If you've seen 500 Days of Summer (out on DVD next week!), you will recall the celebratory musical number in the middle of the film. (You can watch it here.) In response to a challenge from their rival school, the students at Shorewood High School, in Shoreline, Wash., recreated the 500 Days number with a bit of a twist: They did it in one unbroken take. Oh, and they did it backwards. That is to say, the main performers had to listen to the song played in reverse and learn how to lip-sync it that way, so that it would look right when the video was played backwards.
That is one cool teacher!! I know we didn't have that much fun in high school. That scene in 500 Days of Summer was one of my favorites, too.
500 Days of Summer is opening in Great Britain after success in America. The movie opens with the usual disclaimer about it not being about anyone living or dead. "Especially you, Jenny Beckman." "Bitch." Those opening title lines have led to much speculation about the real Jenny Beckman. It turns out she's an English girl that writer Scott Neustadter met in England while attending school there. He fell head over heels, but the English girl, he's not saying if her name is really Jenny, never felt the same way. Once they broke up, he channelled his pain and wrote it all down in a screenplay.
Reliving every moment of my bitter-sweet, one-sided romance was a cathartic experience for me - and the end result, we were shocked to find, was pretty decent.
The finished film tells it all just as it happened, however embarrassing my puppy-like devotion and however aloof it makes her look.
He met the English "Jenny" once after writing the screenplay and he gave her a copy to read on her flight back to London from LA.
Some time later she wrote me a letter. She loved the story, she said. It had surprised and moved her because she really related to Tom. Yes, incredibly, Jenny hadn't recognised herself as Summer at all.
500 Days of Summer got lots of buzz from its Sundance premiere, and for good reason. This is a delightful film, and the best film I have seen this entire summer. Yes, it's really that good, and I'll tell you upfront that I give this film 4 stars. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Right from the beginning, you get the idea that this is not ordinary film. We have a text disclaimer saying that no character is based on anyone living or dead. Flash to new screen "Except you Jenny Beckman." Flash again. "Bitch".
The film structure is unique. We start the film knowing that it is about a relationship that has broken up. It's 500 days of Summer, because Summer is the girl -- that's the girl, played by Zooey Deschanel. We bounce back and forth from the end, somewhere around day 480, to day 1, with a helpful counter to tell us where we are bouncing to next, as Tom remembers and examines his romance with Summer.
This is the tag line for the film:
Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't.
This is not a love story. This is a story about love.
Summer is upfront with Tom that she is just looking for fun, and not love. She doesn't believe in love, and is surprised that Tom does. "It's love, it's not Santa Claus," he replies.
The film uses animation and a fantastic soundtrack to show Tom's love for Summer, including a Hall and Oates song complete with Tom dancing in a crowded park with a bluebird like something from Disney's Enchanted. There are many sly movie references in this movie like an exact frame from The Graduate as Tom sees Summer naked on the bed just like Dustin Hoffman sees Mrs. Robinson.
Marc Webb has done a fantastic job with this film. You can tell he's had a history of directing music videos, and it's just wonderfully used in many moments. This is a movie that you're going to hear about at Oscar time. I think the writing is exceptional. We've seen romances so many times that are formula, and yes, I like those, too, but this was something new, and that's really hard when you're telling a love story.
I have never loved Zooey Deschanel like I did in this movie. She is luminous and the camera worships her showing her through the lens of Tom's adoration. But we don't truly get to know her, in the same way that Tom thinks he knows her, but doesn't really. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a revelation to me. He's all grown up from his days as a child actor on TV, and I wasn't thinking about that at all -- for the first time. I hope he has a wonderful career, and will look forward to his future work. Interestingly, he is in this week's G. I. Joe as one of the villains, and I almost want to see it just to see that! (Plus Dr. Who's Christopher Eccleston.)
Special mention also goes to the little girl that plays Tom's younger sister. She has a couple of lines that had me literally bent over with laughter. I won't spoil the funniest one, but she sums it all up with this line that a girl who likes The Smiths isn't necessarily the one:
Just because she's likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soul mate.
With the release of this music video with music from the film, there was this interesting bit:
Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt say they hope to team up repeatedly and have aspirations of being a regular screen couple, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.
They’re not a real couple, but they’re good at faking it.
“I think it’s great to have continuous collaborators,” Deschanel says. “It’s a shortcut that makes it so much more fun. The job is much easier when you can go to set and be like, ‘Ah, Joe!’”
Count me in as one who would love to see these two work again. They were just magic in this great film. Go and see it! 4 big stars. And don't miss the Cinemash Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel did from Sid & Nancy as a spin off from a line in the trailer below.
I downloaded the soundtrack for 500 Days of Summer, mostly for the song She's Got You High by Mumm-Ra, and Us by Regina Spektor and have been listening to those songs on near constant repeat in my car. Marc Webb, director of the film, has made a charming music video with the stars of the film, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, to the song Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? by She & Him, Deschanel's retro-rock duo with musician M. Ward.
The music video is not directly related to the plot of 500 Days of Summer:
Gordon-Levitt plays a stoic man in a neat blue suit, turning to crime in a moment of absolute desperation. Deschanel is the gorgeous, wide-eyed teller, disarming the dangerous man (metaphorically speaking) in a playful, twirling, fox-trotting dance through the stuffy, starkly lit marble lobby. The other dour denizens go about their business unaware.
This video just makes me smile, and smile very big. My review for this amazing film coming tomorrow.
You MUST watch this hilarious clip from Mean Magazine in their first of the Cinemash series. OMG!! This is so funny because they made a joke a reality! There's a line in the trailer for 500 Days of Summer where the Zooey compares their relationship to Sid and Nancy, but she says SHE is Sid. So, Mean magazine had them film a scene from Sid & Nancy -- Zooey Deschanel is Sid, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Nancy.
What's really a riot is that this is going to be a series. Next week brings Cheech and Chong doing Tron!
In one of the few nods to a current project, the first short, which posted Tuesday, features Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel re-enacting the climax of "Sid and Nancy" with all the junkie drama and heartache that Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb brought to the original -- with a catch. Playing off a scene in their upcoming "(500) Days of Summer," it's Gordon-Levitt in lingerie, mascara (and stubble) as Nancy Spungen and Deschanel in punk-god drag as Sid Vicious.
"We wanted to take it really seriously," Gordon-Levitt says. "To be winking would be a joke on a joke -- the gender reversal being the joke itself. To make it funny, we had to do the scene in a real way."
Marc Webb, who directed both "(500) Days" and the "Sid" "Cinemash" episode, says: "It was one of those things that -- it had to be done. Once the idea is out there, you have to do it. You just can't shove it back into your gullet."
This film had major buzz at this year's Sundance Film Festival, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to see it then. Fox Searchlight snatched it up, and we can all see it July 24th!
I love movies and the Oscars are my Super Bowl. I am also a news and political junkie. This blog is eclectic, as I come across all sort of interesting things as I web surf. I post news about upcoming films and my own movie reviews.
