Even though this clip doesn’t contain any of the pornography the film has been known for, it’s still NSFW due to Tony Danza’s F-bomb.
When the first trailer premiered last month for Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s writing/directing debut Don Jon, it was both awesome and ridiculous, but the thick Jersey accents threw me for a loop, and I couldn’t figure out which adjective described it better. HitRecord released the first clip from the film, and I’m left with the same feeling.
Perhaps within the plot of the film, Don Jon (Gordon-Levitt) introducing Barbara (Scarlett Johansson) to his parents Jon Sr. (Danza) and Angela (Glenne Headly) is a really big deal and plays out in an interesting way. But here in clip form, it’s almost sitcomish, with Danza as the somewhat oafish father who doesn’t care about anything unless it has a nice pair of tits up front. (And who can blame him, eh? Fuggeda….never mind.)
The story of Don Jon is about the titular character’s addictive personality and how he isn’t able to see his behavior as problematic. When he meets Barbara, whose mindset and porn-watching habits are on a completely different wavelength, and the couple shares an offbeat romance that luckily doesn’t feature into every other rom-com. Lurking near the third act of the film, though, is Julianne Moore's character as another love interest, so it's possible that meeting Don Jon's wifebeater-wearing Dad is a step too far for good girl Barbara.
But the clip still just kind of seems like somebody rewrote a scene from Raging Bull but forgot it was a drama. In any case, fellow Cinema Blender Sean enjoyed the film at its SXSW screening, and I can’t wait to see the film for myself. (To be fair, other fellow Cinema Blender Katey saw it at Sundance at hated it). Still-- even if I gotta climb over some goombas, I'll get to the theater when Don Jon releases on September 27, 2013.
