500 Days of Summer: Movie Preview Review
500 Days of Zooey Deschanel. No, get your hands out of your pants and keep reading.
We are aware that Zooey Deschanel is the Fonz of the hipster world; men want her, women want to be her (except backwards for the Fonz since there was no homosexuality in 'The Happy Days'... although Richie definitely pushed the envelope). Yet, when Zooey is placed at the heart of the horribly predictable scripts of the day, we are deprived of the true nature of this indie goddess and instead forced to view her through the lens of a faded, overused page from the 'Garden State' handbook. Eww, look, there's Fair Trade coffee spilled all over it.
Scrawny optimistic white boy bumps into too-cool-for-school hottie who will somehow be interested in our gloriously nerdy hero because they both like a semi-obscure indie band. Zooey Deschanel, meet Natalie Portman and Ellen Page; Joseph Gordon-Levitt say hello to Zach Braff and... wait where did... oh there's Michael Cera, he was just blending in with the scenery again.
As if to mock us, the trailer picks up after the elevator scene with Regina Spektor's "Us" playing in the background: ahh remember the good old days of Regina being legitimately innovative and not, like this movie, a product of mainstream indie entertainment. It's sad to see a genre in both music and film slipping out of our hands as the big guns figure out the formula and mass produce it for every teenage girl that watched 'Juno' and thought "this speaks to me."
500 Days of Summer will be cute. There will be moments where we laugh and say things like, "ohhh, I know where I've seen Joseph Gordon-Levitt before, he was totes in 3rd Rock from the Sun, oh AND he was the little shit in Angels in the Outfield. God I love Danny Glover." We will muse at how adorable Zooey is, cheer for our boy to get her back in the name of love, and if they've got the formula down good enough, we may even forget how much this whole concept pisses us off.
-Jeff Luppino-Esposito
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that was great - loved the bit of hopefulness at the end. I want it to be good too.
sadly i think you're right about this one
i remember him!!!!!
from 30 rock. glorious.
i think this movie will do well...with mainstream indie kids...whatevs
still loves zooey
yeah that scene where it cut to the drawings is so played out. didnt that happen in everything circa 2005-2006?
youre soo fucking negative.. go get a blowjob adn chill the fuck out.. its good entertainment
Hey broseph, just grabbed a quick bj, and I still think this movie will probably suck. Thanks for the advice though, it felt great.
wow, you sound so bitter about everything. terribly sorry regina's not exclusively yours to like anymore.
i guess i don't understand the big deal about more people liking genuinely good stuff, be it mainstream or indie, music or movies. besides, wouldn't you rather hear regina than the other drivel that's on the radio right now? or see 500 days of summer instead of a shitfest like fool's gold or some equally ridiculous movie?
maybe next time take your anger at "the man" and "the system" out on something other than a movie preview review? because your preview review really amounted to nothing more than a complaint about mainstream indie.
but anyway, my $0.02- i saw it on monday and i really, really liked it. well, with the exception of the very end which i thought was just rather stupid.
if you ask me, who gives a fuck if it's indie or mainstream? i only care about it if it's good.
[and if it makes any difference, i'm not a garden state fan.]
Emily,
I appreciate the comment, and I understand your sentiment, but I think you mistook my point.
It's not the mere fact that the art is IN the mainstream that I have a problem with, but rather that the unique product that once existed outside of the mainstream no longer is the same thing that's being imported into the mainstream.
Regina's new music and this movie can be placed in a clear cookie-cutter form that is being mass produced-- they no longer are providing the same product that they were providing previously.
It's not so much that the mainstream is the CAUSE of the change, just that the mainstream version of these films and music are not accurately reflecting the original uniqueness and true ingenuity of the art.
Whether this movie turned out to be good or not, I will have to wait to watch it, but based on the trailer I see a very clear formula being reproduced and it is not a very entertaining nor unique one.
Thank you for reading,
Jeff
Nice writeup. I have to say I was on your side as well but then I saw the movie at SXSW. I F*%&*ing loved it and I'm totally not into love story movies and crap like that. This just struck a nerve with me though. The music in this film is the cat's tits. Even the "ironic" music that I thought made no sense on the soundtrack made perfect sense in the film...Andrea von Foerster killed it...but then again I think she did the music for Grey's Anatomy when it was good so that explains it. I gotta see this again.
very interesting 'anonymous,' thanks for the inside word, i'll have to give it a viewing indeed!
Wow, we are all going to look back on your mocking this movie and LAUGH at you. I saw this last night and it's the best movie of the year so far. The best non-romantic romantic comedy since Eternal Sunshine. A realistically serious yet funny look at relationships. This will hit home with a lot of people. Sadly, not you, since you are too snarky and above it all. Hope your sarcastic comments was worth your throwing away your integrity. Peace.
Latest anonymous commenter,
Before you reveal to everyone just how idiotic you are, you should maybe look at some of the comments that came before yours instead of just assuming you're the only person with an opinion on this film.
Others have agreed with you that this movie was much better than I PREDICTED it to be (key word, predicted, I was commenting on the PREVIEW, I obviously have not seen the film yet because it was a fucking PREVIEW REVIEW). They, however, have simply informed that it is good, and, as you can see in the comment above you, I have stated that I will definitely have to go see this film since it seems to be receiving strong reviews.
This then immediately renders your comment entirely self-fellatory and pointless. This movie will 'hit home' as much with me as it will with anyone else since I am (as I stated) going to go see it.
As to your last sentence, does that even make sense? You hope that my sarcastic comments are worth throwing away my integrity? What? Does the act of being sarcastic somehow remove one's integrity?
In the future, if you have a comment, I would love to see that you at least understand the concept of the article and consider reading follow up comments as well.
Thanks
Jeez, that was kind of intense... I agree with you that this trailer screams typical romcom, but it did catch my attention. It wasn't until after I went onto the site and saw the clips and teaser trailer (which I hope is a better indication of what the film is going to be like) that I became excited to see it. Straying away from the degenerating indie film genre, I suppose my argument would be that with "original" films such as this, studios should be more aware of how they formulate their trailers. Perhaps this would help viewers distinguish between original and mainstream films, allowing those films with unique story lines to actually APPEAR as unique. Interesting article either way!
ahh, very insightful! Thanks for reading and for the response!
The problem with making the film seem too "indie" in the trailers is that then the mass market you speak so disparagingly of, will never get the chance to experience something unexpected in cinema. Once they do experience that, they may be willing to depart from the usual crapfest of cinema and demand more from their films.
I have seen this movie, and loved it. It is very accessible, the way some indie films are not, yet has a plot, which is not generally a feature of mainstream movies. I understand your struggle with this transition, but a wider audience maketh not a shitty movie. :)
Annette