Joseph Gordon-Levitt directed, wrote and stars in this surprising romantic comedy about a New Jersey working class lothario who prides himself on an ability to bed the most beautiful girls at the clubs (the “dimes”) but maintains a more personal, lasting relationship with on-line porn.  When the dimiest of dimes, Scarlett Johannson, comes between Levitt and his smut, he is forced to make a choice, with the assistance of an older friend, Julianne Moore.

The picture starts out fresh and funny, getting the most out of Levitt’s conundrums and fetish, but it takes a sweet and slightly deeper turn as he comes to realize the degenerative, asocial impact of his choices.  Gordon-Levitt is a winning performer, and even as a slightly dim palooka, you invest in him. Johannson and Moore are also strong in support. In fact, the entire cast is sharp, save for Tony Danza and Glenne Headley doing a louder, less capable Robert De Niro/Jackie Weaver from Silver Linings Playbook.

In some ways, this movie appears to be the last thing a teen should watch, especially a younger one.  It is crude and deservedly R rated.  But I’m going to recommend it to my high school freshman son and senior daughter because it is original and clever and, as importantly, because it communicates a positive lesson about sex and love in a world where, well, you have porn stars wondering why they just aren’t accepted and the medical community searching for yet another clinical addiction.

Another from the factory of producer Judd Apatow, director Nicholas Stoller co-wrote the script with star Jason Segal, which tells the story of Segal and Emily Blunt, he a San Francisco chef and she a would-be psychology professor at the University of Michigan.  They fall in love but then endure the long stretch of pre-marriage, with its attendant insecurity, doldrums and misgiving.  While the stretch can be a little rough on the viewer, Blunt is charming and as he did in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek, Stoller wisely populates the story with supporting characters who offer varied, funny bits.  In particular, David Paymer and Mimi Kennedy shine as Segal’s blunt, atypically private parents.  Alison Brie (Trudy from Mad Men) is also strong as Blunt’s happily married sister and she and Blunt pull off a hilarious conversation/confrontation in front of her young children in the guises of Elmo and The Cookie Monster, thus masking the seriousness of their subject matter.

Still, there are glaring problems.  Stoller and Segal over-rely on the easy laughs of adults using dirty words (though nothing quite so bad as Apatow’s embarrassing This is 40); the image of Segal’s bare ass or failing and/or harried while humping really isn’t all that funny; the replacement mates when Segal and Blunt break up (Rhys Ifans and Dakota Johnson) are gruesome, easy marks; and there’s nothing really new here.

There is also the problem of Segal, who is perhaps the only actor who makes Paul Rudd seem manly.  From his awful sitcom How I Met Your Mother to just about every film in which he’s carried the load, Segal is a tiny variation on the same persona – aw shucks, hapless, sweet and prone to self-pitying outburst.  Summed up, a huge pussy.  I’m happy to defer, but in a romantic comedy, he’s a natural best friend, not the lead.

Meryl Streep is incredible, as always, flawlessly and effortlessly inhabiting the character of a repressed, unhappy Nebraska housewife, married to a removed, cantankerous Tommy Lee Jones.  She signs the couple up for a week of couples counseling in Maine under the tutelage of Steve Carell, during which their marriage is analyzed in order to fix it.

Most of their problems stem from intimacy issues.  They haven’t had sex for 4 years.  So that’s where Carell focuses.

The performances are uniformly good and the interplay between Streep and Jones is often genuinely affecting.  The film, however, becomes repetitive and ends in a cloying renewal of vows that is much too much.  The movie also features some of the worst, most intrusive and blaring pop songs to accompany emotional stretches.

Be prepared.  As I said, the central problem for Jones and Streep is sexual.  Which means frank talk about and between people I’d prefer not to think about in sexual situations.  It also has a scene of Streep trying to give Jones a blowjob in a theater, a failed endeavor. Sure, there is some humor in Streep purchasing “Sex Tips for Straight Women by Gay Men.” But watching her put those tips into practice?  Sorry, kemosabe.  Deal me out.

What are the chances I’d see two Mark Duplass movies back-to-back much less one I’d rate a 0 and one I’d rate a 5?  This is a sweet, whipsmart picture about three Seattle magazine employees – two interns (Aubrey Plaza and Karan Soni) and a writer (Jake Johnson) – who go to Northern California to do a piece on a guy (Duplass) who put out an ad to go back in time, looking for a companion.  The writer took the job solely to nail an old high school girlfriend he found on Facebook (Jeneca Bergere).  Plaza is along for the ride and Soni, a geeky Indian techie, only took the internship to round out his resume’.  Plaza becomes intrigued by Duplass, Johnson falls for his target, and it turns out time travel may be possible.

This is a dual story between four people looking to connect.  Duplass bonds with Plaza while Johnson and Soni engage in a mentor-mentee dance.  Best, what seems a goof assignment to write an ironic, hip piece on a quirky dude masks a couple of crises of conscience, place and purpose.

Everybody is excellent, but Johnson is particularly strong as an urban scammer who uses the story as a cover to hook up with a high school flame and realizes how empty he feels in the arms of a real woman.  She asks what he’s doing, he responds that he has an Escalade, she clarifies “no, I meant with your life” and he responds “I just told you.”

When she puts up her guard, points out the error of his idealization, and his fairy tale collapses, he runs to Soni and screams in the geek’s face to get off the Internet, away from his safety bubble and live a life.  Johnson’s character is emblematic of the maturity of the writing.  Normally, he’s the dick, the full-of-himself comic relief.  As a character, it’s an honorable job, ala’ Bradley Cooper in Wedding Crashers.  But Johnson (and really, all the characters) are given more depth in an economical fashion, making a very funny movie poignant and multi-layered.  One of the best films of the year.