First, the link to the trailer for 50/50. It has Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anjelica Huston, and Anna Kendricks in it, and they are all great, and it made me laugh even while I was balling up tissues in my lap and trying not to bug the other people with my sniffling.

Look, I know I’ve been posting a lot of stuff lately that’s like, “Hey, I saw this movie before you and you should totally see it, yeah!” but I have a few things to say about that.

1. It’s my job to see movies and (hopefully) write about them in some capacity. Usually this means seeing them before people who have other types of jobs. Sometimes I don’t see them, or write about them, or whatever, but I do my best to stay on top of shit.

2. Anyone who has followed my writing in other outlets knows plenty of my reviews rip into shitty romcoms and the like with the tenacity of one of those awesome Navy SEAL dogs with steel teeth. I bitch about marketing campaigns and misleading trailers. I am not very good at being political. I am very good about supporting movies that I think are excellent.

3. Although I was invited to see 50/50 at a relatively early screening, I am in no way being compensated for writing about it. I am not being flown anywhere. I am not getting cool swag for it. I was told that I could write about my impressions of it once the trailer comes out. I am doing so happily because it touched me a great deal.

4. Right now, there’s some justified hubbub about studios hand-picking entertainment journos to see movies so they can create buzz about them, and I generally agree that’s not a cool practice — for large studios whose movies don’t need buzz. I do think a dramedy about cancer from a smaller studio could probably use a little support from people who saw it and really, really liked it. Why I was invited to see 50/50 before xyz is a mystery to me. I will tell you quite honestly that I am often not invited to see things this early, and that sometimes I have to cajole, beg, and annoy publicists to see certain movies at all. Like I said, it’s all very complicated and probably quite boring to hear or read about the inner workings of this kind of hoop-jumping.

I’m planning to write more about 50/50 in the future, so for now watch the trailer. I can honestly say that it does capture the feeling of the movie wonderfully, and I tip my hat to those who cut it. Cancer is fucked up, sad, awful, and occasional hilarious in that laugh-or-cry sort of way. 50/50 manages that balance.

Also, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the cutest cancer patient ever. Will I go to hell for that? Good thing Jews don’t believe in hell! Or if they do, don’t tell me.