FirstWitch
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
mariopopesco
Every open minded girl or woman must see this movie.
Excellent directing and the characters are great.
-1 for finishing the movie in a soft and somehow moral way, it wasn't necessary in my opinion.
I loved the Don Jon from first half of the movie.A must see
The Movie Diorama
This is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's baby. Directed, written, produced and starring the man himself. Technically he shows flair and promise, but the film itself lacks quite a few essentials. A promiscuous young man loves his life, where he follows the same routine every day: sleep, workout, party and have sex. In between these pivotal aspects, he finds time to watch pornography...to a point where he becomes addicted to it. Unusual subject to portray, especially for a directorial debut. It certainly is a statement! Combining pornography with relationships in order to create a comedy kind of works actually. There are moments where I did laugh, particularly as Jon repeats church confessions every week (where his sins progressively get worse). Gordon-Levitt's direction was extremely competent, I especially loved his quirky traits. Quick cuts of pornography to show his character's constant thinking of it, the repetition of certain scenes to highlight his routine and focussing on certain body parts of women to portray his infatuation with sex. The latter however, I do find incredibly distasteful. Objectifying women for the majority of the runtime was superficial. It was constant. I just didn't warm to it at all. Although, showcasing Johansson was a wise choice, both their acting and chemistry was well demonstrated. For a film that was over 90 minutes long, it really didn't go anywhere. The pace was incredibly slow. So whilst I find Don Jon to be a competent comedy with technical panache, it wasn't a subject that I was particularly fond of and found certain elements to be distasteful.
ThousandsOfFilms
I put the reviews of Don Jon into 3 categories which, paraphrased are 1) "The film is shallow and sleazy and I hate it"; 2) "The film is shallow and sleazy and that's great because it's telling it like it is – it's an accurate "slice of life" story and I love it"; 3) "The first 95% of the film is shallow and sleazy, but at the very end, it rejects the sleaze for something better and I like it."#3 is what Gordon-Levitt (writer & director) was aiming for. However, that approach has been the standard out of Hollywood for decades and it fails. For the reviewers in categories in 1 & 3 above, they already recognize the shallowness and sleaze of that lifestyle. For reviewers in 2 above, by far the largest group, they view the 95% about shallowness and sleaze and that just reinforces their view that that's the way life is. What's needed is a romance movie that has heart and soul and beauty throughout – before the 1960s that was common especially in the '30s & '40s. But beginning in the '60s a downward spiral for "romance" movies started with each year being worse – each year the difference between Hollywood romance and porn shrunk with many describing most such fare as soft porn and many producers admitting they were aiming to produce soft porn as the best way to make money. Maybe that's why LaLaLand, which was a throwback to an earlier era, was so well received, but even it seemed like a pale shadow of Demy's films which in turn were a pale shadow of the romance films (and life) of the '30s & '40s. Gordon-Levitt is a very good actor. Regarding technique, he can write and is a good director. However, he doesn't seem to have anything to write about. Maybe shallowness and sleaze is all he's experienced, first or even second hand. His efforts have no heart or soul or depth. Modern action adventure movies are well done, but modern movies about the relationship between a man and a woman too often are just soft porn.The formula was wrong but to make it work, the audience should at the very least have been rooting for Jon to go with Esther (Julianne Moore) because of her inner beauty and heart, etc. – I knew in advance that's how it should go, but felt nothing except that she was annoying – not Julianne's fault – it was 100% the fault of the empty script. Jon only rises a few levels, out of about 50, from the shallowness and sleaze at the end as that's as high as Gordon-Levitt's vision can see. I don't think the new movie writer generation is capable of improving so the only solution seems to be to watch films from a different era.
Ecology Fan
Let me start this review by saying that I love Julianne Moore, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansen. As such, I was really looking forward to it, and perhaps that expectation contributed to my ultimate disappointment.Everyone looks gorgeous in this film (special praise for Tony Danza, a 65-year-old with a much younger man's physique: well done!), but apart from that, there isn't much to recommend it. If it's a comedy, we must have missed all the jokes because it just wasn't funny. The "late '80s North Jersey guido" stereotypes are all trotted out in quick succession, whereafter viewers are beaten over the head with them. The accents! The muscle cars! The tight clothing! The product-heavy hairstyles! The gratuitous shouting and swearing! The mother who endures it all for the unconditional love of her son! If there were an adaptation for the stage, I bet we'd have been sprayed with Drakkar Noir to complete the feeling.Other points: * The always delightful Julianne Moore is under-used here. * The exploration of a character's addiction to porn is at best a side show. This is not a film with really much depth at all.
