50/50 (2011)
Directed by Jonathan Levine
Inspired by a true story, a comedy centered on a 27-year-old guy who learns of his cancer diagnosis and his subsequent struggle to beat the disease.
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What critics compared 50/50 to
It's most comparable to Jonathan Levine's "50/50" in this way; it will leave you feeling like you've been punched in the gut, but it acknowledges that there can be humor even in the worst situations.
But then the story shifts to Amsterdam, and whatever intention Boone and his producers had of making this a different kind of cancer movie — something like Jonathan Levine’s 50/50, in other words — ends up in the nearest canal.
The Fault in Our Stars, like 2011’s 50/50, finds necessary humor in the gravest of subjects, the inherent glory and ridiculousness of life’s impermanence.
Whether you relish that depends upon your predilection for the Beaches, 50/50s and Shadowlands of this world.
For every smart, balanced portrait of living with illness like Jonathan Levine’s insightful “50/50,” there’s the grating form of bottled sentimentalism found in “The Bucket List.”
The screenplay contains more humor than can be found in the average cancer-related film, although it falls short of the pinnacle achieved by 50/50 , which largely avoided the kind of overt manipulation that emerges late in The Fault in Our Stars.
In this, the romance follows on filmmaker Jonathan Levine’s previous filmic interests, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, The Wackness, and even 50/50, all concerned with outsider boys finding some semblance of insiderness with a girl, however odd their match might appear.
It’s as if Shakespeare and “Dawn of the Dead’s” George Romero have been reincarnated in the form of Jonathan Levine, the young, hotshot director who follows up his Golden Globe-nominated “50/50” with another potent combination of heart and hearty laughs.
Jonathan Levine previously did a much better job of combined genres in the tragicomedy 50/50.
Working from Isaac Marion's novel, writer-director Jonathan Levine (who saw the funny side of cancer in 50/50) bends the rules to make the story work and softens the violence, too, but it's still a witty reinvention of the genre like Shaun of the Dead before it, drawing parallels between the apathy of youth and the zombie masses.
Levine helmed 2011’s cancer comedy 50/50, as well as 2008’s wonderfully druggy coming-of-age comedy The Wackness, which you might recall as the movie where Ben Kingsley shags an Olsen twin in a barroom phone booth.
Written and directed by Jonathan Levine (“50/50”) and based on Isaac Marion’s novel of the same name, “Warm Bodies” unfolds in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse that has made humans the food of choice for hungry zombies and the savage, skeletal “bonies” that some of the undead turn into after a certain point in time.
Jonathan Levine's 50/50 (2011) broke new ground by turning a preeminent source of movie drama—young people battling cancer—into the stuff of wiseacre comedy.
More than anything, “Snatched” feels like bad comic chemistry all around: Schumer and Hawn never find their bantering groove, director Jonathan Levine (“50/50”) has no idea how to direct them and “Ghostbusters” writer Katie Dippold’s screenplay might have worked with actors who traffic in awkward comic timing, such as Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy.
Inexplicably written by Katie Dippold (“The Heat,” “Ghostbusters”) and directed by Jonathan Levine (“50/50,” “Warm Bodies”), the movie simply struggles to fill the time.
Snatched was written by Katie Dippold, who also wrote the very of-the-moment movies The Heat and the all-women reboot of Ghostbusters, and was directed by Jonathan Levine (The Wackness, 50/50).
Director Jonathan Levine has shown far greater skill in balancing a variety of genres and tones with his previous films, including the great comedy-drama “ 50/50 ” and the horror-comedy “ Warm Bodies .”
Both its writer, Katie Dippold, and director, Jonathan Levine, have notably nonhorrible résumés; Dippold wrote The Heat and co-wrote last summer’s Ghostbusters reboot while Levine is responsible for such above-average comedies as The Night Before and 50/50 .
Rather than delving into the bonding theme, director Jonathan Levine (50/50) and screenwriter Katie Dippold (The Heat) use it as a pretext to let outsize characters loose to snipe at each other.