Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been directing short films for a few years now through the collaborative community he’s set up at his website, hitRECord.org. Now, the busy actor has slated his feature directorial debut, and it’ll star fellow Hollywood heartthrob Scarlett Johansson.

The untitled “sexy comedy” will feature Gordon-Levitt playing a womanizer who tries to become less of a “selfish dick.” He wrote the script, and will star alongside Johansson and another female lead that will be cast soon. Ram Bergman, who produced both Gordon-Levitt’s 2005 breakout indie Brick and this year’s Looper for director Rian Johnson, will produce this one as well.

Filming begins in April of this year, adding to the insanity of JGL’s 2012. This year alone, he’s got The Dark Knight Rises, Premium Rush, Looper, and Lincoln all coming to theaters, and he’s going to try to balance production on his own movie and also appear in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, which would be yet another film released this year for the actor.

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Bootlegs have been popping up over the weekend but Warner Bros. has today released the second official trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. It begins with Alfred worrying about Bruce and slowly builds, with Selina Kyle warning him “there’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne”. Then chants begin, a football field crumbles, Bane emerges, and the Batwing roars down a Gotham street. We also get brief glimpses at Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gary Oldman.

Watch below:

The Dark Knight Rises is set for release on July 20th, 2012. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman will reprise their roles alongside Anne Hathaway (Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

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Anarchy ensues on the streets of Gotham City, at least that’s what we get out of the recent batch of videos coming from the set of The Dark Knight Rises, now filming in New York. Three videos showing different takes from what looks like an important scene in the movie found their way onto YouTube and thanks to IGN, we have them here for you. As always, if you want to go into The Dark Knight Rises spoiler-free, I recommend you skip this.

In the last video we see Batman going up against Bane in the middle of the street, surrounded by people beating the crap out of each other. SPOILER, if you ask me, it doesn’t seem like he’s winning that fight. Also, with so many extras on the set, this looks really expensive, not to mention they are filming on Wall Street no less. This could end up costing easily $250 million when done. But considering The Dark Knight made over $1 billion in box office receipts worldwide, Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. spared no expenses on this one.

There’s also a video showing some photos of Batman and Bane from the set:

Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine and Liam Neeson. Set to open July 20th 2012, The Dark Knight Rises is easily one of the most highly anticipated movies of next year and videos like this only serve to send the hype meter into overdrive.

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The cast of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained continues to expand, and the latest actor to enter talks is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. According to Variety the actor may appear in the film if he can work around “several scheduling issues that could prevent him from participating.”

No details on his potential role in the film, but if he joins he’ll be re-teaming with his Inception co-star Leonardo DiCaprio. It’ll also end a killer year for Levitt who is already starring in The Dark Knight Rises, sci-fi Looper with Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt, David Koepp’s Premium Rush (recently pushed back to August), and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln with Daniel Day-Lewis.

In the movie Django (Jamie Foxx) is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) becomes a bad-ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some bad guys for profit, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). Samuel L. Jackson will play DiCario’s slave, Stephen, while Kurt Russell will play the sadistic trainer Ace Woody, who forces male slaves to fight to entertain the white patrons of Candyland.

Tarantino plans to start shooting Django Unchained in New Orleans in January, and The Weinstein Company will release it on December 25, 2012.

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Although certain subject matters should not be discussed in a joking manner, the comedy industry is sometimes given a pass when it comes to entertaining audiences. However, joking about things such as 9/11 or a tragic murder are instances that even the bravest comedians will not touch these days.

50/50 attempts to take a serious issue, that affects millions of people on a daily basis, and make it humorous. It’s quite the task as the 99 minute flick needs to juggle serious moments with audacious comedic writing. And eventually, the filmmakers find the correct balance.

When 27 year-old Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) goes to find out why he’s having random back pains, a cyborg-like doctor (Andrew Airlie) alerts the nervous guy that he has a rare form of cancer. In a subtle state of shock, Adam alerts his live-in girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), his best friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen) and his over-protective mother (Angelica Huston) about his aliment. Everyone pledges to help Adam, but none of them realize how much of a challenge the next few months will be. Plus, Adam is still unsure how to handle his predicament.

While spending days at chemotherapy, he yaps – and indulges in some medicinal marijuana – with fellow patients, Alan and Mitch (Philip Baker Hall & Matt Frewer); who bluntly joke with the young guy about their current status. Eventually, Kyle tries to lift Adam’s spirits as he convinces him to embrace his disease in the hopes of getting more action from the ladies. As in: sympathy sex. Though Adam is taken all of this in stride, his true demeanor is always revealed during his sessions with the surprisingly young hospital counselor, Katherine (Anna Kendrick).

Once the audience gets into this story, moments of “Should I be laughing at this?” may enter one’s mind. The marriage of borderline crude comedy and emotional segments takes awhile to run smoothly. Just over halfway through, things start to mesh as the rollercoaster ride of laughing – mainly due to the clever randomness & sarcasm of Seth Rogen’s R-rated one-liners and rants; to the painfully real instances of Joseph Gordon-Levitt giving a glimpse of what many go through with the disease, are engrossing to watch.

While the goal is to get the audience laughing – especially in the 2nd act – the seriousness of the situation is always chiming in. It’s never laid on too thick until the tearful climax (you’re not human if your eyes don’t well up), but the screenplay does just enough to reveal the challenges someone in this situation will go through on their own along with the people mentioned above. By far the best interactions from a dramatic standpoint are between the always on-screen Levitt and his excellent female supporting cast in Kendrick (near perfect in this role) and Howard.

Natural comparisons to Funny People (also featuring Seth Rogen in a similar role) will come up. 50/50 has more heart to it – and a better cast – but the tone of the screenplay is essentially the same. Basically, you’ll laugh (though some of Rogen’s material is forced) and cry.

Overall, 50/50 pulled it off in the end. It takes some time to work-in the challenging atmosphere of the subject matter as not everyone will dig this take on a serious condition. Yet everyone comes together and executes this modern comedic-drama (in that order) in the candid fashion it was going for.

RATING: 4 out of 5

(You can check out Ben’s review of 50/50 from earlier this month here)

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Columbia Pictures has released the first trailer for Premium Rush, a bike-related thriller written and directed by David Koepp (Ghost Town, War of the Worlds).

The movie stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jamie Chung, Dania Ramirez and future Superman villain Michael Shannon, and follows a bike messenger who picks up an envelope that attracts the interest of a dirty cop, who pursues the cyclist throughout the city.

Watch below:

A New York bike messenger is given an envelope by a young woman at an uptown Manhattan college and is told he has 90 minutes to deliver it to an address in Chinatown. Complications ensue when an undercover police office appears and demands the envelope on special grounds. The truth, hidden motivations, and the life-and-death stakes on all sides are revealed through a series of flashbacks as the cop and the messenger engage in a length-of-Manhattan chase, racing against time after the messenger discovers the precious nature of the envelope’s slender contents.

Premium Rush will be released January 13, 2012 in the US and February 3rd in the UK.

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Based on real experiences from the life of writer and cancer survivor Will Reiser, 50/50 is a poignant, funny movie that blends comedy with the most serious kind of subject matter. I’d imagine it’s difficult to bring humor into a story about a guy getting cancer, but with a competent script, solid actors well-suited for both comedy and drama, and some reserved directing from Jonathan Levine, the filmmakers accomplished their goal.

When Adam Lerner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is abruptly diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, his life radically changes: his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) distances herself from him, his best friend (Seth Rogen) encourages him to start using cancer as a pity tool for sex, his overprotective mother (Anjelica Huston) freaks out and constantly checks in on him, and he becomes the third patient ever for a young therapist (Anna Kendrick) seeking her doctorate. From the summary, it may seem as if a lot is going on, but in fact, the movie lounges easily from one point to the next, fading in and out of subplots as Adam struggles to retain his sanity in the wake of horrible circumstances.

There’s no shortage of jokes, the funniest of which come from Rogen, a comedian who wore out his welcome early with me but who I’ve actually found increasingly likeable in recent years. Gordon-Levitt plays the whole thing straight, but a lot of humor is derived from his occasional deadpan deliveries; his dips into the dramatic provide an anchor for audience relatability, giving us a canvas on which to project our own loved ones who may be suffering similar fates. Anna Kendrick plays her usual on-screen self – a charming, insecure girl who talks a bit too much – but I enjoy her work, so I didn’t have any problems with her. And Bryce Dallas Howard, someone who (to me, anyway) is known for playing mostly likeable characters, goes against type here in a career choice similar to Rachel McAdams’ in this year’s Midnight in Paris.

Jonathan Levine, who directed the interesting Sundance indie The Wackness as well as the abysmal All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (I hope it stays shelved forever, that’s how bad it is), takes a more reserved approach behind the camera than usual. His normal stylistic flourishes are left behind in favor of emotional character moments, and perhaps the best compliment I can give him is that 50/50 doesn’t feel like a Jonathan Levine movie. He coaxes some really good performances out of his actors, and this is clearly the best film with which he’s been involved. Michael Giacchino’s score is beautiful, and this guy continues to show why he’s nipping at John Williams’ heels to become the best in the business. Somehow, the man is able to make a scene where trash is dumped out of a car incredibly romantic with just a few notes (you’ll know the scene when you see it). He’s pumping out iconic score after iconic score, and he’s still in his prime.

I won’t get into too many details, since most of this movie is more about the feelings it conjures and less about the individual scenes that accomplish said conjuring. 50/50 is as funny as a movie about cancer can be without turning into a downright farce, but it’s real strength lies in the dramatic beats. JGL fans will be pleased. Until next time…

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SHH has received word from “a trustworthy source” that the teaser trailer for The Dark Knight Rises will be attached to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 when it is released next weekend. Not only that, Warner Bros. will also be releasing a teaser poster in the near future.

The site says the teaser trailer is a minute and 33 seconds long and will play in 3D theaters, 2D theaters and IMAX 3D screens. Trailers are usually released during the week, around Wednesday, but so far there has been no confirmation as to when the teaser will appear online.

The Dark Knight Rises is set for release on July 20th, 2012 and is currently filming. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman will reprise their roles alongside Anne Hathaway (Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

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Though Hesher is Spencer Susser’s feature debut, his directing career really began in 2008 with an impressive short film called I Love Sarah Jane. The short drew acclaim from all kinds of festivals and – more importantly – paved the way for his involvement with soon-to-be producer Natalie Portman; Susser sent her Sarah Jane and the script for Hesher, and the multi-talented actress was so impressed she quickly joined the project as a producer and co-star. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rainn Wilson signed on soon after, and Hesher eventually premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Gordon-Levitt’s lead performance as Hesher is a sight to behold. He’s a long-haired, foul-mouthed anarchist who loves Metallica and blowing stuff up. Hesher feels more like a force than a character; he slices through this movie like a scythe, influencing the actions of a young boy named T.J. (Devin Brochu) who recently lost his mother in a car accident. T.J.’s father (Rainn Wilson) has fallen into a depression – he was the one driving during the accident – and has turned to pills for the answer, but their only effects are inducing sleep and essentially removing all vitality from his life. After Hesher inexplicably moves in to T.J.’s house, the movie turns into a story of a bizarre friendship, a love triangle involving a grocery store cashier (Natalie Portman), and a coming-of-age tale of the difficulties of moving on after a traumatic event.

The film feels like a Sundance movie: melodramatic moments, shouting matches, dimly lit and cheaply furnished sets, and an intimate shooting style all collide to form a movie that is interesting to watch and is perhaps a bit better when digested over the course of a few days. The performances are all very strong, and Gordon-Levitt’s outrageous character will be enough to warrant a watch for his fans, but this is certainly not a movie for everybody. Susser co-wrote Hesher with Animal Kingdom writer/director David Michod, and if you’ve seen that movie, you may notice some of the same sensibilities among these two films. It’s a deliberate movie that has no problem taking its time with its characters, and though Gordon-Levitt is fantastic in it, he’s actually more of a secondary character than T.J., who is front and center with his struggles for the duration. Portman plays a mousy mashup of many characters she’s played before, but in a testament to her considerable talent, I found her performance infinitely charming to watch.

Bottom line? Hesher is a well-executed movie that’s worth checking out if you’re a die-hard JoGo Levitt or Portman fan. It’s a bit slow at parts, but Hesher’s metal moments are enough to make up for the occasional floundering element. I’m actually more interested in Susser’s current attempts to turn his Sarah Jane short into a feature film, so perhaps one day there will be a review of that full-length feature on this site. Until next time…

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Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field are already set to star in Steven Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln film as the 16th President of the United States and his wife, and now the director has cast his supporting roles.

According to the press release sent out by DreamWorks Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hal Holbrook, James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill and Joseph Cross are in negotiations to join the cast.

Tommy Lee Jones will play Thaddeus Stevens, a Republican leader and powerful congressman from Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives. Stevens was a staunch supporter of abolishing slavery and was critical to writing the legislation that funded the American Civil War.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, known for his roles in Inception, (500) Days of Summer, and next year’s The Dark Knight Rises, will take on the role of Robert Todd Lincoln, eldest son of President Lincoln and the only one to live past his teenage years.

Also in negotiations to join the film are David Costabile, Byron Jennings, Dakin Matthews, Boris McGiver, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong, and David Warshofsky.

The screenplay for the film, currently titled Lincoln, is based on the 2005 book Team of Rivals, written by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and was penned by writer Tony Kushner, who previously worked with Spielberg on Munich. The film will focus on the political collision of Lincoln and the powerful men of his cabinet on the road to abolition and the end of the Civil War. Shooting will begin later this year for release in the fourth quarter of 2012.

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