50/50, the new cancer comedy based on screenwriter Will Reiser’s experience, isn’t trying to be funny. It isn’t trying to be sad. Decidedly non-manipulative, it deftly sidesteps the opportunity to give into melodrama, and doesn’t create crazy situations in order to squeeze out a laugh from the audience. It’s just a simple story that is extremely well told. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, a 27-year old whose life is turned upside down when he is unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer in the form of malignant tumors up and down his spine. I know, there’s nothing even the slightest bit funny about this premise – in fact, I’m sure a lot of people will steer clear of this film because of the depressing subject matter. But what most people don’t realize is what an uplifting, real, honest, tough, and yes, hilarious movie 50/50 really is.
50/50 proves that humor can be found in a subject completely devoid of any glee. As Adam's best friend Kyle, Seth Rogen (who is Reiser’s real life best friend) doesn’t much change the character he usually plays just because of the delicate topic; he’s sex-crazed and foul-mouthed, but he also cares deeply about his friend and refuses to act differently around him because he’s sick. However it’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance that makes the film the emotional rollercoaster that it is. Not once does he overact, and not a single moment feels forced or untrue. He’s so personable, relatable and likable, yet he’s not afraid to show the bitter side of the character; here's a man who lives his life with an extreme focus on safety (he doesn’t even have his driver’s license because of the amount of car-related deaths) only to still be stricken with a disease in which he has a 50/50 chance of survival. This is his most heartfelt, career-defining performance, one that I sincerely hope won’t be overlooked come award season. 
With a subject as sensitive and un-funny as cancer, to create a film that’ll genuinely have you laughing one minute and then wiping tears away the next seems like a near impossible task. Thankfully, this dramady beats the odds and emerges as one of the best movies of the year so far.
Rating: A
I’ve never sat in a packed baseball stadium while singing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” and snacking on peanuts, nor have I ever had the urge to. But it says so much about screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) that my intense lack of enthusiasm for baseball and statistics didn’t hinder my enjoyment of Moneyball. Not one bit. Moneyball tells the true story of the Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), and his successful attempt at putting together a winning team with a decreased budget by using statistical data to draft the best (and cheapest) players. Sorkin has immense talent when it comes to taking a subject that lacks luster and making it seem like no story could ever be more compelling, which he more than succeeds in doing with Moneyball. His token laugh-out-loud one-liners are there, and Jonah Hill (who gives an understated, surprisingly real performance) nails each and every one of them, never letting a possible laugh go by unnoticed.
At its core, Moneyball is an underdog story and in-depth character study. Incorporating flashbacks to Beane’s feeble baseball career after high school, we get a solid feel for why Beane is so determined to change the game of baseball forever and for good. Pitt doesn’t need any bells and whistles to catapult his performance; you can see the nostalgia glistening in his eyes as he watches his team play, his somewhat rough around the edges exterior start to recede as he spends time with his daughter. This is one of the best performances of his career.
At 133 minutes, Moneyball isn’t a short film. Delving deeper and further along the lifespan of the story than was perhaps necessary, Moneyball adds an extra 20 minutes to what could have been the inspirational climactic ending most moviegoers will crave -- but then again, who am I to dictate what the real ending to a true story should be? Nevertheless, one thing is for certain: Moneyball can’t help but inspire love of the game.
Rating: A-
The film opens with a black screen and the sound of coughing – not just any cough, though; that really phlegmy, wet kind of cough that may just be one of the worst sounds in the world. As that very first sound should have hinted me in, the cacophony of coughing is one of the sounds that most makes up the audio in Steven Soderbergh’s new disease-outbreak film Contagion. That is, when we’re not “treated” to one of the films excessive montage sequences with its edgy, electronic score complementing the sight of sick people contaminating those everyday objects we can’t help but come into contact with. It should come as no surprise that right from the get go, you know Contagion isn’t going to be a pleasant experience. What is remarkably surprising, though, is the fact that a film with one of the most absolutely stellar cast in years (Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, and Marion Cotillard and Jennifer Ehle) manages to make such little use of the immense talent at its disposal.
Contagion follows the rapid spread of an unknown, highly communicable deadly virus, intercutting between different characters who are all directly affected by the epidemic, including a husband who just lost his wife and stepson to the disease, those in charge of the Center for Disease Control and World Heath Organization and an internet blogger. It’s not so much the fact that there are so many different storylines that does the film in, but it starts to become a problem when even the main characters start to feel like secondary characters because we spend such large stretches away from them. Even that might have been okay if we ever actually felt like we got to know most of these characters, thus giving us a real reason to care about their well being in the first place. By most standards, Contagion is a well-made film. But it is its lack of any heart, soul or emotion that dooms it into being one of those overlong, overly ambitious films that doesn’t quite hit the mark.
More of an stylistically grim experiment in fear than anything else, Contagion strives to make even the most rational person hypochondrical (and succeeds in doing so admirably), but left me feeling like I didn’t get anything back in return other than the sour taste the film left in my mouth. You know a movie is screwing with your head when you hear someone cough in the theater and your first thought is “EVACUATE!”. Whether that’s a good thing or not, I’ll let you decide for yourself.
Rating: C