Good news everyone, Scarlett Ingrid Johansson can actually act and really did out do herself in the memorable role of Barbara Sugarman! Joseph Gordan-Levitt wrote such an original contemporary screen play - if he doesn't win some type of award for his kick-ass directing skills, everyone in Hollywood is deaf and blind. Exciting, multilateral, having a real heart and soul to it that's lacking in most recent film, it still manages to be extremely edgy, still brooding, still serious, so serious, it'll hold your attention long after the end credits have finished, thus I have to recommend it to any movie lover or intellectual.
Really I almost feel like my tweet that DON JON is a mesh of American Psycho and Harold & Maude is actually kind of an insult to reduce it in that type of summation, it's that good. I only state there's an American Psycho element to it because there is a strong focus on the fast food, shallow, superficial culture we're all so enmeshed in. Practically drowning in. All of our normally corporate spoon fed culture that's covered in a fine sparkling sheen of clear wrap, its contents still one molecule away from plastic. Until everything's flavorless soul-food.
Not DON JON though, it's a virtual buffet of soul-food.
Characters Jon Martello Jr. and Barbara Sugarman really do struggle against numerous plastic media enforced false fantasies about sex and gender. It's a mirror on how we all struggle and what we struggle against. But it all ultimately boils down to emotional porn, everything from the romantic comedies to the money shot. Even physical, sexual pornography has undertones of emotion that pull a viewer into it, we can't discredit lust as an emotion. Young boys or the generally ignorant often forget that pornography is just another form of acting and are responding to it emotionally in actual reality, and we don't even know what the long-term societal effects of this phenomena of easily accessible hardcore pornography are, much less what they are going to be. Porn is fast-food sex. DON JON also highlights on how often males are portrayed as having little to no emotion--which is not true. And what is this hyper-Hollywood advertising imagery doing to the minds and souls of not only females, but of males, how is it affecting ALL of our minds and souls; what is it doing to the famous that are still endeavoring to connect to the rest of us on a very grounded human level? Instead of being portrayed by the paparazzi as these untouchable demigods of wealth--why is it that the truly creative voice is needing to be self produced due to a stifling of originality by the traditional distributors? Why are we reduced to shallow sexual shoppers, reveling in our poverty instead of questioning it? That may not be Mr. Gordan-Levitt's intention behind DON JON but they are questions I still can't help taking away.
Some scenes were truly uncomfortable yet so insightful of the He-Man macho culture, like when Tony Danza (who should have gotten more roles, my God can this man act) mocked a mounting gesture towards Barbara behind her back, purposely directing her on where the place the casserole--or whatever it was--just so he could make this motion and have a better view of her ass. Danza plays Jon Sr. so it was really icky that the dad approved of his son's choice in women namely due to how much he wanted to bang her himself. It was such a grimy thing to watch, but maybe that's where Jon Jr. kinda got the idea it was okay to be a serial one-night-stander initially? (I was grouped by someone's uncle once, so that type of shit happens). The other scene that was really uncomfortable was when there was this commercial on TV of this like almost nude woman eating a cheeseburger at this impossibly high beauty standard and you just watch Jon Sr. & Jr. kinda ogle her, while the mother and daughter, sister to Jon Jr., look impossibly miserable and put out. That one moment said more then I could ever write about it. Because that type of shit happens too.
DON JON speaks for itself, so check out the trailer below and what writer and director Gordan-Levitt had to say about the movie himself and hopefully you'll watch it, think about it, talk about it, hell, even write about it. I'm also excited to see what Johansson will maybe go on to produce on her own after being involved in a project like this and of course, what JGL's next brainchild will be. Put it in your queue! ...what are you waiting for?!--Do it now!
Oh yeah, and check out this "real" Twitter feed of fictitious Jon Martello Jr., it's hilarious.
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