Real-life stories don’t get much more improbable, inspirational, and death-defying than that of French high-wire artist Philppe Petit, who on August 7, 1974 strung a cable (illegally, with the help of accomplices) between the two towers of the then-unfinished World Trade Center and danced for 45 minutes among the clouds for onlookers over 100 stories below. James Marsh’s 2008 documentary Man On Wire beautifully recounts the feat, which took an inordinate amount of preparation (training, trespassing, reconnaissance, recruiting) to pull off. Petit and his team’s accomplishment is the stuff of legend, and Marsh’s film is one of my very favorites.

A narrative version of the tale was inevitable, and it now arrives in the form of Robert Zemeckis‘ The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the uncontrollably charismatic Petit. The movie has its merits: the final 30 minutes, in which we see Gordon-Levitt’s Petit preen and twirl in the sky as aggravated police officers try to snatch him from either end of the cable, is an exhilarating piece of filmmaking that you won’t find in Marsh’s documentary and must be watched in a theater, in 3-D. It’s a high note to end on, but the road to get there is so unremarkable and stale that it makes it difficult to exalt the movie as a whole.

The most wonderful thing about Man On Wire was Petit, who told his own story not just with his words, but with his whole body. Zemeckis and co-writer Christopher Browne chose to grab for that same magic by having Gordon-Levitt narrate the film, addressing the audience directly, from atop the Statue of Liberty. They find mixed success: the symbolism of the fantastical New York City image has a nice poetry to it (the statue’s history isn’t insignificant here), but Gordon-Levitt doesn’t come close enough to capturing the vigor and wild ambition of the real-life Petit. To be fair, I’m not sure any actor could.

Most of Gordon-Levitt’s work has been good-to-excellent, but this is one role he just doesn’t seem to fit into completely. His attempt at a French accent is valiant but shoddy, and while he’s certainly energetic and wide-eyed, he doesn’t exude the same raw passion of his real-life counterpart. It’s a good performance and serves the story well, but he’s capable of much, much more.

In flashbacks inspired by the greatest hits of the French New Wave, we find Petit wowing small crowds as a Parisienne street performer. A magic trick involving a sizeable jawbreaker sends him to the dentist’s office, where his life work begins: he sees a picture of the under-construction World Trade Center and in an instant devotes his life to them. He’s got a lover, Annie (Charlotte Le Bon), and some friends who are willing to help him on his quest, but he seeks additional guidance from a master wire-walker, played by Ben Kingsley.

The movie’s most unbelievable elements—the eponymous walk, the heist-like operation of infiltrating the buildings, Petit’s zany personality—are all true to life. The story is that extraordinary. But Zemeckis’ approach, while inspired, actually dulls the spectacle of the lead-up to the final act. Visually, he views the world through Petit’s child-like eyes, depicting France in a heightened, nostalgic state. Once he gets to New York City, the impossibility of Petit’s dream dawns on him and the movie goes gray in a hurry. It’s a poetic device, but there are flaws in execution. In France, everything feels too Hollywood-y and fluffy, and in New York City, things get a little too drab and depressing. The balance in tone feels off, and a few tweaks in calibration may have evened things out and made for a smoother transition.

If you buy your movie ticket for The Walk, make sure you shell out the extra dough for those infernal 3-D glasses. In this case, they make the movie. The grand finale is absolutely terrifying, especially with the added depth of the 3-D effect. When Gordon-Levitt takes his first step onto that cable hung thousands of feet in the air and the camera points straight down at the tiny streets and buildings below, it’s an incredible feeling. It’s not as touching a moment as you’ll find in Man On Wire or Petit’s written account of the stunt, To Reach the Clouds, but you can’t deny the view.

Be warned: The Walk may trigger latent cases of acrophobia. This thrilling, spine-tingling adventure portrays Phillippe Petit’s daring high-wire walk between the Twin Towers, as previously depicted in James Marsch’s Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire. Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump) unleashes the full might of his CGI prowess into recreating the skyline of 1970s New York City, as well as placing his affable cast atop the North and South Towers. The vividness of those visuals don’t completely mask The Walk‘s staid script or one-note characterizations, but in spite of its flaws, Zemeckis’ latest is a fun, suspenseful experience.

Chronicling Petit’s journey from aspirational French performance artist to the determined obsessive he becomes, The Walk plows through story beats in thinly constructed short scenes. These early moments, featuring excessive step-by-step narration from Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit (presumably doing his best Pepe Le Pew impression), are far duller than what will follow. Zemeckis’ talent for visual flair occasionally transforms the mundanity of an origins story into showcase set pieces. As a young Petit walks across a series of ropes tied between trees, those ropes break off one by one and fall away until Zemeckis’ camera pans up to reveal Petit as a man.

It’s in the final sequences, leading up to and on the rooftop, where The Walk begins to soar. Petit and his gang’s ascent up the towers resembles a heist movie. Complimented by the tapping of bongos and jazzy brass instruments, the crew don disguises and persuade guards in order to reach the building’s 110th floor. Watching the tightrope walker take his first steps out into the open air, swooping around in full circles to reveal the breathtaking views of New York, it’s hard to not simply marvel at the creation. You worry that Petit might fall—even with the knowledge that he won’t. This exhilarating section supersedes the rest of the film—though not as significantly as the opening of Flight does to the rest of that movie—but the journey to the top is peppered with enough cleverness to make the trip enjoyable. The view up there is unlike any other.

Robert Zemeckis‘ high-wire adaptation of Philippe Petit’s memoir To Reach the Clouds (made famous by the stunning 2008 documentary Man on Wire) will open the 53rd New York Film Festival, held at the Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The Walk, which stars Joseph Gordon Levitt as Petit, is only the second 3D feature ever selected to open NYFF following 2012’s selection of Ang Lee’s Life of Pi. The film, whose strong New York ties should seem obvious, details Petit’s daring high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in 1974. This will be Zemeckis’ second straight movie to debut at this festival, following Flight‘s closing night selection in 2012.

New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones commented in a press release, “The Walk is surprising in so many ways. First of all, it plays like a classic heist movie in the tradition of The Asphalt Jungle or Bob le Flambeur—the planning, the rehearsing, the execution, the last-minute problems—but here it’s not money that’s stolen but access to the world’s tallest buildings. It’s also an astonishing re-creation of lower Manhattan in the ’70s. And then, it becomes something quite rare, rich, mysterious… and throughout it all, you’re on the edge of your seat.”

Robert Zemeckis added: “I am extremely honored and grateful that our film has been selected to open the 53rd New York Film Festival. The Walk is a New York story, so I am delighted to be presenting the film to New York audiences first. My hope is that festival audiences will be immersed in the spectacle, but also to be enraptured by the celebration of a passionate artist who helped give the wonderful towers a soul.”

The 53rd New York Film Festival is a 17-day event that runs from September 25th until October 11th The Walk is the fourth consecutive American-produced film to open the New York Film Festival, following Life of Pi (2012), Captain Phillips (2013), and Gone Girl (2014). The Walk will open wide in 3D and IMAX 3D on October 2nd.

Check out the heart-stopping trailer for The Walk:

If you are anywhere in the vicinity of the millennial generation, you are familiar with the face and name of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. For those of us at all aware of popular culture growing up, Gordon-Levitt has been on the forefront of some of the things that could be considered keystones of our childhood, adolescence, and almost-there adulthood (hey, we’re millennials, after all).

Born on February 17th, 1981, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is turning 34 years old today and while most of us in our late 20’s/early 30’s may only now be coming to terms with our life goals and careers, Gordon-Levitt has had a grip on his from the beginning. We might say it was hereditary—his parents were only in radio but he does have family in the industry. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s grandfather directed Doris Day and Rock Hudson in the iconic Pillow Talk.

Come with us as we travel down memory lane to celebrate the life of Joseph Gordon-Levitt from child star to accomplished director and producer. We all may be aware that to survive childhood fame and even thrive in the entertainment business is no small feat. Here are ten things you may not know about growing up with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

#1. One of his earliest roles was in 1988 as the 7-year-old bully, Dougie, in Family Ties. And yet he is still so adorable.

#2. Gordon-Levitt has been a part of some of pop culture’s cult hits since his earliest years. In 1991 when he was 10 years old, he played creepy David Collins in Dark Shadows.

#3. In 1992, at 11, he played young Norman in A River Runs Through It.

#4. And who among us could forget that adorable 13-year-old foster kid, Roger, who tugged at our heartstrings in 1994 opposite Christopher Lloyd and Danny Glover in Angels in the Outfield?

#5. Remember Roseanne? Joseph Gordon-Levitt played ultra-boring neighbor, George who terrorized the family with his cute monotony from 1993 to 1995.

#6. In 1996, when he was 15, Gordon-Levitt played information officer alien turned long-haired teenage boy, Tommy Solomon, in the wacky and unforgettable 3rd Rock From the Sun.

#7. And of course we have to include when, at 18, he played the darling Cameron James in 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You. What’s not to love?

#8. While he took a small break to attend Columbia, he dropped out in 2004 to continue acting. In 2005 he played Brendan in Rian Johnson’s Brick and regained his footing as an adult actor.

#9. His popularity and credibility grew in 2009 when he was 28, with (500) Days of Summer opposite Zooey Deschanel.

#10. Joseph Gordon-Levitt achieved a career-defining role as Arthur in 2010’s Inception second to Leonardo Dicaprio making him prime a-list material.

#11. More recently, he captured our hearts playing a cancer survivor in the indie film 50/50 alongside Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick.

Since then, he made his directorial début in the well-regarded Don Jon in 2013 and is behind the collaborative production company HitRecord as an avenue for artists all over the world to contribute to creating and inspiring music, books, and film.

It’s wonderful to know that the child we grew up seeing on tv and film has flourished professionally and creatively. What’s even more remarkable is when they grow up to be someone we can admire on a personal level. Feminists everywhere fell in love with the person of Joseph Gordon-Levitt when he appeared on Ellen in 2014 and expressed his views on women as influenced by one of the most important women in his life, his mom.

We are looking forward to see him playing Edward Snowden, yet another iconic figure, in the film Snowden set to release in 2016.

And with that, we wish Joseph Gordon-Levitt the happiest of birthdays!

A professor of mine once made a startling statement. He believes that the current generation is the last that will experience movies in actual theaters. He has some good reasoning for this claim: the fact that instant home entertainment is becoming more and more available, the fact that technology is leading to better and better home theaters for the average individual, and–most significantly–that social interaction is now achieved without physical contact.

Seeing a film in the theater is a very social thing, regardless of how frowned upon it is to speak once the lights dim. Being part of an audience totally engrossed in a film is powerful. There is energy. There is presence. There is a sense of community involvement, as hundred of us gather to spend two hours of our lives in a dark room together, experiencing a story, told by people we do not know, but somehow seems to speak to each of us individually.

What marks a film festival as a truly unique cinematic experience is the audience. Each morning when get off the S-Bahn in Potsdam Hof, I exit the station via the Arkan Galaria–directly across from the Cinemaxx and Berlinale Palast. Every morning the same scene meets my eyes: hundreds of people camping out in a line spanning the length of the mall. Some in sleeping bags, others in fold out chairs; but each with a copy of the program open upon their lap, pen in hand, circling the screenings they hope to get tickets to. This is not a line for the midnight showing of some highly anticipated blockbuster hit. This is not even a line for a festival premiere, as most–particularly for the big name films–have long been sold out. This is a line for the 5:15pm showing of an Indonesian drama by a director no one has heard of. This is the line 10:00am screening of a documentary concerning an issue many never knew was an issue. People are here just for the chance to participate. This is dedication to the art, and brings a whole new energy into the theater. This is cinema.

Don Jon’s Addiction

I had the opportunity to attend both the press screening and the festival premiere of Don Jon’s Addiction. Because of the energy of the general public–enhanced by the fact that the director, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was in the theater–I had a much better time in the premiere screening. This being said, there is a reason I chose to view this film twice. Gordon-Levitt’s feature directorial debut with this film was nothing shy of brilliant.

The character of Jon Martello comes from what would be the typical caste of a Jersey Shore Guido. He is a lady killer, obsessed with appearance, and ends each night out with his boys by taking home an 8 or better. He doesn’t hide the fact that he is in it for the short haul with these ladies (which makes it a surprise to his friends and family when he decides to take a break from his “streak” to focus on just one girl). “The most beautiful girl in the world,” according to Jon. When Jon is not fulfilling his life with his girls, family, boys, body, and car, he spends his time focused on his other true passion: pornography. Jon loves pornography better than actual sex, because he is able to “lose himself” in it. To him, it is perfect satisfaction without work or expectations. When his girlfriend discovers his hobby, she leaves, and Jon is forced to cope with the fact that his need for porn is a result of an inability to truly connect within a relationship.

There are several cinematic elements Gordon-Levitt uses to present his original story in a satisfying and memorable way. Moments of repetition in both sound and image–used to identify patterns and habits in Jon’s life–juxtaposes starkly against the meticulous shot diversity that makes up the most of the movie. In the first half of the film, the same shot is never repeated, and the camera is always in motion via pushes, pulls, quick pans, and steady glides within dialog, evoking a feeling of calm. Everything is new, and everything is smooth–like the beginning of a new relationship. The music is intentionally overly romantic in a fairy tale manner. As the story progresses and conflict is introduced, the style of shooting transitions to shaky, handheld shots that hold much longer within each scene, and the moments of earlier repetition (such as Jon’s experiences in church and at the gym) begin to vary more and more as the character begins to transform.

In all, the film tells a great, original story that is both humorous and critical. Don Jon’s Addiction makes a statement about allowing media to set unrealistic expectations in out lives, and the dangers of allowing these expectations to dominate our experience. The film managed to pull a great deal of laughter from both audiences I experienced, and in a press conference following the film, Gordon-Levitt said he believes the best way to tackle difficult issues is through humor, citing films like Dr. Strangelove as his inspiration. As stated, a brilliant debut from a very talented individual, and I think we can expect great things to come as Joseph Gordon-Levitt begins to branch out in work.

RATING: 9.8

Paradise: Hope (Capsule review)

The other highly anticipated screening I attended was Ulrich Seidl’s third installment of his Paradise trilogy, Paradise: Hope. I have only seen one other film in the Paradise trilogy, which was Paradise: Love, but this did not impact my reception or understanding of the film, as Paradise: Hope is perfectly capable of standing alone because it runs parallel to the other two films.

Full Paradise: Hope review

COMING UP: The theme of sex and pornography is proving to be a overarching theme in many of the films in the festival, having begun with Don Jon. On Saturday the film, Lovelace, a story about the making of the 1970’s porno Deepthroat, will screen and continue to examine this topic. The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, as well as a shorts program and a British film called The Look of Love will also be on the Saturday agenda.

I am always skeptic when it comes to most sci-fi action films but Looper is the rare exception that proves from time to time excellent ones are made. Rian Johnson’s Looper is a smart and unique science fiction film set in the future about time travel that is controlled by mobsters. Looper is not your average science fiction film; it understands the importance of character development and that explosions do not need to occur every five minutes in order to be entertaining.

The film is set in Kansas in the year 2044. Time travel is not possible yet but it is invented a few decades from then. Even though time travel is possible it is illegal to do. However, large crime organizations use it to get rid of people. See, if they send someone back in time and they are killed, that person vanishes from existence in both present and future.

This is where Loopers come in. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is informed when a person will appear from the future and it is his job as a Looper to be there to shoot that person immediately. Loopers blast their hooded targets with a powerful shotgun called a blunderbust from point-blank range. The range of the gun makes it impossible to hit anything beyond 15 feet but conversely impossible to miss anything closer than 15 feet, an important note that comes into play later in the film.

Eventually, when a Looper grows old enough, they will be sent back in time to be killed by his own younger self, which is called “closing the loop.” It is a clean process that only goes weary when the Looper fails to complete the loop. Letting your loop run when the person you are supposed to kill escapes is highly dangerous. Things start to go haywire when another fellow Looper named Seth (Paul Dano) sees himself as part of a closing loop and wisely decides not to shoot. Seth just so happen to recognize the song his future self was singing. By not closing his own loop, his future self was able to warn present Seth about what the future holds. Seth confronts Joe about this before their boss Abe has Seth killed for letting that happen.

Abe (Jeff Daniels) is from 2074 and is in charge of the Loopers for the crime syndicate. Abe criticizes Joe about his fashion style by preaching to be new and do something different. Which is precisely the advice that the film itself follows; to be something new and different. Joe has a plan to go to France after he is done as a Looper but Abe tells him, in a great scene, that he should go to China instead. Abe would know as he is from the future after all. Joe however is insistent about going to France and it starts to show just how ignorant his character is. He continues to study French between kills and saves up the silver bars he earns to travel there.

One day a man (Bruce Willis) appears late at the site without being tied up at all, two things that never happen. Joe freezes for a moment which gives this man enough time to escape. The man leaves a note for Joe that tells him he should leave town as soon as he can. After a short while you learn that the man who escaped is actually Joe from the future. Unlike all the others from the future, Joe willingly sends himself back in an attempt to save a loved one that wrongfully is murdered in the future. We are transported 30 years into the future to follow just how future Joe was able to show up not on time and not tied up.

Present Joe is very apprehensive about believing the man who claims to be him in the future. Or maybe it’s just his arrogance. We see a scar on future Joes arm of the waitress name that the present Joe often speaks to. Present Joe had just etched it into his arm, leaving a permanent scar that is seen on future Joe’s arm. This was likely done to try to prove that the older man is who he claims he is. Another detail that visually ties the two together is there is a bandage on present Joe’s ear and you can see that part of future Joe’s ear missing.

Jeff Daniels is only in a few scenes but he steals everyone one of them. The rest of the performances are not far behind with everyone pitching in making the film as a whole well performed. You could make a good argument that the young boy (Pierce Gagnon) is as equally superb and I probably would not argue. The filmmakers purposely made Joseph Gordon-Levitt to look physically different for his role to make him resemble Bruce Willis more closely. Which had me double-take a couple of times before I realized that it was actually Gordon-Levitt. The makeup team did an excellent job on altering his looks which apparently took 3 hours each day to do.

I kept seeing glimpses of Twelve Monkeys while watching this film. Bruce Willis being in both certainly had something to do with that but there are other reasons as well. Both are trippy sci-fi films that involve the main character coming from the future to warn people in the present about dangerous events soon to come. Both films do so by providing numbers or signs to watch out for.

Looper wisely tells the audience not to look too deeply behind the mechanics of the time travel because you are sure to find loop holes (pun intended). This high concept sci-fi keeps you guessing how it will end it until it does and suddenly it seems obvious. Backed with a unique premise, solid performances from the cast and a firm grasp on how to make a proper action film, Looper sets the bar on recent big-budget sci-fi action films.

Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy comes to a close with The Dark Knight Rises and if anything the series is done being nice. Long gone are the days when little one liners would pat the audience on the back and let them know it’s going to be alright. Gone too is the series’ sense of excitement and adventure. The Dark Knight Rises is instead filled with a flat out serious tone that prevents the series from ending on a high note.

The Dark Knight Rises begins with Gotham in a grand state of peace. Essentially all organized crime led by the Joker in the previous film has been shut down with literally thousands of criminals locked up under The Harvey Dent Law. It’s been nine years since the last events took place. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become secluded to his mansion with no one seeing him for years except for his always faithful butler Alfred (exquisitely played by Michael Caine). Wayne now walks with a cane after years of crime fighting have taken their toll on his body.

We get introduced to a couple of new characters early on, one of them being Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway). Faithful followers of comics and Batman will know her as Catwoman, the slinky sexy antihero of the Caped Crusader universe. I don’t feel guilty giving this tidbit away since virtually everyone knows this and it is revealed very early in the film. Another character we meet is beat officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Levitt probably gives the best performance in the film other than Caine. Blake becomes a trusted ally of Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman). One of the few he can trust. Blake eventually gets promoted to the role of Detective after impressing Gordon when he hunts down certain clues that ultimately reveal what’s really happening in Gotham.

Miranda Tate, played by the luscious French vixen Marion Cotillard, is a mysterious billionaire who is trying to work with Wayne Enterprises on a new secret project that could allow Gotham to live in a more energy efficient manner. I had suspicions about her character early on, mainly because she reminded me of a character from the Batman cartoon that aired in the 90’s. However, I’m done talking about her character.

We all know by now that the main villain in Rises is the mask wearing, muscle bound brute known as Bane (Tom Hardy). Nolan’s version of Bane is a far cry from the abomination Joel Schumacher used in his terrible Batman & Robin. In that film he was a doping bumbling idiot of a bodyguard. Here he is cold, calculating and most of all, uncompromising. He is an out and out terrorist. Where he comes from and he thirst for destruction I will not reveal here as it is one of the better pieces of the film.

The opening scene of the film holds a lot of promise. It’s unfortunate that the rest of the film never quite reaches these heights, except for once. The CIA takes a few men in hoods aboard a small plane and flies them over some truly beautiful landscape. But make no mistake. This is no site seeing trip. They want to know the mystery behind Bane. Little do they know that Bane is actually one of the hooded men. All of a sudden a bigger plane is flying above them. Men drop from this second plane hooked to wires and grab onto the smaller plane eventually busting the wings off it and let it dangle like a carrot from a string. Bane makes a grand escape from this plane with a mystery man in tow.

Along with his thirst for pain and his conquest for destruction, Bane is a man made of rock. With his massive shoulders and gigantic biceps, he intimidates anyone who crosses. In most cases he would just grab someone’s head and snap their neck. He is remorseless. Where the Joker’s agenda was to playfully offer ways out of his traps for his victims while he would gleefully chuckle at their inevitable failures, Bane is here to merely destroy any kind of system. Whether it’s that of a city or that of a man’s soul, Bane simply does not care about anything or anyone. He is the meaning of destruction.

After the film’s hair raising opening, the film then settles into a weird rhythm that it unfortunately doesn’t break away from during the film’s remaining runtime. Other than one scene in the middle of the film, Rises is not exciting for a second. Gordon, one of the series’ best characters, is bed ridden for most of the runtime while he has the Levitt character running all over town for him.

The best scene of the entire film is a showdown between Batman and Bane in an underground fortress controlled by Bane and his henchmen. Nolan handles this scene with pure brilliance. Instead of letting the loud and intrusive score (by Nolan faithful Hans Zimmer) and flashy editing intrude on the scene, he lets the scene unfold in silence. Only the sounds of a waterfall ignite the soundtrack as Bane verbally and physically decimate Batman. Shots of Bane’s henchmen as they watch, almost ashamed to follow such a crass leader, are inter-spliced with the action showing how ruthless Bane truly is. The look on their faces as they watch Batman beaten to a pulp is at times hard to watch. Even they can barely watch such reprehensible evil exist.

Unfortunately after the showdown, the film settles back into a state mediocrity. The film trudges on for what feels like forever to a final conflict that feels way too sprawling for the series. I know what we are essentially watching is a comic book/superhero movie, but the final hour seems too illogical to ever really happen. Bane’s ambitions are not unimaginable, just the way he goes about them. Some of these scenes are interesting, but they always require a lot of faith from the viewer. For me it was too much. For the sake of the virgin viewer’s eyes, I will not go into detail.

After everything that happens with these climactic and insanely sensational scenes we are given a closing montage that is a little too ridiculous. One character is revealed to be a crime fighting torch bearer in a stupid wink wink moment and another is given a second life after we are lead to believe of his demise in a stupid gotcha moment. It’s too much and it feels like Nolan, who is a director who almost never comprises, has finally given in to his audience’s demands. I don’t think The Dark Knight Rises is a bad film at all. It’s very well made. All the dollar signs are on the screen and Christopher Nolan is still one of the best and brightest Hollywood directors working today. The film simply does not rise out of its consistent state of complacency. It takes itself too seriously and lacks the straight up excitement of the first two films. A summer blockbuster can be brainy and serious while it hurtles itself through explosions and vibrant action if it wants to, yes. But you still have to have fun while you do it too. Unfortunately, The Dark Knight Rises flies to close to its villain’s coattails to realize this.

The name of the film comes from when Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) finds out his odds of survival are 50/50 after finding out he has spinal cancer. The film was written by Will Reiser, who was actually diagnosed with spinal cancer in real life, which is what undoubtedly helped it feel so genuine. The focus of the film is to show how cancer can affect more than just the person with it but also the people around them. It does that surprisingly well.

Adam is not risk taker, when the crosswalk blinks do not walk, he stays put, even when no vehicles are to be seen. The 27 year old does not drive because it is the 5th leading cause of death. So it is ironic when after going to the doctor for some minor back symptoms, Adam is diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer, rendering his chances of death 50/50.

Adam gets along with his girlfriend well enough but at the same time you can tell that something is missing from that relationship. He does not realize it at first. It is brought to his attention when two fellow treatment patients question the fact she will not even step inside the hospital. However, it becomes even more evident when she does not answer her phone and shows up an hour late for picking him up.

If it were up to his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen), Adam would be using his cancer to his advantage for picking up new girls. In fact, Kyle picks up someone at a bookstore by telling her that he is taking care of his dying friend. On their date, Kyle sees Adam’s girlfriend kissing another guy and even snapped a picture on his phone for proof. At the end of the date, Kyle rushes to Adam’s to show him the picture. Needless to say, their relationship came to an end.

Even though Kyle’s repeated attempts to set Adam up with girls have failed, he ends up meeting someone on his own. Turns out it is his 24 year old student therapist that is helping him through treatment. Since he recently broke up with his girlfriend, she offers him a ride home and will not take no for an answer. The first thing he notices about her car is that it is very messy which she insists on him not to judge her for it. The slightly odd scene turns cute when he demands her to pull over so that he can throw away her trash in the car that he could not stand any longer.

Just as things are starting to look up for Adam, one of the patients he got close to passed away. That served as a harsh reminder to him that he may die at any moment. Adam takes his frustrations out on everyone around him; his therapist, Kyle and even his Mom. Up until now he has taken the cancer news fairly lightly so it was only a matter of time until the frustrations settled in.

Not many actors today can make me laugh out loud as much as Seth Rogen does. In most of his films I find myself laughing even when I am watching it by myself (which is the ultimate test), this film was no exception. He did a great job at not dominating the film too much as the supporting actor. Granted, he did play his usual role in the film.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance felt effortless and brilliant. The awkward romantic scenes between Anna Kendrick and him were outstanding. Most of the film he plays it cool but he shows his range of emotions by the end, particularly well in one “freak out” scene. His career is really starting to take off after recently doing, (500) Days of Summer, Inception and now currently working on Christopher Nolan’s long awaited The Dark Knight Rises.

After watching the trailer for 50/50 when it first came out, I jokingly said it had a 50/50 shot at being good. That depended on which way director Jonathan Levine approached the film. Luckily, he balanced the right amount of comedy and drama together in a very realistic manner without all the pitfalls of a stereotypical dramedy. The situations that Adam gets into seem to all be completely natural, it did not suffer from a cheesy movie-like moment. I was kind of hoping “Banana Pancakes” by Jack Johnson played for the final scene instead of Pearl Jam’s “Yellow Ledbetter”, if you saw the film you know why.