500 Days of Summer (twee romantic whatever, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/500daysofsummer/

tough to get past the first scene in the trailer tbh

So when are Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer just going to film and release Indie Movie and be done with it.

yeah this will probably be nigh unwatchable, but... i do love her so

yes...i also do

Ha, I don't mind that Smiths scene. It's cute.

<3 JGL and Zooey but wow, this looks so so shit.

what a great lookin movie

tbf, she's consistently involved herself in cringe-inducers. but i just can't help myself.

e.g.
http://www.catwalkqueen.tv/zooey4.jpg

^actually where i first developed hueg crush

http://www.catwalkqueen.tv/zooey4.jpg

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid3737074001?bctid=26757801001

cant wait to have some kind of casually contrarian opinion about this

I hate myself for thinking that actually looks kind of good.

I have to admit to a serious Gordon-Levitt crush.

But Deschanel, it turns out, had triple the responsibilities. Not only does she act, she sings in character (to Nancy Sinatra’s “Sugar Town”) and on the soundtrack, where Deschanel’s own She & Him cover the Smiths’ “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want.” Does the Morrissey element kick up the pressure? “I guess so,” she says. “It’s a more complex song than it seems timing-wise, but he’s such a great songwriter and old fashioned in the tradition of the classics — the Gershwins and the Cole Porters — yet writing pop music. It’s classic melody and chord progression.”

She would know. Deschanel, who says “a lot of recording” for the next She & Him record is completed, grew up on a steady diet of musicals — stage and screen. Among them: the soundtracks to classics like Mary Poppins, Meet Me in St. Louis and The Sound of Music along with the more fringe-tastic Harold and Maude, Willy Wonka and The Harder They Come. And she’s the kind of girl who doesn’t hesitate in describing her own iPod as “awesome.” Deschanel cracks: “I’m not gonna lie.”

So what covers does Deschanel have on regular rotation? Here are five of her all-time favorites.

Nina Simone – “Here Comes The Sun”
Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris – “Love Hurts”
Linda Ronstadt — “Blue Bayou”
The Ramones — “Baby, I Love You”
Jacky Deshannon — “The Weight”

on the daily 10 they said this was innovative

I think I bitched about this film enough on the detrius thread. And anyone who pays any attention at all to my film posts should know that i of all people would be the one to embrace this film.

(bottom line: it's a fine conventional romantic comedy that thinks it's above being a fine conventional romantic comedy)

http://www.catwalkqueen.tv/zooey4.jpg

this is such a great still

that's an amazing film!

I never liked Almost Famous until I saw it the third or fourth time. Now I like it a lot.

i have had a crush on JGL for so long. my lesbian housemate has said she would go straight for him

i think it is official, then: he is fuckin smoking.

i almost fainted when he walked by me

Deschanel’s own She & Him cover the Smiths’ “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want.” Does the Morrissey element kick up the pressure? “I guess so,” she says. “It’s a more complex song than it seems timing-wise, but he’s such a great songwriter and old fashioned in the tradition of the classics — the Gershwins and the Cole Porters — yet writing pop music. It’s classic melody and chord progression.”

???

He's like Cole Porter ... yet writing pop music!

just don't get the bit about "It’s classic melody and chord progression"

The trailer was terrible

At the LA screening, she seemed to be under the impression that she has multiple characters. She also claimed that she could make a case for "(500) Days of Summer" being "postmodern."

The trailer is the movie.

the cotton commercial/song was my last straw with zooey. bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech. that smiths scene was barf city.

Not to hijack this thread, but "Paper Heart" actually lives up to "next-level romantic comedy" hype.

Googling "indie movie" brought me the trailer for a film called Box Elder, which is produced by Range Life Productions.

See, this genre is already so self-parodying that satire is pointless.

I want an excuse to see this movie beyond mega-crush on both leads.

I hope Box Elder's soundtrack is all Pavement and kids start really hypin on the Silver Jews again and whatever.

How do people really know Jason Gordon-Levitt was a child actor in the mid-1990s?

Answer: He goes by his full name, middle name and all. Eighties babies know what the score is.

i watched the room tonight and the box elder guys were all there

I get irrationally pissed off when I read a glowing review of this film. WTF people, normal cuteboy human beings do not write greeting cards for a living and if they did, after getting dumped, they wouldn't turn in ones with angry punchlines like "i fucking hate you." also, they wouldn't talk to their ten-year-old sisters on a regular basis for relationship advice. and when they asked her questions, she wouldn't say things like, "don't be a pussy." and when they walked on the bus, it would not be a smooth walk.

and the only reason it chops up the narrative is because otherwise the arc is exactly like every other romantic comedy. i mean, my god, if i recut the object of my affection in a nonlinear fashion, would you also put it on your top ten lists?

So this is the anti-Paper Heart?

Yes, in that Paper Heart is funny, has interesting things to say about love and is full of interesting, incredibly intelligent filmmaking choices.

From the previews I've seen I just don't get why this is even a movie

^^this

the one joke in the preview where she's goes "they called me anal girl!" is like "okay, writer of this film, i was making this joke when i was 12, and now it is in your movie, in the preview, and you are not 12"

Also like, if that is one I the best jokes that they have to use for the trailer... ummmmmm.... PROGNOSIS NEGATIVE

tza, md

u have to say it in a costanza style tho

The trailer for Paper Heart makes my skin crawl. I think I'm too old for that much awkward tweeness. Michael Cera is bad enough in most movies, through in the female Michael Cera and it could be torture.

WTF people, normal cuteboy human beings do not write greeting cards for a living and if they did, after getting dumped, they wouldn't turn in ones with angry punchlines like "i fucking hate you." also, they wouldn't talk to their ten-year-old sisters on a regular basis for relationship advice. and when they asked her questions, she wouldn't say things like, "don't be a pussy." and when they walked on the bus, it would not be a smooth walk.

Cinema!

It was good. Not like an earth-shattering derailment of the romantic comedy genre, but different enough. Maybe it marks me as immature, but I LOLed at "Roses are red, violets are blue... Fuck you, whore." Best part is when his blind date asks him if Summer ever cheated on him, lied, etc. - and then pretty much calls him an asshole.

Plz understand, people, that PAPER HEART is mostly a documentary!!! Like, other people talking to the camera! The Michael Cera/Charlyne Yi thread takes up 30 percent of the movie and it's woven in very neatly. When people say they were "charmed," they're not referring to the notion that Michael and Charlyne are cute together (which, they actually are, even though the trailer might not make that very clear), they're referring to the really adorable couples that Charlyne interviews...

If you actually gave it a chance, you might like it, but I'm not exactly shocked that you're not...maybe would have helped if the marketing was more accurate.

yes, well, xpost, maybe it wouldn't have bothered me so much if i hadn't been at the LA premiere and didn't have to hear the screenwriters say things like, "Doesn't Hollywood need more original/real-to-life romantic comedies like this?!" to much applause or hear Zooey D claim that this was "postmodern (and I could make a case for that if anyone wants to hear it)."

"different enough."

explain, please.

Yeah, but that's your mistake: being in an El Lay premiere with actors promoting their film. That's some Gitmo shit right there.

I should also add that the movie is exactly like the trailer.

Less than half of Paper Heart is a doc - the interviews with the (non-Cera/Yi) couples. Everything involving Cera, Yi, the guy playing Jasenovec (obviously), or their Hollywood buddies is fiction(al). Quite a few of the incidents in the "doc" portions feel very staged. Not a knock against it really, but saying it's "mostly" a doc is just patently untrue.

Different enough, as in Summer was a pretty oddball/dark character for a romantic comedy, the structure was unique for the genre, the writing had more in common with Apatow/Wedding Crasher-style adult comedies, and the world the cast inhabited was certainly a ways off from Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Extra confession: I like a lot of romantic comedies. I can't wait to see The Ugly Truth. (Confessions sucked though.)

"Roses are red, violets are blue... Fuck you, whore."

this only made me wish norm macdonald was in the movie

it took me forever to realize that this is supposed to take place in LA. do many people it LA wear emo sweaters? it seems like they would be too hot.

Quite a few of the incidents in the "doc" portions feel very staged

This is way more untrue

And I'm pretty sure doc footage takes up more than half of the film.

I still love Joseph Gordon-Levitt

why does he talk like christian bale doing batman in this movie

it took me forever to realize that this is supposed to take place in LA. do many people it LA wear emo sweaters? it seems like they would be too hot.

Gets cold at night, desert and all. Plus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_gloom

When I say "staged" I don't mean outright fake, just somewhat stage-managed. In any case, the proper "doc" part feels like a good student film.

a. As someone who watches student films (both good and bad) on almost a daily basis, i feel quite confident saying that is incredibly wrong.
b. Have you watched many documentaries in the past ten years? That "stage-managed" thing happens in most of the great interview-based ones...

There's more polish involved, of course (it's not a self-produced film, after all) but the doc portions felt very amateurish to me, maybe as a by-product of the fragmented feel of the film as a whole.

How many docs would be enough? I definitely think this is on the stagier end of the (#) I've seen over the last couple of years. My problems with the movie have nothing to do w/ its authenticity (or lack thereof).

FWIW I also <3 JGL.

That first part wasn't phrased very well. What I mean is, the piecemeal construction of the film as a whole made the actual-doc parts feel flimsier than they might have otherwise.

Also, Yi + Johnson mentioned a TV project they're working on that I think could be fantastic if done right.

Well, I think what really impressed me was how fluid everything felt between the real doc footage and the staged stuff. To the point where people around me were genuinely confused about what was real and what wasn't. But apparently you don't agree with that assessment?

I think most of my favorite moments from the film are the documentary segments, which I found to be quite emotional and insightful. Personally, I was really hit hard by the gay couple; this scene is also a good example of Charlyne's skills as an interviewer, which I think stems from a genuine, contagious curiosity, a curiosity that powers the whole film.

Curious about the TV project...

I was confused by certain aspects, but only because of the discrepancy between what I'd read about Yi and Cera's "relationship" from early press stuff and the info from the Q+A. Anyway, I don't have a kneejerk hatred of the movie like some seem to - I actually liked it - I just didn't take much away from it.

Fair enough. Different etc.

So...we can all at the very least agree that ADVENTURELAND is wayyyyyyyy better than (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, right?

It's been months that I vacillate between wanting to strangle a director and screenwriter, and loving the two leads. Without Gordon-Levitt's physical grace, the "You Make My Dreams" sequence would have belted me out of the theatre. The attempts to make this a Gen Y Annie Hall grated very quickly. The precocious sister is a horrible idea and character.

i think the only precocious, wise younger sibling or companion i've ever seen in a film that worked 100% brilliantly was the kid in rushmore.

and he was a shit.

wha? he was right to take revenge! max all goin on about his moms giving him handjobs.

I dunno -- that Max is insufferable and aren't supposed to like him is kinda the point, no?

love the very loose definition of "handjobs" in that film

av club totally slammed 'paper heart'

oh no, the av club slammed paper heart!

i am freaking out! oh no non ono no no non ono

more like joseph gordon-loveit!!!

btw, it was an incredibly stupid review, he watched three minutes and spent the rest of the time trying to come up with clever zings. sadly, all he could come up with is 'this is not a movie. it's a myspace page,' which might sound clever but makes absolutely no fucking sense.

why are you freaking out? it's just a movie review!

(i was being sarcastic upthread, dr)

i've neither seen the movie nor this review, and generally hate onion AV club, but 'this is not a movie. it's a myspace page' is a pretty good line. does the review basically say that the movie is precious, self-centered, concerned with broadcasting its taste in other music/pop culture in lieu of developing content? because that line is a much quicker way of saying that!

has zooey deschanel dethroned jennifer connelly as queen of 'this movie is crap but i'm watching this because i want to marry her! THROB!'? I thought there might have been someone in between. I want to say it was Liv Tyler, but she was contemporary with Jennifer Connelly.

duped by the internet AGAIN ;)

it only says precious and self-centered, and no that does not make the myspace zing good, especially because the film is way way way smarter than that

I mean to say it's a good shorthand slur regardless of whether it accurately describes its target, and
given that onion AV club seem really sloppy compared to the onion proper, coining new slurs is pretty good for them!

"it’s like asking viewers to feel Sonic The Hedgehog’s pain."

^^^ lolz

'this is not a movie. it's a myspace page' made perfect sense to me , and I lol'd.

I was puzzled why everyone was referring to this Charlyne Yi like I should know who she is, then I read she was the stoner girl in Knocked Up. I'm so ashamed, it's like not knowing who Dorothy Parker was.

^^ otm

thank god it made sense to morbs, phew

and ships! even better

who's dorothy parker?

lady gaga's real name, innit?

i think she's some chick prince wrote a song about, so she was probably fine like apollonia.

do men swoon at her appearance in movies, making conventional criticism impossible/irrelevant?

I'd go see Paper Heart if it starred Lady Ga-Ga instead of Charlene Yi.

i was OTM-ing the 2nd part of morbz's post, not the thing about the quippy closing line of the review, fwiw.

"(Cera) and Yi are so adorable together I wanted to stuff them in a Hello Kitty bag and drop them from an overpass onto the Dan Ryan."

"OH FUCK! THIS IS A CROWD PLEASER. HOW CAN I SLAM IT HOW CAN I SLAM IT, IT'S STUPID IT MUST BE STUPID"

what happened to you being sarcastic about freaking out about the review

sarcastic about one stupid review, pissed off about the general consensus?

"OH FUCK! THIS IS A CROWD PLEASER. HOW CAN I SLAM IT HOW CAN I SLAM IT, IT'S STUPID IT MUST BE STUPID"

That all pretty much makes sense except the "how can I" part.

What's with all the comedians' embrace of monogamy and parenthood? did the '60s never happen?

Uh, are Simon and I the only ones who have actually seen this movie?

I forgot what movie we're talking about.

Y'know, I actually saw HUNGER before I said that it was an incredible performance in a just-ok film.

is it actually a crowd pleaser? I have no idea how well or not well it's doing, although I just looked at Metacritic and yeah looks like the reviews have not been good.

seems to be about 50/50 on the like/hate scale

paper fart

I think we might be. Also, a mod should change this to the "twee romcom clusterfuck thread" or something. xxxxpost

change thread title to paper fart

HI GUYS THIS IS A THREAD ABOUT "(500) DAYS OF SUMMER" NOT "WHOEVER THE FUCK THIS LADY IS AND MICHAEL CERA PRETEND TO BE IN A RELATIONSHIP"

fart

i watched Punch Drunk Love last night--awesome movie until the last 1/3rd or so when the Utah dudes ram Sandler's car

when my girlfriend and i saw the "paper heart" trailer in the theater, she wore the same facial expression that you might wear if you turn a corner on a bright sunny day to see a 20-car pileup with bodies strewn everywhere.

Paper Heart is opening TODAY, so "how well it's doing" would be sort of an ADD question.

how well is it doing

wait what

when we saw the trailer for "inglorious basterds" in the theater, some guy in the back yelled "what the fuck was THAT?" at the end of it

schef, I think this is just a "twee movies for under-25s that could inspire homicides" thread now

rolling sitcom dudes with beards and/or emo sweaters 2009

i don't think these movies are geared towards a teeny-bopper/young hipster audience is the problem here, morbs. like they are kind of for the little miss sunshine audience (which is not under-25s)

he meant under-25 iqs

i think the 'paper heart' clips look funny but i don't really understand yi's humor, at least as far as promo appearances go

haha, I kinda love the way Jeff Wells semi-savages Cera after calling Yi "button-cute in a kind of hospital-gown One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest way."

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/08/nerditude.php

if any of you ever actually see the movie and have any legitimate complaints, please feel free to bitch about it here (see Simon above). otherwise, i don't really care what you have to say.

that didn't come out right: if any of you ever actually see the movie and have any complaints at all, please feel free to discuss them here (as Simon and I did above). otherwise i don't really care what you have to say

morbs, i didn't realize the movie hadn't opened, possibly because tape store is acting like a psycho about people basing their opinions on reviews and trailers as if they could've gone to see it yet even if they wanted to

Much more fun to make fun of damaged indie kid actors.

tape store, having opinions about movies you haven't seen is a constitutional right!

sometimes one bite of an omelette tells you you'll puke.

sometimes the picture of the omelet is nasty but then you order it and find out it's great. also i didn't say you couldn't have uninformed opinions, i just said i didn't really care about them

thanks for deciding who's allowed to post, feel like I wanna see this movie so I can have a contrarian opinion about it, but since the reaction is so mixed its gonna have to be some "good acting is so 90's anyway" thing prolly

ffs, where did i say that you couldn't post uninformed opinions?! stop putting words in my mouth plz, thx

never read an ilx thread about a movie you like or have any interest in

wow, you guys keep surprising me. didn't realize there were so many ways to misinterpret a very obvious post (but please, keep going)

a. never said these responses were surprising
b. not caring != not reading

Tape Store is only continuing to refresh this thread to see if someone else who's seen the movie has something to say yet. Stop faking him out with all these posts he doesn't care about.

^^^real talk

was it?

i think that you can have an informed opinion based on a trailer

the trailer is just another edit imo

that's very wrong, imo. i mean, i avoided AWAY WE GO, for instance, because of the trailer, but I by no means would claim to have an informed opinion of the film.

If there's anything i learned from Adventureland, it's that trailers often misrepresent films. PAPER HEART's trailer isn't terrible, but I think it's a bit clunky. The film itself is incredibly well-edited.

You may have noticed that we discuss upcoming films frequently on this board. You may have also noticed that if someone like, say, s10cki, has seen an advance screening before anyone else has had a chance to, they don't behave like this.

oh no i'm not acting like s1ocki

stop

was gonna try and troll this thread like crazy but TS kinda beat me to it

the ship!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tape store killin it btw

...

i didn't say he was right

but i'm definitely dying

the otmarker

da croupier review of Paper Heart

Paper Heart is not as bad as I expected, Yi is only horribly annoying half the time (Cera is annoying 100% of the time, though).

The real interviews with couples about love are great, and the interaction between Yi and her best friend. Scenes with Cera are horrible, forced awkwardness (strange for strangeness sake - though even Cera pokes fun at the idea of birthing another quirky comedy). Can't see where you'd find the depth to care so deeply about it, TS.

ok, y'know, whatever, bye ilx

saw this movie, it was good. not great. still a chick flick but I liked the take on "destiny" and "soulmate" in this movie.

One time I met a girl by knocking on her dorm room door when I heard music coming from her room. "Is that The Smiths?" "Yeah it is :)blah blah blah". Within the week we were friends I was too friendly with her - she knew I liked her when I bought her an apology present for some reason I don't even remember - so one day when I had slid a note under her door, the next note I got back said her friends think I'm a rapist. Anyways, yada yada yada, we avoided each other from then after. And she moved to a different dorm room next semester. Also she uploaded my friendly note(s?) to 4chan (as I found out one morning when a slsk friend found the note and showed it tom me)... she was a regular /b/tard so I guess we know who the real creepy one is.

(it took me a while to figure out how to approach girls - I didn't start dating til college... she is one of mistakes apparently)

So...we can all at the very least agree that ADVENTURELAND is wayyyyyyyy better than (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, right?

― Dr. Morbius or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ban (Tape Store), Friday, July 31, 2009 2:09 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

100% otm. days of summer was pretty zzz

its like, i wanted him to start talking more abt architecture but they kept cutting those parts off. at least then id get something out of it.

but like ... am i just supposed to identify w/ 'sometimes u like someone & they dont like you' -- what else is there to it? like, ok, wow, a piece of my life + awkward attempts to seem relevant with quirkiness & indie music choices. i just left the theater feeling kinda vaguely embarrassed abt it all

also lmbo cant believe i didnt read that lorax post bfore posting -- clllllassic

damn this is somehow a seriously classic thread between tape store and the cap

wish id seen the trailer before laying down 8 bucks to see this :-/

One time I met a girl by knocking on her dorm room door when I heard music coming from her room. "Is that The Smiths?" "Yeah it is :)blah blah blah". Within the week we were friends I was too friendly with her - she knew I liked her when I bought her an apology present for some reason I don't even remember - so one day when I had slid a note under her door, the next note I got back said her friends think I'm a rapist. Anyways, yada yada yada, we avoided each other from then after. And she moved to a different dorm room next semester. Also she uploaded my friendly note(s?) to 4chan (as I found out one morning when a slsk friend found the note and showed it tom me)... she was a regular /b/tard so I guess we know who the real creepy one is.

― CaptainLorax, Sunday, August 9, 2009 9:51 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can this be bronzed

i love all the parts that are glossed over ... its kind of like u could make a rashomon style film abt this encounter w/ different sections from the perspective of the cap, the /b/tard, the /b/tard's friends ....

her friend's never even met me. they just read my notes

along with 4chan

ya cap you were probably overfriendly but dont trust anyone who posts on 4chan imo

i liked this. some parts were cringeworthy, but i was won over by jgl and zd's charisma and by the playful formalist techniques.

dnr this thread had escalated to ilx leaving drama

paper heart was quite good. captainlorax's post is incomprehensible to anyone over the age of 25.

I saw this tonight. The ending annoyed me. Too many pretty girls turn up in too many convenient places. The scene where "Mushaboom" by Feist came on gave me indie diabetes, although they mercifully avoided the use of the Faces' "Ooh La La". That said, I don't think it was entirely without merit - some nice, nuanced touches here and there, some good laughs etc. - and the smiths elevator scene is less punchable ouside the context of the trailer. I had to cover my eyes when he was turning up "Please Please Please..." in the workplace to get her attention - so embarassing. I think Zooey might be well-suited to playing capricious girlfriends, although she is portrayed quit

e sympathtically. Whoops.

The film isn't too bad I bet but I'm just sick of movies about self-absorbed indie kids celebrating themselves and the things they love. I could totally go for a movie about these types of characters that is honest and critical, but these movies always feel smug and proud about being insular.

I'm just sick of movies about self-absorbed indie kids celebrating themselves and the things they love. I could totally go for a movie about these types of characters that is honest and critical, but these movies always feel smug and proud about being insular.

Well, to be fair, there isn't really much of this in it. There isn't anything like that scene in Lost in Translation where Scarlett and Bill are being smugly disdainful about some dolly bird. Nor is there any sense that Smiths fandom grants someone divine qualities. Unless you want films about smug, cliche-evading Britney Spears fans who also listen to Mahler, but that just seems like another trap really.

I haven't seen the film, so my judgment is prejudiced and only based on clips and hear-say, so maybe it's not bad. I'll have to rent it.

Dug this.

btw the "director" in Paper Heart strongly resembles ilxor poster ice cr?m

this movie is bad

I don't think it's just the narcissism of small differences that made me set myself against the film. The idea (boy learns not to rely on manic pixie dream girls for redemption) is a fine one, but the execution falls flat. Perhaps I just wanted it to be a broader rejection of what Summer represents - the film rejects her as saviour, but still seems in love with the more irritating trappings of 21st Century Quirk, most notably in its calendar-flipping device.
Most of the jokes fell flat, and too many elements rang false or were unbearably hoary - the greetings card company milieu (and that awful meeting-room speech), the ribbing best pals, the knowing little sister. Maybe the fundamental problem with the breezy day-jumping structure is that it makes Tom such a stooge for the whole project – it belittles his obsession from the off, where it needs to take it seriously in order for the subsequent events to punch any weight.
Still, it managed to deliver a couple of moving moments: the 'expectation'/'reality' split-screen party sequence, and the final Tom-Summer scene, where she finally emerges as flesh and blood.

the second film in 6 months to bring on a genuine nausea, the other being Rachel Getting Married. i think i preferred that to this and that's really going it some.

http://pitchfork.com/news/36543-death-cab-for-cuties-ben-gibbard-and-zooey-deschanel-get-married/
A nation of indie types weep

So, basically, "Gregory's Girl" did it better?

I had a pretty violent dislike of 'Summer' as a character almost as soon as they introduced her with the yearbook clip and the 'doubletakes' on the bus etc. anyone who's known anyone remotely like this girl knows how it ends, so showing me the bloody ending didn't help at all. I basically just sat there waiting for it to be over. For all it's indie window dressing (smiths references, ikea, soundtrack) there just didn't seem to be much substance. I loved the dance sequences and JGL's drunk karaoke scenes were great...in fact he was probably all that kept me from leaving...but overall it felt like a waste of time if that's all the story amounted to. It didn't feel 'new', or 'different', or 'refreshing' to me. It kind of annoyed me, and mostly bored me. Loads of friends loved it, omg you have to see this, but ugh. Wish I hadn't listened.

Still going at local theaters - I guess it's made pretty good money? Budget couldn't have been too much.

the cgi animation of zooey deschanel must have cost a lot though, seems really lifelike in the trailer.

For all it's indie window dressing (smiths references, ikea, soundtrack) there just didn't seem to be much substance.

For all? Don't you mean "because of"? :-P

There should be a scene in movies like this one where the cute couple, in the middle of foreplay and undressing in bed, forget to have sex because they were too busy configuring a shuffling iPod filled with indie rock classics. It'd epitomize the aesthetic and could be the origin story of a new sex act ("Braffing" - verb).

or end up arguing what album to play during...

"Are we getting hedonistic to DFA or is this one of those nights where we spoon to Sarah Records?"

^^^This is what cute indie couples in the movies ACTUALLY believe

i've actually had that conversation

would have felt self-conscious suggesting seeing this or seeing it solo. and i saw 'yes man'.

Terrible movie.

feel like all u crybabies who saw this movie got what u were looking 4 tho

I didn't get Joseph Gordon-Levitt on a dish, wtf.

So, basically, "Gregory's Girl" did it better?

― Mark G, Tuesday, 22 September 2009 00:22 (1 month ago) Bookmark

Yep, especially the little sister was ripped directly from that film.

feel like all u crybabies who saw this movie got what u were looking 4 tho

I really want to see this movie just so I can feel snide and superior for 90 minutes tbh.

it was showing on a plane and I didn't listen but I sort of glanced at it occasionally while reading Timothy Bright's "A Treatise of Melancholy". It looked ouchy in the indie-sweepstakes dept. Pretty people tho.

I really want to see this movie just so I can feel snide and superior for 90 minutes tbh.

this was my thinking going into it, but really i just ended up kinda indignant and generally pissed off

i have no problem w/ movies along these plot lines, i.e. adventureland is my favorite movie of the year, this was just way too 'precious'

i still can't believe anybody wasted time going to see this movie :(

eh jokes on me tho, i watched juno a few days ago

:(

So, basically, "Gregory's Girl" did it better?

that movie has a very sweet but maybe a bit unsettling ending.

lol surm!

i guess i just tend to like my cute movies more absurd than clever

I got a free screener of this and still may not watch it.

what is unsettling about the gregory's girl ending?

set in Cumbernauld.

what is unsettling about the gregory's girl ending?

just how they substitute the girl he wants for some other girl he doesn't know he wants.

i mean, it turns out nice and all, but i would've been a bit peeved.

partic at that age, ppl turn out to be replaceable.

I'm a bit slow... is the title meant to be a pun on De Sade's 1000 Nights of Sodom?

it's 120 days of sodom and if it had been titled '120 days of summer' i would have seen it

Zooey Deschanel in a remake of Pasolini's Salo is something I...would not particularly want to see.

i mean for the chutzpah of the reference, not for any horrors contained within

would explain JGL's shit eating grin

it was funny how in his SNL monologue he made reference to being on 3rd Rock From The Sun "15 years ago" when the show started 13 years ago and ended 8 years ago, like he had to acknowledge it but wanted to exaggerate his distance from it

wow I am getting a ton of For Your Consideration shit for this in the mail (ie book of screenplay), what are they smokin?

lol Fox Searchlight

Movie deserves a tiny tiny credit for making LA seem like a city you might actually where people like actually walk places. Which might be the most hard-to-believe thing in a movie filled with ridiculous hard-to-believe things.

I can't forgive what this did to H&O though.

this movie is awful

often when a movie like this happens and everybody has the same opinion, especially a negative one, i don't see the point of adding my opinion, especially since it's been over a year since it came out, i mean, what is the point of just piling on

but AUUUUUUGHHHHHHHH to hell with this movie

Horrible.

Zooey is right for nearly the entire running time and then she says she's wrong at the end and it's totally just to make clingy JGL feel even more miserable. Her marriage will clearly end in divorce too.

all about perspective

I feel so alone in not hating this.

I think it's great, weirdly for exactly the reasons most people on this thread seem to really hate it.

this film is everything i hate about that indie style and more

i mean comeon those "time passing" interludes with the drawings were sooooo obnoxiously twee and indie

I usually hate all that stuff (Paper Heart, for instance, might be the worst movie I've ever seen in a theater) - but it seemed like 500 Days was actively undermining the indie theme a lot of the time.

This movie was absolutely insufferable.

Anyone who calls it "this gen's Annie Hall" needs to be legally forbidden from talking about movies. Cliche piece of absolute crap that gives absolutely no insight into love for this generation with the twee turned up to 11.

If you want to see a good veristic hipster romance, I totally recommend Barry Jenkins' low-budget, thought-provoking drama Medicine for Melancholy.

This film isn't as bad as I wanted it to be.

milo otm. surely all the criticisms are exactly the point.

Never saw this flick, but I do wonder why no one has conflated the union of Gibbard and Zooey as "Gooey."

I have to admit to a serious Gordon-Levitt crush.

This. Apart from that, pretty lame movie.

it impresses me how, even though it clearly loathes the JGL character, it treats everything with enough sensitivity to prevent it falling into full-on lets-laugh-at-this-asshole mode. like it recognises and understands some of these horrendous traits (which happen to dovetail with twee indie fuxors).

Who calls 500 Days "this gen's Annie Hall"?

the press kit probably

Who calls 500 Days "this gen's Annie Hall"?

I assume this was bumped because of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnTfn6X9H3Q

go ahead and vomit

The "enchantingly original and romantic" (500) Days of Summer is "a Gen-Y Annie Hall," said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly.

didn't sit through the whole film, but still feel compelled to note (again) that gordon-levitt is a really, really good actor (notwithstanding a few odd career choices).

He was great in "Brick."

iirc ILX didn't like 'Brick'

not enough, anyway.

a really, really good actor who's really, really cute. Tough too -- too tough for this slog.

brick is great iirc

There was quite a bit of love for Brick around here - a couple of loud dissenters though.

I liked JGL in The Lookout but the movie as a whole was pretty eh.

BRICK and MYSTERIOUS SKIN are both classic.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Mysterious Skin was so beautiful. I nearly cried. Fantastic movie. But then I'm a GA fangirl. :-(

The "enchantingly original and romantic" (500) Days of Summer is "a Gen-Y Annie Hall," said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly.

The fact he put it between ironic quotation marks should have given it away. ;-))

but those are just regular quotation marks

"regular"

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7mer4fjvC1qcwp3lo1_400.png

this movie should have been called "bitches"

I knew I wasn't the only one who noticed the screwball romance playing out between JGL and Hardy.

whats the above ^ image from? (303) happens to be my area code, phone-wise.

first frame from the film (500) Days of Summer. Next two from Inception.

oh of course! as in (303) days into the relationship. like anywhere else, anytime you get anyone's number the first thing you see is parenthesized (303)'s preceding the actual number so that image just brought up trigger-memory.

totally forgot i had clicked the 500 days of summer thread when i read that. didn't mean it to sound condescending!

Has anyone ever thought of making a film called 300 Days Of Summer, in which Zooey Deschanel is in a relationship with three hundred doomed CGI Spartans?

THIS guy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/sep/02/graduate-mike-nichols-marc-webb

So...errr,,,JGL is coming to do a guest lecture at my school. Huge LOLs ahead?

Who is Joe?
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been working as a professional actor for
twenty-three years. He recently starred in award-winning sleeper hit
(500) Days of Summer for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe.
After adolescence on the TV show 3rd Rock From The Sun, he took a
break from acting to attend Columbia University and returned to earn
his "indie cred" with films Mysterious Skin and Brick. This summer,
he will star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Christopher Nolan's
Inception.

What is hitRECord?
Joseph started hitRECord.org five years ago as an outlet for his own
personal creativity. Since then it has evolved into a professional
mass-collaborative production company where anybody with an internet
connection can contribute to a variety of digital multi-media projects
that Joseph directs. hitRECord.org collaboratively produced and
screened a number of short films at the 2010 Sundance and SxSW film
festivals. It was also recently named one of the top ten "Game
Changers in entertainment" by The Huffington Post.

What is the show?
In an effort to reach out and collaborate with young aspiring artists
and media-makers nation-wide, Joseph Gordon-Levitt will tour a select
group of colleges this fall. The program will include a discussion of
his acting career, an introduction to hitRECord's collaborative
process, for those who don't already know, as well as lots of
interactive participatory RECording antics and activities.

###

an introduction to hitRECord's collaborative
process, for those who don't already know,

Who is joe

"indie cred"

Zoe Deschanel does not accompany = waste of time

Zoe....................y

does not accompany

poor Joe lost all his cool points to Franco :/

Who the FUCK is joe

he changed the game

Who is Zoe?

Just watched this, really liked it. Made me laugh quite a bit. It made me a bit sort-of wistful too. I'd like to hang around in these places, especially the big lobby at the end. I'd even quite like to work in the greetings card business.

Deliberately not reading the rest of the thread.

this is one of the worst movies ever made

^^that pretty much sums up the thread for you, IK.

Still think it works as a good back story for Cobra Commander.

this 50/50 movie was a good deal better than I was expecting - best bits are when Anjelica Huston is onscreen (unsurprisingly)

this is one of the worst movies ever made

― Lamp, Saturday, July 2, 2011 10:10 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Angelica Huston is a treasure.

yeah she really is. I would watch her fold laundry.

We need a poll.

badmovie

it's interesting that Huston's career as an actress bloomed relatively late - she was never really a young ingenue, she didn't start getting major roles until she was in her 30s

also cancer is hilarious fyi

Can I get a "Premium Rush" thread?

http://cdn.blogs.sheknows.com/celebrityphotos.sheknows.com/2010/08/joseph-gordon-levitt-premium-rush.jpg

premium rush looks hilarious

Movie event of 2012 for me.

was anyone else really turned off to (500) days of summer by the "bitch" part in the opening disclaimer? i assume that JGL's character is a stand-in for the writer's own feelings, so i basically get the impression that between "bitch" and the "fuck you, whore" from the greeting card, this is not someone i'm going to spend much time sympathizing with.

Not supposed to sympathise with jgl

Also Premium Rush was awes

i don't sympathize with anyone in the movie. except the girl on the blind date, she had to put up with some shit.

JGL's own comments on sympathising with his character:

The (500) Days of Summer attitude of “He wants you so bad” seems attractive to some women and men, especially younger ones, but I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is. He develops a mildly delusional obsession over a girl onto whom he projects all these fantasies. He thinks she’ll give his life meaning because he doesn’t care about much else going on in his life. A lot of boys and girls think their lives will have meaning if they find a partner who wants nothing else in life but them. That’s not healthy. That’s falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person.

Deliberately not reading the rest of the thread.

― Ismael Klata

I know what you mean (even though I've already scanned a bit). I didn't hate this. The only run-from-the-room scene for me was the Hall & Oates production number; Levitt's I-see-through-it-all quitting scene was pretty bad too.

But there were things I liked. 1) Zooey Deschanel choosing "Sugar Town" for karaoke. I wouldn't mind if karaoke turned up in every film ever. 2) The way The Graduate was incorporated. When Anna Karina tears up at The Passion of Joan of Arc in Vivre sa vie, it's very moving; I don't think the equivalent scene here is any less valid. (Karina's alone, so her scene resonates a bit more.) 3) The penultimate scene in the park. I really felt the chill, and shared in Levitt's anger/befuddlement. I hated Deschanel right there.

Wish the film had ended there. Obviously that wasn't going to happen.

What I meant to write was that I wouldn't mind if "Sugar Town" turned up in every film ever. I have no feelings on karaoke whatsoever.

It is literally one of the worst movies I've ever seen along with Human Traffic, Unbreakable, Drive and Crash. It is also an anomaly because it's the only one of those whose name doesn't have anything to do with car accidents.

I remember Drive and Crash, that was a good one.

Amazing that this is from 2009, it seems like it should have been closer to the turn of the century

this came out in 2009?????????????? i'm freaking out this DEFINITELY came out in 2008

having some intense stein/stain flashes now

milo this movie is so of its time imo, it can't exist without Little Miss Sunshine or Juno or the Apatow movies. like Simon & Garfunkel's "Feelin' Groovy" it can only exist in a one or two year span outside of which they only make sense as a joke.

it's much worse than all those crumby movies

I've never seen a movie that was more "don't be this guy, guy"

Hi fidelity is the generational forebear