DON JON, the first film authored by the hyphenate Joseph Gordon-Levitt

elmo what is your point, we have a million different movie threads where people talk about how good or shitty it will be based off of trailers or even less info, why are you getting so defensive about this one?

i didn't realize i was being 'defensive'! this movie may or may not be crap, that's fine with me, i think hurting going talking a streak about cultural stereotyping of italian americans and the working class based on the trailer is kinda bizarre tho

I am not "psyched" to see this film, Hurting, and unfortunately I've met my quota of telling ppl to get stuffed for July.

You know what really trashed proles? The Honeymooners. Damn stereotyped loud fat bus drivers.

it's almost too rich that Morbs knocks any film that seems proletarian

srsly wtf, nitwit

Did we run out of clusterfuck threads already? I wasn't paying attention...

Based entirely upon the trailer, if you see this you deserve everything that happens to you.

is this like the comedy version of Shame?

― akm, Friday, July 26, 2013 11:45 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

shame was the comedy version.

elmo what is your point, we have a million different movie threads where people talk about how good or shitty it will be based off of trailers or even less info, why are you getting so defensive about this one?

― congratulations (n/a), Friday, July 26, 2013 1:03 PM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

lol u sound like a psycho dude

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/don-jon

tsk tsk, absolutely no one in NJ sez "Joisey," Andrew.

Gordon-Levitt attempts to situate his own lead character's porn obsession within a very specific context: a working-class Italian New Jersey home life whose patriarchal structure perpetuates the view that women are little more than objects of desire and a media environment that echoes these same ideas.

i hope this isn't true b/c porn addiction doesn't really discriminate in terms of class, geography, etc. people get addicted to strong hits of dopamine, it's not much more complex than that. i suppose background might help to explain what _type_ of porn someone is addicted to, but i can't imagine the film will go too far down that road, unless JGL is hoping to make his mark as a director by doing some kind of gaspar noe poetics of transgression thing.

indeed from description in that review film seems fundamentally conservative.

the depiction of the mother in the trailer seemed pretty insulting tbh

I didn't really think JGL was gay until he cast Julianne Moore as the ideal sex partner.

-- signed, another gay/actressexual who thinks Julianne Moore is the ideal sex partner.

Zacharek raves.... maybe you just have to love JGL and hate Italians.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2013-09-25/film/don-jon/

Julianne Moore is prized by the straights, too, damn it

Rene Rodriguez's weekend feature:

For his 21st birthday, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt bought himself a copy of Final Cut Pro, the revolutionary software that allowed anyone with a digital camera and a bit of computer savvy to turn their home movies into polished films.

“I’ve probably made hundreds of little videos since then,” says the actor, now 32. “I would shoot little movies with me in them, put them on my computer, edit them and put music to them. I was just doing it for myself, and I had so much fun. But I also learned a lot. If it hadn’t been for all of those videos, I wouldn’t have been able to make Don Jon the way I did.”

One of the most impressive things about Don Jon, the first feature film Gordon-Levitt wrote and directed, is how stylistically ambitious it is. The ingenious editing, sound effects, music and camera placements fly against the traditional emphasis on performance most actors-turned-directors use their first time out. The success of Don Jon, which opens Friday, ultimately rests on the strengths of its cast, but the movie also has the craft and technique of a veteran filmmaker’s work.

Most importantly, Gordon-Levitt uses all the toys in his tool chest not to show off, but to underscore the emotional journey of Jon, an online-porn addict and gym rat who tries to go clean after he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), a beautiful young woman whose idea of true love is defined by Titanic and film adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels.

“Style is not about having cool shots,” he says. “It’s about drawing the audience closer to the story you’re telling and accentuating the evolution of your characters. That to me is the mark of a good filmmaker.”

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/25/3650084/joseph-gordon-levitts-don-jon.html#storylink=cpy

James Wolcott wrote a feature about 10 years ago complaining about how terribly new actors moved in character. It's true: JGL is an exception.

A friend who went to last week's screening said ScarJo's accent was most convincing.

The ingenious editing, sound effects, music and camera placements fly against the traditional emphasis on performance most actors-turned-directors use their first time out.

really? this is, in my experience, the hallmark and big problem with first time films from actors.

really? this is, in my experience, the hallmark and big problem with first time films from actorseveryone.

You just want filmed plays with the camera nailed down, is that it?

I love how the poster crops out his haircut in favor of the almighty dimples.

eh this was pretty simpleminded. cute though.

yeah its a sitcom. it's okay. there's a few startlingly real moments w/julianne moore near the end that dont fit in with the rest of it... kinda makes u picture the movie jlg could've made. also brie larsen is the shit. shes definitely my favorite actor under 30

is JGL nude in it

i cant remember. he shows off his bare torso a fair amount anyway.

i will see this when i am sufficiently hungry for ass

didn't really believe that in 2013 a) a reasonably with-it woman, even if written as controlling and bitchy, would be so mortally aggrieved by a straight bro's porn viewing, or b) a straight bro porn viewer, even if written as a dim guido, doesn't know how browser histories work

though it did make for one good gag: the misunderstood double meaning of a girlfriend shrieking IT'S IN YA HISTORY. IT'S IN YA HISTORY.

I know a few women who would be mortally aggrieved by a boyfriend's porn viewing.

now I've gotta see this

also, yeah, there are definitely people who are not as accepting of casual (let alone obsessive) porn consumption within a relationship

i bought a), b more of a contrivance. scarjo was awesome btw.

who gives a shit about browser histories unless it's at work and somebody is looking over your shoulder

saw this yesterday. its basically JGL saying 'porn is bad!' and 'technology is bad! have you noticed?!' for an hour and a half. but i liked it.

i found it a little grating that its so obvious what its doing all the time. this is a film with net to no subtext - the subtlety is sledgehammer-like. i found it weird that for a film objecting to overt female sexualisation, its constantly poring over scarlet johannsen's body.

also found its obvious appeal to 'the man on the street' a little too obvious (though OTOH, average working class families dont appear much in modern hollywood anymore, unless we're talking the poorer sister in blue jasmine, which is a parallel for the family in don jon for being seemingly conjured up from watching a dozen 80s/90s italian-american-centred movies).

the whole film seemed to want to say (and JGL's character actually did say this at one point) 'hey porn isnt just for ugly dweebs' as if to hammer home its point that porn is hurting everyone but its a tad hard to have sympathy for someone whos going home with attractive women every day of the week. this was basically like shame or that other recent sex addiction movie with gwyneth paltrow - it wants to explore something sexually thorny and problematic but doesnt really want to explore it at anything other than a pretty comfortable level. still, i give it some credit for trying.

that said, i did like that SJ's character was so anti-porn. made a difference from it being casualised, even if her character was the 'beautiful woman' sterotype: sexually conservative/a bitch/unwilling to bend/narcissistic.

not read the whole thread so i might be rehashing but tbh, i think i would have liked the depiction of working class italians more if it didnt seem like the film wanted to show how dumb/cruel/superficial that kind of family can be while using them to appeal to everyone and show porn addiction isnt just some rich guy problem.

did you end up seeing this, morbs?

astonished by the lyrical praise the nyt is spoonfeeding jgl above, this film was directed like a car commercial

prejudices of hurting ii so otm itt

is this like the comedy version of Shame?

Yessss

Mark Wahlberg in the lead, Will Farrell as therapist...

Yesss this is a great idea, that is.

prejudices of hurting ii so otm itt

― mustread guy (schlump), Saturday, January 11, 2014 3:13 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol, when I saw this thread bumped I was actually thinking "Hmm, maybe I got a little carried away, maybe it's not so bad."

i can't remember if i saw this or not...

feel like i did though :(

saw this and thought it was dumb and manipulative. pretty sure meatheads like Levitt's character don't suddenly stop objectifying women simply because they screw an older lady in night class.

whoa man why dont u walk in his shoes for a while

no, i haven't yet seen it. lotta films out there.

i saw this the other day and yeah, i didn't think the JGL character's supposed epiphany was very well executed

johansson was great tho

Nothing wrong with tha characters or the acting. Script needed work, a lot of work.

the whole "chick-flick romances are just as much of an illusory narcotic as p0rn" angle was intriguing but dealt with hastily

also amused/underwhelmed by the 'reveal' that ScarJo was a villain thru her bristling at Don Jon CLEANING his apartment.

i don't know that acting/characters/story can really be tidily separated when you're dealing with something as just deeply, reflexively tired & tiring as the home-life portions of this film; don jons jr and sr trading EY YOU GIBRONI DIDJA SEE THE JIBRONIS ON THAT kind of shit, just this awful minstrel show of working class. joseph gordon levitt inhabiting the asshole-smirk at clubs. working class communities in film are dealt with well by like three english language directors & i feel like the sorta satisfying porn-morals denouement of this doesn't make its handling of subcultures any less lazy or indulgent.

i was just into scar-jo dry humping him to take a night class, that was good.

porn = chick-flicks seems kind of like a lazy and inapt comparison too. I've never heard of women binging on chick-flicks or compulsively clicking one rom com clip after another for hours.

Maybe "shopping" would be a better stereotypical female activity to compare.