Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)
Alex Garland's Civil War (2024)

10/06/2014

Don Jon (2013) or, Over-sexed 2013



+ Best Debut Movie of the Year

Hype on top of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's smug smile on this poster for his own directorial debut, Don Jon


Jon is a New Jersey player, who one night in the club eyes the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. They become a couple, but Jon also has a very close relationship to his porn that now becomes problematic.
 
Writer-director-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Mysterious Skin (2004)) and Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation (2003)) are both super charming here, although she plays a pretty bitchy young lady here, - she fits well with his self-involved, shallow nice guy Jon.
Gordon-Levitt's directorial feature debut burns its way outward and onward on a lot of youthful energy, busy editing and the likely stars at the center. Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right (2010)) is well cast as the woman SPOILER who teaches Jon about two-sided lovemaking.
The porn addiction is not examined in depth, and it isn't allowed to get too destructive for Jon, inhibiting the film from really going places. The story is wrapped up with a smile on its (your?) face like a neat little package, but it can't completely escape the shallowness of its characters and portrayals.

Related posts:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: 2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
Looper (2012) - Time travelling assassinations have never been hipper or more exciting! (actor)
50/50 (2011) or, Dude's Got the Big C (actor)
(500) Days of Summer (2009) or, Cute and Cuter (actor)


Sexy Scarlett Johansson meet sexy Joseph Gordon-Levitt in his Don Jon


Watch the excellent trailer for the film, which surfs high on Good Vibrations

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 30.4 mil. $
= Big hit
[The remarkably low budget probably hides the fact that star-salaries were invested into the film or held until release, and/or that the friends in the cast were only paid scale salaries. In any case, Don Jon got a warm reception at Sundance and earned almost all of its dough in the States, (only 5.9 mil. $ internationally).]

What do you think of Don Jon?
What would you like to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt tackle for his second movie as director?

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (4-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (4-24)
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