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John Allman

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles at the video store or surfed the DVR pay-per-view options and seen a bunch of movies that you’ve never heard of, chances are John has watched them. Why? He loves movies. All kinds of movies. Good, bad, so-bad-they’re good, even the truly unwatchable ones. He mostly loves horror and science-fiction and drive-in exploitation movies that most upstanding model citizens wouldn’t dare watch. Then he writes up his thoughts so you can decide - watch, don’t watch or avoid at all costs. Sometimes he even gets to talk to the cool folks who make some of your favorite films.

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John Allman

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(500) Days of Summer

Posted Jan 27, 2010 by John Allman

Updated Jan 27, 2010 at 07:23 AM

(500) Days of Summer
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Directed by: Marc Webb
Run time: 95 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Love is messy, painful, euphoric and wonderful. There are high highs and crushing lows. People don’t always act nice, accept your advances or agree to dive in whole-heartedly just because you feel a certain way.

But romantic movies rarely get it right.

They try too hard to have neat, tidy endings. They focus too much on unrealistic changes of heart, quirky coincidences or the ever-popular, game-changing “You had me at hello” speech.

Not since “Say Anything” has a movie about young love felt so real, so true as director Marc Webb’s “(500) Days of Summer.”

Webb’s inventive approach to telling his non-traditional love story shows as much of the bad as the good, offering a complete picture of all the ups and downs that real relationships include.

He’s aided immensely by two of the best young actors working today – Zooey Deschanel, whose doe eyes and gorgeous voice are mesmerizing, and Joseph Gorden-Levitt, who has risen from the ashes of “Third Rock from the Sun” to show true promise and versatility.

Webb’s story revolves around Tom (Gordon-Levitt), a wannabe architect who settles for a job writing greeting cards. Tom is an idealist who believes in true love. Summer (Deschanel) is a free spirit who enjoys companionship but doesn’t want to be tethered to the normal labels given to couples such as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Their 500 day romance is shown in flash-backs and flash-forwards between dozens of different days in the courtship from the morning after the first sleepover (a dizzy, giddy musical interlude that resurrects Hall & Oates’ You Make My Dreams Come True) to the inevitable crushing breakup.

It’s fiercely funny, genuinely sad and wholly original.

The big challenge facing Webb now is whether he can keep his creative instincts intact after being offered the keys to Sony’s “Spider Man” franchise and its 2011 reboot.

Here’s hoping he lives up to his last name and delivers a comic book movie that captures both Peter Parker’s superhero abilities and his lovelorn human heart.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Zooey Deschanel, you are hot.
Nudity – No.
Gore – No.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Love.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – “Lost Days of Summer” extended and deleted scenes; Making of featurette, “Not a Love Story”; Conversations with Zooey and Joseph; Music video; Audition tapes; Audio commentary; short film “Bank Dance” by Marc Webb; “Summer @ Sundance”; more.
On the Web – http://www.foxsearchlight.com/500daysofsummer/
Release Date – Dec. 20, 2009