Lisa Guillen : (500) Days Of Summer

(500) Days Of Summer

Earlier this week I saw a pre-screening of 500 Days of Summer which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. The actual release date for the film is July 17th 2009 but the buzz is pretty big already. Anyway, I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is my favorite movie of the summer so far. Fantastic cinematography, great story, great acting.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is probably my favorite actor right now. His performance in Brick (which if you haven’t seen then see it, modern film noir, directed/written by Rian Johnson who recently did Brother’s Bloom - just trust me it’s good.) definitely suprised me, but his performance in this movie is (for lack of a better word) amazing. I love the way he brings this character (Tom) to life. I would take the time to talk about Zooey Deschanel but you know she’s always great. (Even in Elf!)

Everyone in the movie, even the supporting actors, did a great job and really help to make this world seem real. There are a few scenes in the movie where Tom is talking to his friends and as I was watching it I was thinking “thats totally how one of my friend would have said that.” (the whole “jobs” scene is classic - you’ll understand why I say that when you see it.) They also did a great job of showing a different side to L.A., made it seem like an actual real city and not some crazy fantasy place it’s often made out to be. That was much appreciated.

I was so pleased with this movie that when I came home I looked up who wrote and directed it. To my surprise the director was Marc Webb who is a well known music video director. (He has directed videos for Brand New, Miley Cyrus, Incubus, Jimmy Eat World, Ashlee Simpson and the list goes on and on) This movie however was his feature film debut and now, I don’t know much about movies but I would have never guessed that this one was his first time around. Some scenes, like this one I’m about to show you right now, are just brilliant.

To set up the scene a little bit without giving too much away - Summer invites Tom to a party she’s having at her house after they have stopped seeing each other.

Obviously some of that credit goes to the writers too, who from what I can tell (correct me if I’m wrong) are also new at this film making thing. They are Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter and the only other information I can find on them is that apparently they were the screenwriters for the Pink Panther 2 movie that came out in February. (uhh, what?) At any rate, nice job fellas.

Did I mention how much I loved the clothing and the music in the movie too? They did a fantastic job with that as well.

I realize that this ended up more like a love letter to the movie than actually giving you any information about it so sorry but I did attach the newest trailer to the end of this so check it out!