See ’50/50′ and ‘Machine Gun Preacher,’ flee ‘What’s Your Number?’ By Joseph J. Airdo

Your best bet in Phoenix movie theaters this weekend is “50/50,” a comedy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young man who, diagnosed with malignant tumors up and down his spine, vows to beat his illness. Aside from being seriously funny, the film is also respectably realistic, powerfully poignant and uniquely uplifting.

However, “Machine Gun Preacher,” a drama starring Gerard Butler as a former drug-dealing biker who finds God and becomes a crusader for hundreds of Sudanese children, is also worth a look. Playing exclusively at Harkins Camelview 5, the movie – which, by the way, is based on a true story –  powerfully portrays the heart of the ultimate spiritual struggle.

If both of those new releases are a bit too serious for your cinematic palette, try “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil,” a dark comedy starring Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk as two scruffy pals whose backwoods vacation takes a bloody turn when ignorant college students mistake them for a pair of murderous hillbillies. Playing exclusively at Harkins Valley Art, it an extraordinarily unique motion picture with one wicked sense of humor.

Meanwhile, arthouse connoisseurs will want to check out “Love Crime,” a keenly crafted women-of-the-workplace thriller starring Kristen Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier. Playing exclusively at UltraStar Scottsdale Pavilions, the French flick brings a savoir faire to the fine art of retaliation, giving moviegoers an opportunity to stretch not only their emotions but also their intelligence around every titillating twist and turn.

Regardless which of this weekend’s new releases you choose to see, it is bound to be better than “What’s Your Number?” The romantic comedy, in which Anna Faris plays an unmarried woman who revisits her numerous ex-boyfriends to find out if one of them could be her true love, shows potential but lets cold feet scare it right back into the same old genre formula.

Joseph J. Airdo

Joseph J. Airdo, 27, is a Walter Cronkite School of Journalism graduate with a bachelor’s degree in media analysis and criticism. In addition to Phoenix.org, Joseph is a film columnist for several outlets throughout the Valley, including Examiner.com/Phoenix and AZ Weekly Entertainment Magazine. Listen to Joseph’s “Movie Maverick” radio segment, every Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. during “The Daily Blender with Jeffry O’Brien” on KBSZ – NBC 1260 AM and 96.1 FM.