Posts Tagged ‘dramedy’

Short Take: The kind of intimate experience that doesn't come around all that often

Director: Jonathan Levine

Screenwriter: Will Reiser

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston, Philip Baker Hall

Length: 1h 39m

Synopsis: Adam (Gordon-Levitt) and his best mate Kyle (Rogen) are two late twenty-somethings just living their lives and trying to get by. Adam and his longtime girlfriend Rachael (Howard) are beginning to hit a rough patch in their relationship, but for Adam the real bad news comes soon after getting a pain in his back checked out by a doctor. He’s hit with the big “C” word that none of us are ever prepared for. The size of the growth and its proximity to his spine gives him about a 50/50 chance of survival, and as it turns out that even split comes to define his world over the months to come. Part of his treatment, aside from torturous chemo therapy, is to see a psychiatrist named Katherine (Kendrick), whom he unintentionally begins to grow close to. With such people around him, in addition to a rather worrisome mother (Huston), Adam tries to do what he can to deal with the confusing and unexpected circumstances. While doing so, he discovers a lot about himself, as well as the close relationships he thought he understood.

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Short Take: A fresh take on a tested concept

Directors: Mark and Jay Duplass (Baghead)

Screenwriters: Mark and Jay Duplass (Baghead)

Cast: John C. Reilly (Step Brothers), Jonah Hill (Get Him to the Greek), Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler), Catherine Keener (Where the Wild Things Are)

Length: 1h 32m

Synopsis: John (Reilly) is a divorced middle-aged man living by himself, currently hitting what he believes to be rock bottom. Through encouragement and arm twisting by his ex-wife Jamie (Keener) and her new husband John attends a party where he’ll supposedly have a golden opportunity to get back into the dating game after a 7 year hiatus. As it turns out, that’s exactly what happens. He clicks with a warm, fun-loving single mother named Molly (Tomei), whose 21 year old son Cyrus (Hill) still lives with her. Shortly after the dating begins John meets Cyrus face to face, and at first the two seem to get along swell. What John begins to realize, though, is that Cyrus is actually trying everything he can to sabotage his mother’s new relationship, and so John must try to foil Cyrus’ plans under the nose of the woman caught between them. Read the rest of this entry »