and took a chance on the serious, but comical 50/50, starring two of my favorite actors in Hollywood—Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogan.

The film, based on a true story is about how the lives of two twenty-something best friends change when one of them, Adam (Gordon-Levitt’s character) finds out he has spinal cancer and has a 50/50 chance of surviving. What follows after Adam’s diagnosis is a perfect balance of the upsetting realities of cancer as well as the amusing quirks of every day life—from chemotherapy to smoking medical marijuana as well as a troubling relationship with his girlfriend and trying to use cancer as a pick-up line to get girls.

While Adam struggles with the relationships with his mother, played by Anejlica Huston and the one with his girlfriend, Rachael, played by Bryce Dallas Howard—he forms a comforting friendship with his young and unconventional therapist, Katherine, played by the Oscar-nominated actress, Anna Kendrick.

Throughout his treatment, Adam transforms from a hesitant and soft-spoken young man into a stronger and reassured person who actively fights for his life. His best friend, Kyle, played by Rogan provides much of the humor in the film, and even through his crazy shenanigans, he is consistently there for Adam from the very beginning--making sure that his best friend kicks the cancer's ass.



The film was extraordinarily written (by Will Reiser who the story is based on)—capturing the difficulties of dealing with an illness while maintaining a light-heartedness humor that comes along with life. The characters were already three-dimensional but were really brought to life on the screen by the wonderful cast.

50/50 is a refreshing new comedy that did not disappoint, but rather pleasantly surprised me.

Everyone should take a chance and check it out.

8 1/2

I was really confused after watching 8 1/2, but after reading the lecture I came to appreciate Fellini's work. I gained another perspective about movies like these which change the world of film making. The way the movie is formatted made me feel like I was in a dream. It was hard to tell the difference between reality and dreams. Fellini succeeds in creating a world in which the inner conflicts of the main character crash with his real life by the use of flashbacks and dream sequences. This takes more in depth with the essence of this character. It think was really interesting to see the way Fellini portrayed the inner conscience of a character. Putting it in context with film history, the use of stream of consciousness in this movie is really innovative. It revolutionized the way stories were told in a movie, from just watching the action, to actually get into the character's through symbolism camera movements, and editing techniques. One of the examples I would like to use to show the way Fellini's technique can bring the audience inside the character's head is in the movie "American Beauty":



We see that by breaking the continuity of the movie, the desires of this character are revealed to us. This other example from the movie "500 Days of Summer" shows us the state of emotion of Joseph Gordon Levitt's character by including a dance sequence in what in real life would be this character only walking to work.



I think it is really cool that films can make people accept these conventionalities. It is also pretty cool that we can break some of the rules in film to innovate the storytelling of a story.