Movie Review: 50/50

50/50 (2011) 

Directed by Jonathan Levine 

Written by Will Reiser 

Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anjelica Huston, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anna Kendrick

Release Date September 30th, 2011 

Published September 30th, 2011

Cancer is a topic of grave seriousness. To even attempt to place the word cancer near the word comedy could be seen as folly. Yet, we have 50/50 a very funny comedy about a young man who faces death from cancer. The tightrope that 50/50 walks in creating its comedy, a broad swath of Knocked Up style irreverence, Seth Rogan is a co-star in 50/50, and the kind of gallows humor that permeates many war movies.

If you were a casino game, you'd have the best odds

Adam (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is 27 years old, he has a pretty artist girlfriend named Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard), a great job working at NPR in Seattle, and he has this pain in his back that just won't go away.

That pain turns out to be a malignant tumor attaching to his spine. Adam has cancer and faces the 50/50 odds of survival with a serious course of chemotherapy. First however, he has to survive telling his family and friends.

Rachael seems to take the news as well as could be expected. The relationship is relatively young for such a heavy burden to be placed on it but she takes it on, first buying him a dog and then being there when Adam tells his mother (Angelica Huston).

I'm moving in!

Adam next tells his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogan). Kyle's emotional reaction is indicative of most reactions to Adam's news. Kyle doesn't process the info well and Adam ends up having to console him.

The same can be said of Kyle's mother who is already caring for Adam's Alzheimer's afflicted father (Serge Houde). Mom wants to move into Kyle's house to care for him but Adam tells her that Rachael is taking care of him.

We know, and he will soon know, that this will not be the case. Rachael isn't a very good person but in fairness, who could be prepared for such a shocking turn of events. The fact that the relationship was sputtering before the cancer diagnosis should also be noted.

Humor from the gallows

Though Kyle proves to be a stalwart friend he to struggles with how to help Adam. Being a typically Rogen character, one lacking in maturity or a filter for his thoughts, Kyle's notions of helping amount to helping get Adam laid and getting high with him.

The only people who react appropriately to Adam's diagnosis and offer honest comfort are two men Adam meets in chemotherapy. Played by Phillip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer, their journeys could likely make wonderful movies of their own.

Somewhere in the middle of the appropriate and the misguided is Adam's therapist, Katherine, played by the terrific Anna Kendrick. We get right away that these two have chemistry beyond the patient-therapist relationship; Levitt and Kendrick however, surprise us by underplaying the attraction to great effect.

A very funny movie about a guy who has cancer

Trying to recommend 50/50 is more challenging that it should be. 50/50 is very funny and humane and is populated by terrific performances, especially from Levitt and Rogan. It's just difficult to get past the idea of a 'Cancer Comedy.'

If you can get past preconceived notions about cancer and comedy being mutually exclusive and give yourself over to this being Adam's specific experience of cancer you will be rewarded with a great movie going experience.

Movie Review: Contagion

Contagion (2011) 

Directed by Steven Soderberg

Written by Steven Soderbergh

Starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard

Release Date September 3rd, 2011

Published September 3rd, 2011 

Director Steven Soderbergh has described "Contagion" as an Irwin Allen style disaster movie. For those not up on their B- movie history, producer-director Irwin Allen presided over some of the most celebrated disaster movies in history from "The Swarm," to "The Towering Inferno" to "The Poseidon Adventure."

Only horror movie mavens have produced as many dead bodies on the big screen. The Irwin Allen comparison is apt. Allen's formula, a major catastrophe populated with a galaxy of well known stars, is essentially what "Contagion" attempts to be. The only difference is that Soderbergh's level of skill prevents "Contagion" from drifting toward the kinds of caricature that Allen's characters often became.

"Contagion," at first, stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Beth, just another woman on a business trip in China. However, after a layover in Chicago, Beth has returned home to her husband, Mitch (Matt Damon,) and their son, and has fallen ill. It's mere days before Beth is dead. Meanwhile, a video has spread across the internet of a man falling ill on a bus in China.

That man was with Beth in China and now both are dead. Soon, a man in Chicago has fallen ill. A woman in Kiev who had brief hand to hand contact with Beth in Hong Kong has died and her family is infected. Back in Minneapolis, Beth's son has died and her husband is presumed ill while his daughter is returned from her mother's and isolated.

At the CDC Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) and his team begin retrieving data and attempting to piece together the spread of the virus. In Hong Kong WHO Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) has a key piece of evidence from the security camera at the Hotel/Casino where Beth stayed. The video tracks the very start of the spread.

In Minneapolis Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet) attempts to organize the CDC response as the virus spreads like wildfire. Soon, however, because a hotel worker went to work while sick, Dr. Mears falls ill. Soderbergh's "Contagion" has no respect for Awards or star-power as the Oscar winners seem to be the first to fall.

There is a calm and precision to "Contagio"n that is both comforting and limiting. Soderbergh has taken pains not to allow the film to cause massive panic attacks ( though I would urge hypochondriacs not to see Contagion) yet in doing so he contains "Contagion" into a box that prevents it from being as affective as it could no doubt be.

I don't want "Contagion" to cause a panic ala Jaws depressing beach traffic in the summer of '77 however, it's fair to say that "Contagion" has the opportunity to be more fear inducing and thus a more viscerally satisfying than it is. As it is, "Contagio"n could almost be considered hopeful, in its way.

Many critics of "Contagion" have wondered about the character played by Jude Law. Law portrays a blogger who finds a chance to profit off of the spread of the virus by promoting a Government conspiracy and an herbal medicine that he claims is a cure. When there is a run on the herbal medicine, Law cashes in on the stock jump of the company that makes it.

The character however, is vague in purpose. At different moments he ranges from rambling street preacher to Alex Jones style maniac before eventually being taken seriously before yet another final and strangely vague twist. Jude Law's performance is not up for question, he's highly committed and engaging but the character never finds his footing.

"Contagion" is an artful pseudo-documentary in the hands of a master director. Steven Soderbergh's command of this story takes what could have been sensational and exciting--in a terrifying B-Movie way--and makes it thoughtful, cautionary and occasionally moving. It's nice to see a director who though he demonstrates the worst of humanity at times, allows the best of humanity to rise as well.

There is a surprising and unexpected hopefulness at the heart of "Contagion" that keeps it from tipping into something merely intended to terrify. The hope is needed at the end when the film flashes back to the start of its outbreak and reveals the modest and completely plausible series of events that began the outbreak. So simple and so horrifying.

Movie Review: Bubble

Bubble (2006) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Written by Coleman Hough

Starring Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin James Ashley, Misty Dawn Wilkins

Release Date January 27th, 2006 

Published January 26th, 2025

In 2006 Steven Soderbergh, the multiple-times Oscar nominee and preeminent auteur launched a new career as a film entrepreneur. With the help of billionaire Mark Cuban, Soderbergh attempted to change the way movies are distributed to the masses. The idea? Day and date releasing. Soderbergh's then new film, the low budget indie flick, Bubble, was released to theaters, TV and DVD all in less than a week.

Does this mean that Soderbergh invented day and date releasing? No, or maybe, it's debatable if he was the pioneer in that idea. What is not debatable is that Bubble is an intriguing little experiment in its own right. The small-town murder mystery starring non-professional actors and shot on location by Soderbergh with a single camera, is a hypnotic, disturbing little flick about small town artifice.

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media.