JosephGordon-levitt Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Move over Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb! There's a new Sid and Nancy in town -- Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt!

While next week's release of Harry Potter might be getting the most buzz, there's another flick I (along with a lot of you, I'm sure) am dying to see -- Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt's 500 Days of Summer, the film that our Erik Davis called: "a looker and a feeler and way too easy to fall in love with if you give her a little room to work that magic."

In one scene from the film, which you can see after the jump, Summer compares her relationship with Tom to Sid and Nancy. He's shocked to be compared to Sid, but then she clarifies: No, he's Nancy and she's Sid. So what's the best way to have fun with that and create buzz for the film? Why, to have Zooey play Sid and Joseph play Nancy in a little spoof, of course.

Oh yes, you can watch the comedic wonder for yourself over at MSN's Cinemash. Gordon-Levitt is wonderful as the hot-headed and irrational Nancy Spungen (albeit a bit hairier), while Zooey rocks Sid Vicious. In fact, she plays him so straight-faced that it's quite annoying Ms. Deschanel always gets the same roles. She's definitely more than a manic pixie. Check out some stills from the video below.



Hollywood -- Give these two more great gigs, mmkay?

There's a new Japanese trailer for G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra making the rounds, and while it contains most of the same footage included in the previous trailer, this one does give us our first look at Cobra Commander (aka The Doctor), as played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in all his weird masked glory. In the screencap above, The Doctor is standing next to Destro (Christopher Eccleston) and the two are plotting to destroy the world and whatnot.

Perhaps it's because this Japanese trailer cuts around a lot and doesn't remain too long on any one scene that I'm digging it more than I did the domestic version. I think Paramount should just cut together a trailer featuring only Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow since those are easily the two coolest-looking characters, and their sword fight will most likely become a highlight of the film. I dunno ... maybe this one will surprise us in some ways and let us down in others ... but isn't that what we've come to accept from all of these based-on-an-80s-toy-line-or-comic-book movies? G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra hits theaters on August 7.

Watch the trailer after the jump

Last year, when I interviewed Kimberly Peirce for Stop-Loss, I asked why a relationship played up between Ryan Phillippe's character and Abbie Cornish's in the trailer seemed absent from the final film, not to mention a confrontation between Phillippe and the senator he's driven cross-country to reach coming to a close over the phone and not in person. She explained that about as soon as they had to start editing the film itself, they had to turn over the footage to the promotional department for them to work with simultaneously, and that things don't always match up as a result.

Now, every once in a while, usually in regard to Apatow's oft-tested and whittled-down comedies, absent jokes and alternate takes come as a little surprise. But the year-old teaser for Terminator Salvation capped itself by showing Christian Bale facing off against a robot hiding underwater -- a scene that should appear early on in the film, but doesn't. In Disney/Pixar's Up, our geriatric hero doesn't blow a raspberry as he departs with his house (perhaps for the best), and in 500 Days of Summer, Joseph Gordon-Levitt does not in fact board a bus filled with Zooey Deschanels (certainly for the worst).

What's the most striking occasion you can think of where a scene regularly flaunted in the trailers or TV spots was nowhere to be seen in theaters, and was clearly part of a scene and not a one-off teaser like Pixar themselves so often indulges in?

Spencer Susser's indie comedy Hesher has attracted a ridiculously likeable cast -- which sounds weird, but do you really know anyone who doesn't like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Natalie Portman, or Rainn Wilson? Exactly. It's like the definition of likeable.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story centers around an awkward 13-year-old (is there any other kind?) who finds his life turned upside down by a twenty-something loser named Hesher, who moves in with the boy and his pill-popping father and grandmother. The family is in rough shape after the death of the boy's mother (hence the pill popping) and Hesher ends up having a good and bad influence on the situation. Wilson will play the father, and Gordon-Levitt the title role of Hesher. Portman is playing a supermarket employee who saves the boy from bullies, and becomes an object of his adoration. Portman wll also be co-producing the film with Lucy Cooper, and the film begins shooting next week in L.A.

The concept sounds dangerously close to some of those deliberately quirky comedies that have become so prevalent in the indie scene. But that can be forgiven with the right cast, and certainly will be a nice break for Wilson and Gordon-Levitt, who are fresh off summer blockbusters. Everyone knows you have to do an indie flick after doing a stint with CG and explosions to stay respectable.

Oh, the irony of ironies when the Dennis Quaid serial killer mystery The Horsemen had a tagline that said "Come and see," only to receive an unceremonious dump on something like 75 screens in early March and its first formal review just this week in Variety (and they had to catch it in Paris, apparently!). Box Office Mojo can't even claim any exact figures for what the thing grossed in its very limited run.

In similar straits was the Diane Lane/Mickey Rourke thriller, Killshot, which was formally dumped in Arizona and Arizona alone at the end of January. $18,000 on five screens -- way to capitalize on that Wrestler buzz, Weinsteins. But soon, scarcity will matter not for either film, as Fangoria says that the former film will get its DVD release on July 14th, while Amazon claims a May 26th bow for the latter.

There's no word on special features for Killshot yet, which makes me wonder if we'll see any sign of Johnny Knoxville's reportedly excised character... but maybe I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

I'm wary of movies that try to be instant cult/camp classics, with intentionally overdone dialogue and outrageous costumes and actors who are metaphorically winking or even non-metaphorically mugging for the camera. When the characters are in on the joke, it isn't all that funny. And when I learned that the writer-director of Women in Trouble also co-wrote Snakes on a Plane, I grew even more skeptical. But the actresses who populate Women in Trouble tend to play it straight, even when they're wearing assless spandex pants or smoking invisible cigarettes, and that's what keeps this film fun instead of tiresome.

Women in Trouble has a multi-story, anthology-like structure. Writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez said before the SXSW screening that he originally had one ten-page sequence that he wanted to shoot, then thought it might be easy to shoot several of them, all with different actresses, to make a good movie quickly. Apparently it wasn't all that easy, but the result is a large cast of mostly actresses playing a variety of the traditional exploitation "women in trouble." These include porn stars, tag-team hookers (one in a Catholic school uniform, natch), stewardesses (they're not flight attendants when we're poking fun at the exploitation genre), unmarried-and-pregnant women, and a very understanding masseuse.

When in the world did it get to be the day before the SXSW Film Festival starts? I've been getting organized and ready, and so have the other Cinematical writers who are coming to town. We are going to be all over this fest like barbecue sauce on Texas brisket. (Don't tell me that you don't think sauce belongs on brisket, I don't want to hear that kind of perverted talk.)

Trying to decide which films to see has been at least as difficult this year as it has been in the past. Sam Raimi or Sacha Baron Cohen? Kathryn Bigelow's latest film, or Tobe Hooper's first? Office Space or Observe and Report? There are documentaries about mushrooms and Martin Scorsese movies, conspiracy theorists and film critics. And of course I want to see some of the big splashy premieres at the Paramount, but can't bear to miss any of the indie films I might not get to see again -- gaaaaaaah. I've made a list of a few of the movies we're looking forward to seeing this week. If you're coming to Austin, I hope I'll see you there.

As it turns out, I lied to all of you last week when I said that next month's SXSW Film Festival had announced its full line-up -- and I couldn't have been happier. It looks like those awesome Austin-ites are bringing summer in March, specifically 500 Days of Summer, the one apparently adorable title I particularly pined for as a non-Sundance-ite.

But wait! There's more! In addition to six picks from the Fantastic Fest crew that have yet to be announced (and are as eagerly awaited by yours truly as anything else), SXSW is bringing Broken Lizard's latest (The Slammin' Salmon), an Iron Maiden tour doc (Flight 666), Jason Eisener's already acclaimed horror-comedy short (Treevenge), and a handful of other features and shorts programs.

Between all of that and all of this, I can honestly say that I'm the most psyched for this fest than I have been in the past three years (nothing personal, Matt!), and again, you can be sure to hear plenty more from our lot in just a couple of weeks.

Okay, while I'm totally interested in showing you a little more of the Sundance hit 500 Days of Summer, I have to admit that this post is dedicated to one person and one person only: Cinematical's Managing Editor, Mr. Scott Weinberg. Long story short: Throughout the festival, us dudes (and dudettes) would from time to time throw around our favorite lines from the films screening in Park City. My favorite line comes from the film World's Greatest Dad, and it's unfortunately a little too filthy to repeat here. However, Weinberg's favorite line ... well, let's just say that when this clip from 500 Days of Summer popped up over on Collider, I simply had to post it for him.

Here's the set up: Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character works with Zooey Deschanel's character, and they've just started to get to know each other a little better around the office. Weinberg's favorite line is spoken by Deschanel and it's the last thing you'll hear in this clip. Oh 500 Days of Summer ... how I cannot wait to watch you again in theaters on July 24th.

The feel-good, Fox Searchlight-y film of the festival, 500 Days of Summer is like When Harry Met Sally ... if Sally turned around and repeatedly stabbed Harry in the heart with a toothpick. It's an anti-fairytale about a boy who falls head over dress shoes for the kind of girl who doesn't believe in love or fate or any of those cheesy words we often hear mentioned over and over again in this kind of romantic comedy. And yes, 500 Days of Summer comes with its own pop-centric, gotta-get-it-on-iTunes soundtrack, like a Garden State or a Juno or a Wackness. It's sure to draw in a large fanbase full of those seeking a hip, this-is-what-it's-really-like story about the trials and tribulations of a relationship in 2009 -- but if you dig a little deeper, you'll realize it doesn't say anything new about boy meets girl; instead, it wins over its audience with a spoonful of style and a giant helping of visual gimmicks that, honestly, make it a pretty fun flick to watch for an hour and a half.

Yes, we all know there aren't 500 days in summer (the season), so obviously we're talking about a person -- and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) is the product of divorce; a smart, independent woman who isn't even interested in entertaining the idea of love. Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt), on the other hand, has this bold idea that he's going to one day spot his soul mate and the two will live happily ever after forever and ever and ever. Tom understands this may be a bit unrealistic, but he blames movies, music and television for corrupting his idea of what love should ultimately look like. And yes, those 500 days define the beginning, middle and end of Tom and Summer -- as the film so boldly tells us right up front: this is not a love story.