Adventures in the Talkies: 50/50

I had a brief moment at the box office where I almost chose to attend The Lion King in 3-D over 50/50. But then I remembered that a single woman in her mid 30s at a 2:00 pm show would be super creepy, and also something about how I saw The Lion King in 2-D when it was first released and damn it, two dimensions was just fine, what is with the kids today. So I attended 50/50 as planned.

I liked it, overall. It was, as advertised, a comedy(ish) about battling cancer, and while the guy-buddy aspect was great, I think the part I liked most was the equally important development of Adam, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's character, and his relationship with his mother, Diane, played by Anjelica Huston.

There's an early scene in the movie where Diane and Adam's father (who is suffering from Alzheimer's) are coming over to Adam's home for dinner--and to find out that Adam has cancer--and in the ten seconds where Diane is coming up the stairs, she notices chipping paint on the rail and, without missing a beat, offer-demands to call the landlord on Adam's behalf to have it dealt with. Diane's critical eye--the cool way she says "I don't like her" after a nurse leaves the room--and steam-train caretaking nature inform both Adam's reluctance and annoyance at including his mother in his sickness, as well as Adam's own assumption of caretaking duties in his own relationships. I loved Adam's subtle nonverbal reaction when Kyle, Seth Rogen's character, shouts, "Why do you always get involved with selfish bitches?" because as funny and ultimately supportive as Kyle is, he's just another selfish bitch in Adam's life.

Also, semi-related, I think Anjelica Huston is amazing in how she balanced the humor and tears, and her performance reminded me of the scene in The Royal Tenenbaums where Royal tells Etheline he's dying. I have many favorite scenes in TRT, but that is one of my for-real favorites:

I think Joseph Gordon-Leavitt made interesting choices. It seems like it'd be very easy to go broad with the material--young man, working in local public radio, with crass friend and self-absorbed girlfriend, is diagnosed with cancer. But he kept it low-key, building a believable character who was non-demonstrative without seeming cold, angry and frightened without destroying sets and mowing scenery, and charming when he smiled, but not in that 1,000-watt Julia Roberts kind of way.

And Philip Baker Hall was in a sliver of a part as a profanity-inclined elderly gent who becomes Adam's chemo buddy. I think profanity-inclined seniors are always a positive addition to any film.

For pre-film trailers, I saw:
1) Man on a Ledge - just a note to the fine folks who make trailers: don't lead into a heist film setup by showing us Kyra Sedgwick as a hungry reporter and Edward Burns as another reporter (or maybe a cop?) who is also hungry, but also concurrently whiny and aggressively smug. By the time you got to giant diamonds and Ed Harris and Titus Welliver as a uniform and Elizabeth Banks as the negotiator and raining money and another heist to get the diamond that wasn't heisted in the first place, I had long tuned out.

Also, Sam Worthington... that guy's a thing, right? With the ladies and the gay men?

2) Premium Rush - I'm going to quote the talk-to-the-screen lady behind me: oh, I'm going to see me that movie!

Bicycling and fighting crime! Not since Quicksilver, I tell you!

3) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - I believe my feelings about this film are best expressed in spastic, barely contained and coherent interpretive dance...

I don't know why I'm so goofy-psyched about this sequel. I enjoyed the first film and all, but any time I see the trailer, the Ritchie-tastic sequence of the shell popping out of the rifle, Jared Harris talking that beautiful Lane Pryce talk as Moriarity, the promise of Stephen Fry as Mycroft, Robert Downey Jr in garish makeup talking sass... next to The Muppets, there's not a holiday-timeframe film I'm more dedicated to seeing immediately on opening day.

And speaking of Christmas releases, can we talk for a second about Mission Impossible: Ghost in the Machine? I resent being tricked into yet another Mission Impossible. I saw MI2 in the theater about a decade ago--let me check IMDb, yep, 11 years ago--and I can't tell you how fucking terrible and annoying it was to be stuck with the sensation that I was lovingly applying extra layers to Tom Cruise's massive ego for 2+ hours. I may have see MI3, but I refuse to remember anything about it, because I'm still so pissed about MI2. Ugh, so stupid. Do you remember that scene where he and Thandie Newton are making longing eye contact in the middle of a slowed-down whirly chase scene that went on for about five minutes too long? Of course you do, because it encapsulated all that was aggravating and overblown-ina-bad-way about the film. I think the original movie was replaced in my heart long ago by the Bourne series. I can get my explosions and car chases and labyrinthine conspiracies without being beset by Cruise's desperate need to be in my face consistently and thoroughly.

And yet... while he's just as beady-eyed and effortfully "bad" "ass" in the Ghost Dad trailer, I'm kinda feeling the whole giant tower, jumping-and-running-and-punching-Jeremy Renner thing. Like, if Duse wants to go see something dumb and loud the day after Christmas, I could be talked into it.

What is that? Does Cruise have some kind of voodoo powers?