Don Jon

Posted on September 26, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt has made a remarkably assured debut as writer/director, putting him in the front ranks of today’s filmmakers. Gordon-Levitt also plays the lead role, Jon, a New Jersey guy with a high and tight haircut and a spare and immaculate apartment decorated in gray and black. He reels off the list of things he cares about: his body (for working out), his car (for driving and looking cool), his boys (friends), his girls (for sex), his church (for confession), his family (for Sunday dinners), and porn (you know what that is for). Those are the parameters of his life, and that seems fine to him because he knows who he is and how things fit together. The title is a reference to the legendary libertine who symbolizes all men who seduce many women without forming any attachments to them.

Jon and his friends like to go to the club and rank the ladies, an endlessly fascinating conversation about various body parts and the optimal shapes and proportions of each. Sex with those ladies is primarily a contest between the men, and Jon is by far the leader. His success with nines and “dimes” (a ten) is about status and competition, and he tells us that he prefers pornography to sex with real girls. One night, Jon sees a solid dime named Barbara (Scarlett Johansson). For the first time, he becomes involved with a woman who is more than a one-night stand and he has to earn her affection. She has her own ideas of what a “dime” equivalent looks like, and he finds himself going to romantic comedy movies and taking a community college class. He even brings her home to meet his family, where she gets a very enthusiastic response from his parents (a wonderful Glenne Headley and Tony Danza).

And then things get more complicated. Gordon-Levitt has crafted a whip-smart, richly cinematic film with some very funny moments and a lot of heart. He makes it clear that Jon is not the only one who is numbing his feelings. His father is more absorbed in watching the football games than in talking to his family and Barbara’s aspirations are almost as based on fantasy as the images Jon connects to online. Watch how the settings help tell the story, and style of the movie changes as Jon goes from the techno-pumping macho world of his friends to the more romantic, orchestral environment of dating. And then it shifts again as other changes happen. Keep an eye on Jon’s sister, played by the superb Brie Larson (“The Spectacular Now,” “Short Term 12”), who appears to be as addicted to her devices as Jon, never saying a word to her family as she stares into her phone, texting back and forth. She will make it clear that she has been more connected to what is going on with the people she loves than anyone else in the film. And Julianne Moore gives an earthy but sensitive performance as a classmate of Jon’s who surprises and disconcerts him with her honesty.

Seeing Jon begin to learn to interact with the world with feelings, not just sensations, is a pleasure. But seeing one of today’s best young actors bloom into one of tomorrow’s best young filmmakers is even greater.

Parents should know that this movie is about a young man who is addicted to pornography. It includes very explicit sexual references and situations, nudity, very strong and crude language, drinking, and drugs.

Family discussion: How did other characters aside from Jon find ways to avoid their feelings? How did Joseph Gordon-Levitt use different film-making styles to show the different moods of his time with his friends, with Barbara, and with Esther?

If you like this, try: “Thanks for Sharing” and some of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s other films like “Brick” and “Mysterious Skin”

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Short Term 12

Posted on August 23, 2013 at 9:37 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and brief sexuality
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drug references
Violence/ Scariness:	Tense confrontations, references to abuse, suicide attempt
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 23, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	January 17, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00EOAHDT8

There is a look in the eyes of those who have seen the very worst that can happen. Those who no longer have the blessing of living in denial. Those who know, not just in their heads but in their souls, that the innocent can be hurt by those they trust, that their bodies, their hearts, and even their minds can be damaged in ways that leave them shattered, convinced that they will always be alone and outside the magic circle everyone else seems to know how to stay inside. Then there are those rare souls who have traveled all the way to the end of the road of no expectations but hold on to their sense of humanity by using what they have experienced to help others. The look in their eyes is tired, but not entirely closed off from the world. As T.S. Eliot said in “Ash Wednesday,” the goal must be “to care and not to care.”

The gifted actor Brie Larson captures that look in “Short Term 12,” a wise and heartfelt new film about the staff at a facility for abused, neglected, and damaged teenagers. It has the intimacy of a documentary so that the solid, assured narrative structure sneaks up on you. This assured feature from writer/director Destin Cretton shows that kind of understanding behind the camera as well.

Larson plays the aptly named Grace. She is not a therapist or a doctor. She has a more important credential, as we will learn. Her job is to help create a space that makes the kids who have no reason to trust anyone can feel safe, despite the drab institutional setting, the almost non-existent budget, the overworked professionals, and the rules that restrict them. How can you make someone feel safe when the state will throw them out with no support after 12 months or when they turn 18? How do you not give up when you see this kind of damage every day? Can you find yourself in helping others? Can you hide from yourself there?

Grace lives with her co-worker, Mason (“Newsroom’s” John Gallagher Jr., authentically disheveled), who loves her deeply but is troubled that she cannot truly open up to him. Remi Malek has the thankless role of the newbie who gives the other characters the chance to provide some exposition and show us that good intentions are not enough. But Cretton handles even this character with sympathy and humanity. Then there are the residents, including Marcus (Keith Stanfield), who is about to turn 18 and leave the only home he knows, and a new arrival, Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), who is furious and hostile.

Beautifully observed scenes open these characters up to us, with moments of small-g grace that are more heart-wrenching than the traumatic revelations. They seem to bloom on screen thanks to sensitive writing and gorgeously heartfelt performances. Birthday cards. An anniversary tribute. A look of resignation, recognition, and exhilaration as an emergency, but a relatively and reassuringly solvable one, comes up. A broken teenager begins to heal. And a broken adult begins to acknowledge that helping others cannot be enough unless she does what she asks from them, and what Cretton does before our eyes: to tell the truth.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong language, sexual references and situations, discussion of very severe parental abuse including sexual molestation, and frank discussion of family dysfunction and abuse

Family discussion: What do you learn about Mason from his family party? Why is the character named Grace?

If you like this, try: “Manic” and “The United States of Leland”

MVP of the Month: Brie Larson

Posted on August 17, 2013 at 3:52 pm

I had the great pleasure of speaking to Brie Larson in 2006 about her film, “Hoot,” and I thought she was terrific, both in person and in the film. Last week, I had the even greater pleasure of seeing her in three outstanding new independent films. In “The Spectacular Now,” she plays the popular high school girl who breaks up with the main character but acknowledges that he’ll “always be my favorite ex-boyfriend.” She has just one line in Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s “Don Jon,” but it shows that throughout all the other scenes where she was texting as her family argued all around her she was paying better attention to what was going on than any of them. And she stars in the heart-wrenching “Short Term 12” as a sympathetic aide in a facility for abused and neglected teenagers who is still struggling with her own history of abuse. Larson was funny, smart, and very real in the wild comedy “21 Jump Street,” and it is great to see her get a chance to explore a wider range of characters. Up ahead, “Basimati Blues” with Donald Sutherland and Tyne Daly and “Relanxious” with Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis. Can’t wait.

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21 Jump Street

Posted on March 15, 2012 at 6:30 pm

The record on movie versions of decades-old television shows is not a pretty one. I call them lunchbox movies because I can envision the pitch meeting with the young studio executive smiling, “Oh, I had the lunchbox for that show! It was my favorite! Yes, I’d love to do a movie version of ‘SWAT!'” For every “Charlie’s Angels,” there are a half-dozen, well, “Charlie’s Angels 2,” not to mention — please, don’t mention — “Land of the Lost,” “Bewitched,” “The Wild, Wild West,” “”The Dukes of Hazard,” “The Avengers,” “Inspector Gadget,” “I Spy,” “My Favorite Martian,” and “Starsky and Hutch.” Whether you play it straight or skewed, it’s very difficult to catch lightning in a bottle, and even harder the second time. So it’s a relief and a pleasure to report that “21 Jump Street” is a lot of fun. It is a wild comedy version of the 1987-91 police drama starring Johnny Depp, about young-looking cops who go undercover in high schools.

Channing Tatum (Jenko) and the newly slimmed-down Jonah Hill (Schmidt) star as the undercover cops. In high school, Tatum’s character was cool and Hill’s character was a nerd. But they become friends at the police academy and are made partners after graduation. “I thought there’d be more car chases and explosions,” Jenko says as they ride their constabulary but not at all exciting bicycles on beach patrol. When they mess up their first arrest by forgetting to read the perp his Miranda rights, they are sent to 21 Jump Street, an abandoned church that is the headquarters for the high school infiltration operation headed by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube), a pepperpot who endearingly owns up to embracing his stereotype and hilariously explains that their program is nothing but recycling a cancelled idea. Jenko and Schmidt are assigned to play brothers to track down the source of a very powerful and dangerous new hallucinogen that has already killed one boy. Jenko will be the cool jock to find the purchasers of the drug and Schmidt will be the science nerd to find the manufacturer — and they will have to move in with Schmidt’s doting but smothering parents.

And of course everything goes wrong.

They are no better at remembering their fake identities than they are at remembering the Miranda warnings. Jenko ends up having to play the brainiac and Schmidt has to be the jock who takes drama class. And in one of the script’s shrewdest and funniest observations, the seven years since they were in high school, a lot has changed. It isn’t just that calling a girl on a cell instead of texting is so old school she thinks it must be coming from one of her parents’ friends. The fundamental rules they both thought they understood about what makes someone cool like the iconography of one-strapping vs. two-strapping the backpack and the bedrock divisions of high school phylum, genus, status, and species seem to have moved or disappeared. For Jenko and Schmidt, figuring out high school is an even more daunting mystery than tracking down the drug dealers.

Tatum, best known for syrupy romances and action movies, turns out to have crackerjack comic timing and Brie Larson and Dave Franco are standouts as students who exemplify the boundary-crossing of the current generation of high school students. She’s cool and does drama — and Larson has a warmth, wit, sweetness, and sparkle that is utterly winning. He’s all about protecting the environment and has an entrepreneurial side that isn’t always legal. And it is fun to see Franco showing off the off-beat vibe he is so good at in the Funny or Die videos with his brother James. The strong supporting cast includes cameos from some “21 Jump Street” original stars and the inevitable Rob Riggle doing his inevitable obnoxious shtick. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (the witty “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”) maintain a strong balance between action and comedy and keep things energetic with big scenes that include an out-of-control teen party and the prom. They also balance appreciation for the original series with a very contemporary sensibility. At the end they make it clear that everyone is up for a sequel and I found I was, too.

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