Somehow the last two movies I've seen have been vehicles for former 3rd Rock From the Sun child star
Joseph Gordon-Levitt -- 2010's Hesher and 2011's 50/50.
Everything about
50/50 should make it no better than a Lifetime movie about living with cancer. Gordon-Levitt plays a young worker at NPR who pals around with
Seth Rogen and has a jerky girlfriend. When he discovers he has the disease, he is befriended by some fellow patients at the hospital. The performances rise far above a TV melodrama, and make the movie at least worth watching.
Hesher is just weird. And slow. And pretty offensive. I guess the filmmakers were trying to show that loss can be a devastating thing. The ending (along with the middle and end) are just really ridiculous, meandering, heavy, and none of the sad-sack characters are too worthy of sympathy. Gordon-Levitt plays some sort of troubled but prophet-like Metallica-type longhair. We never really find out much about why he is the way he is. I can't think of a good reason that
Natalie Portman (who co-produced it) and
Rainn Wilson got involved.
It seems, at least with 50/50, that Gordon-Levitt has gotten back on track after the Hesher misstep. He was putting together a halfway decent little run before that, with
Inception and
(500) Days of Summer.
50/50
*** out of ***** stars
Hesher
* out of ***** stars
