Why not see 50/50 and then talk to Seth Rogan and Will Reiser about their inspiration for it? Just kidding. You can only do one of the things. But we did the other one for you! em Magazine Features Writer, Ben Kling, sat in with Seth and Will:

50/50 is an upcoming film, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogan, about a young and otherwise healthy guy who’s diagnosed with life-threatening cancer.

Also, it’s kind of a comedy .

I spoke with Seth and Will Reiser, the writer of the film and Seth’s close friend, to ask them some things about cancer and movies and cancer movies.

EM: So, how did you two meet? Did you know each other while Will was struggling with cancer ?

SETH: I was a writer with Evan Goldberg, my writing partner, on the Ali G show and Will was a producer for the show. It was his job to book the guests. So he’d be on the phone convincing James Lipton and Walter Cronkite that we were different people than we were, and then me and Evan would help write the interview questions. And Will was just getting really sick that whole time.

WILL: Myself, Seth, and Evan were the youngest guys working on the show and they became basically my closest friends. And then about 7 months after the show ended, I was diagnosed with cancer. Seth was pretty much my closest friend going through that whole ordeal, so the character of Kyle is an extension of Seth in some ways.

EM: When did you decide that you wanted to make a movie out of the experience? While it was going on, or after you’d been through it?

SETH: At that time me and his other friends—we just didn’t really want to talk about it. So we would make jokes about it. And the joke we would most often go to was “what kind of movie could we make out of it?” And because we were in the middle of it, we didn’t really have the wherewithal to realize we could just kind of make a movie about exactly what was happening. The joke was we’d make a fucked up version of The Bucket List

WILL: Which we would call “The Fuck-It List..” The whole idea came from the fact that when I was sick—people didn’t know how to deal with it. And they would ask really absurd questions.  People who had actually seen The Bucket List thought that that’s what you actually do when you have cancer.

SETH: The most unfortunate part of Will’s illness was that it coincided with the release of The Bucket List.

WILL:  Yeah, not great timing. Seth and Evan really just urged me to write a screenplay about the experience of being sick, and I sort of drew upon a lot of the themes that I went through with friends and family and sort of incorporated them into the script. For example, I used to be a really neurotic, worried person, and he [Seth] used to make fun of me all the time for it. And that’s very true to the characters of Adam and Kyle; that’s their dynamic. Kyle makes fun of Adam for how neurotic and how worried he is. And that’s definitely true to our friendship.

SETH: Yeah, it was very similar. But again—it’s kind of a mish-mosh of stuff that’s true and completely invented.

EM: Right, you have to embellish a little in order to make a movie. Is there a reason you went with an independent studio? More creative control?

WILL: There’s no way in hell any major studio would have bought this movie.

SETH: “A guy has cancer, but it’s hilarious!”

EM: This is definitely the first wide-release movie to try to make light of such a dark experience. Did you ever have to reconsider a joke or a scene because it felt like you were going too far?

WILL:  I feel like a lot of the humor in the movie has more to do with the characters and how they’re all inept and how they don’t know how to deal with the situation, which is very true to us. I mean, at 25 you have no clue how to handle a situation like this. I feel like we’re not necessarily making fun of cancer—the jokes come from character. And as long as you stay true to the characters and you never betray them—as long as they’re not saying anything that’s out of character, you’re safe.  If you just start making a joke for the sake of making a joke, then it starts becoming a broad comedy and that doesn’t feel real. You just need to keep it honest.

SETH: Since we experienced it, we had a good frame of reference to constantly ask ourselves “does this feel like shit that would have happened?” and as soon as it didn’t feel like shit that would have happened, we took it out.

WILL: And I also think that the characters are fairly likeable, and I think that you empathize with them. Even Seth’s character, who can, you know, at certain points seems like he’s a bit crass and a bit of a dick, you still forgive him because of the situation.

SETH: Thanks, Will.

WILL: I forgive Seth. I forgive him.

EM: Seth and Joe have such a good rapport on-screen. Part of what makes the friendship between the two characters so believable is how casual their interactions are—even the jokes. How much of that was improvised?

Will: There was a lot of improvisation. I would work on scenes the day before, we would shoot them, and then take alternates.

SETH: We improvised a lot. Like, scenes we shouldn’t have improvised. Like the head-shaving scene we mostly improvised. Which is pretty stupid because we can only do it once, and if we just said a bunch of shit that wasn’t funny, we just shaved Joe’s head for no fucking reason.

EM: Will, it must have been really difficult for you to rehash that period of your life and try to convert it into something inspiring and funny. Writing that into a script and then making it must have been cathartic.

WILL: Yeah, incredibly. Especially because six years ago, I was 25, and at that time in our lives we didn’t sit down and talk about our emotions.

SETH: At all.

WILL: I don’t think you ever asked me how I felt.

SETH: No. Never. Ever. I made jokes about how I thought you felt.

WILL:  It was a really difficult time for me, and the process of writing the script and then making it really allowed me to extract a lot of the things that were painful that I couldn’t talk about. And that was really great for me. So yeah, it was incredibly cathartic.

Our Entertainment Editor, Erin Doolin, attended a screening of Footloose. Check out her review to see if it is something worth dancing for (Get it? They dance in the movie. A lot. They aren’t suppose to, though.):

Who doesn’t love a good dance flick? Zero substance, all hips, few pieces of clothing, a classic ‘seasoned pro & rebellious rookie’ love story in which everyone learns the power of love and also the power of a box step. The world is always trying to tear their tango apart, and obviously one of the last shots of the movie is the one approving adult who believed in them all along, nodding with a knowing smile on the side of the big final dance. Dozens of movies are springing to mind, right? Well, before Step Up, Step Up 2, and Step Up 3D (Wait, what? That happened?) there was Footloose, the original shake-your-ass-while-fighting-the-man film starring Kevin Bacon and John Lithgow, which first came to screens in 1984. Seventeen years later, Hollywood decided it was time for a remake. Directed by Craig Brewer (director of such feel-good hits as Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan), and starring Julianne Hough (two-time Dancing With the Stars winner) and new-comer Kenny Wormald, the Footloose remake is just about a beat-for-beat remake of the original, except everyone has iPods. Footloose follows the tale of New Kid in Town, Ren MacCormack, who moves from Boston to Bumont, Georgia to live with his aunt and uncle after his mom dies. Ever since some Bumont kids, including the strict preacher’s only son, were killed in a car crash on their way home from a dance full of debauchery and beer, the town has had a law that no one under eighteen can dance in public. Yes, that’s really the law. Yes, it’s hard to suspend disbelief to accept that would actually happen. Ren, who happens to be an accomplished gymnast, dancer, and smart-ass, immediately becomes smitten with the preacher’s surviving child, the rebellious Ariel. She’s full of daddy issues and pain over her brother’s death, and deals with it by dancing suggestively and dating a race-car-driving meathead. Of course, in the end, the kids of Bumont, with Ren at the helm, petition to get the law overturned and reintroduce popping and locking back into Bumont, and Ren and Ariel twirl off into the sunset.

Footloose is not a movie that’s meant to be taken too seriously, like most dance flicks, so getting past the melodramatic exposition is a bit boring. But never fear! Brewer definitely does deliver on the dancing, with dance genre-bending performances that cover pretty much everything you could ask for. Wormald and Hough may not shine terribly bright in their more dramatic scenes, but get them out on the dance floor, and it becomes pretty clear why they were cast. In fact, the secondary title should be Julianne Hough Tries to Convince All Straight Girls That They’re Lesbians.  While they certainly have the chemistry needed, romantic lines such as “Will you kiss me?” “Someday…” fall flat, and not even in a good, campy way.

 The story is definitely what should be secondary in Footloose, but they still spend way too much time trying to cram a half-baked lesson down everyone’s throats. Wait, dance can bring people together?! The film goes on for just a bit too long, and will have you looking at your watch about a half hour before the end. Dennis Quaid tries to keep a straight face as Rev. Shaw Moore, but unfortunately can’t hold much of a candle to John Lithgow’s 1984 performance. And no one is quite sure how Andie McDowell got there. Is she really trying to follow Dianne Wiest, the most understanding mother with sad puppy dog eyes to ever grace the screen? I don’t think so, Andie. But some of the supporting cast does steal a few scenes. Take Miles Teller, who plays Ren’s dancing-incompetent friend, Willard. As a goofy redneck with a heart of gold, he ends up being a secret-star, even if he does get a bit overused at some points.

All in all, Footloose delivers on what a dance movie is all about. Which is, of course, hot people and awesome dance scenes. The story gets a bit cumbersome, so just take bathroom breaks in those parts, and make sure you see what you actually came for.

(text by: Erin Doolin)

Film:

• Drive (September 16): Other movies are coming out in September. Probably. But this is the only one that you need to pay $12 for. The plot (“A Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong”) doesn’t necessarily sound like anything to write home about, but the cast of Ryan Gosling (who, if you haven’t heard, is the closest thing we have to a superhero on this awful earth), Carey Mulligan, and Christina Hendricks make this a must-see.

Televsion:

• 2 Broke Girls (September 19): This is a show that could go either way. All the ingredients are there — Kat Dennings as a fun-bitchy Brooklyn-based waitress who can pull off having a boy’s name; Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings are the creators, which is a strange, but exciting, combination; Molly McAleer, one of the funniest people on the Internet ever, is one of the writers. But it’s on CBS. And there’s a laugh-track. And the preview involves a joke about a horse.
  
• New Girl (September 20): The word twee was invented because Zooey Deschanel was born. That is a fact. If you want to know why we’re on the fence, check out the description on the official Fox site: “Jess (Deschanel)  is an offbeat and adorable girl in her late 20s who, after a bad breakup, moves in with three single guys. Although she’s dorky and awkward, she’s comfortable in her own skin. More prone to friendships with women, she’s not used to hanging with the boys.” If you want to know why we’ll still be tuning in on September 20, look at a picture of Zooey Deschanel.

Music:

• Father, Son, Holy Ghost by Girls (September 13): The expectations are high for this captivating garage rock band duo. Don’t believe us? Just check the Internet.
• Laura Marling (September 13): Marling’s third album will be a deeply honest and personal record and, presumably, not an upper. A Creature I Don’t Know, the first song released off the album, is haunting and lovely, which is what we’ve come to expect from Marling.

Clothing Lines:

• Missoni for Target (September 13): Objectively the most hyped-up Designer for Target line, well, ever. Get your zig-zag on and try not to get punched if you dare enter a Target on the 13th.
  
• Alexa Chung for Madwell (September 22): Madewell, J.Crew’s sassy younger sister, has done it again with this line by Alexa Chung. The full look-book has not been released, but expect to see lace details, Peter-Pan colors, leopard accents, and high-waisted bottoms. 

What are you most excited for in September?