Alan Dee’s movie preview

YOU’VE got to be able to laugh at anything, even the tough stuff – that’s what laughter is for.

So don’t steer clear of 50/50 even if it’s being promoted as a bromance buddy comedy with a cancer theme.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the young chap with a dream lifestyle whose life is turned upside down by the diagnosis of a rare form of cancer.

The odds that he’ll make it are 50-50, but as crude pal Seth Rogan points out, that’s better odds than you’ll get in a casino.

Cue comedy as well as drama as our hero is engulfed by the medical machine, works out how to use his condition to his advantage with the ladies, and deals with the varied reactions of his family and friends.

Writer Will Reiser created the story after his own brush with likfe-threatening cancer, so he knows what he’s talking about.

It’s not going to change the world, but a good laugh never hurt anyone.

> Classy Brit cinema is to the fore this week. First there’s The Deep Blue Sea, directed by Terence Davies and starring the likes of Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale.

It’s a wartime tale of forbidden love, with Weisz the frustrated judge’s wife who falls for dashing pilot Huddlestone and pays the price. It’s adapted from a 1952 play by Terence Rattigan, whose work is suddenly back in fashion, and it’s very much a painstaking period piece made with attention to detail.

> There’s even more of a starry British cast in My Week With Marilyn, in which Michelle Williams is the token Yank surrounded by Kenneth Branagh, Judie Dench, Dominic Cooper, Derek Jacobi...you can pass the time playing spot the star.

The Marilyn of the title is Marilyn Monroe, and the story puts the spotlight on her ill-fated collaboration with Larry Olivier on the set of the 1956 film The Prince And The Showgirl. It’s told through the eyes of young movie hopeful Eddie Redmayne who lands a job on the set. Again, it’s a lovingly crafted period piece but there’s much more to enjoy here than in the doomy Deep Blue Sea.

> He’s not just James Bond, you know. In Dream House Daniel Craig looked perplexed after moving into a house which he then discovers was once a murder scene. Don’t worry, this isn’t Amityville haunted house nonsense, but Dan starts to unpick the murder mystery and director Jim Sheridan delivers a decent thriller with some classy performances.

> What, Brad Pitt’s new movie gets mentioned almost as an afterthought? Yup, because Moneyball is too long, and it’s about baseball. Brad’s a baseball boss at the lower end of the leagues who finds he just can’t compete with the big boys for top talent. But using detailed stats and picking up players other teams have ignored, he starts to fashion a side of former no-hopers to prove that you don’t need a bottomless purse to succeed in sport, although it certainly helps.