Looper

[Totenkindly]

Okay. I need to say that this is one of the best movies I've seen this year. It's really solid. Rotten Tomatoes has it in the 90%+ range right now, and it deserves it (especially compared to craptastic movies like "In Time"). About the only complaint I have is about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's eyebrows -- they were far too dark. If I could change anything about the movie, it would the black percentage in his brows. Which of course only highlights how decent the movie was, if that's all I would change.

It's essentially a gritty action movie with some decent laughs scattered throughout, along with some scifi elements. It's a testimony to the director that there are some pretty harrowing scenes that are interwoven into the same movie that has some decent chuckles, and it all still works -- he nails tone very well. He also doesn't pull punches or hide the results of violence; you will see some rather unsettling things occur (one of the worst involving Joe's friend Seth).... One can riff off the time travel meme and come up with some pretty nasty results -- but even those kinds of things contribute to the overall plot, so you can't say a particular twist was unexpected.

The cast is pretty solid, but I have to take note of the boy (Pierce Gagnon), who is dazzling, especially considering how young he is. And you don't want to see his "ugly" face.

EDIT: Oh yeah, this is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the audience was rendered speechless in the last two minutes. No one had any idea how to respond to the ending. It's one of those things where you just don't even know what to say, you just find yourself sitting and staring at the screen as the credits roll and just not coming up with anything.

 

[Poindexter Arachnid]

I just got back from seeing this a few hours ago.
I was irritated while watching it (long story). So...kind of on the fence about it.

The abrupt tonal shift in the third act...At this point, I couldn't say if it enhanced the movie, or took away from it.

 

[Totenkindly]

Great interview with Emily Blunt (who was in the movie).. but it's got spoilers.
http://www.myspace.com/whats-hot/20...will-ever-see-and-the-proper-way-to-chop-wood

One note is that she talks about Pierce Gagnon, the boy... he's only five, but he's pretty mesmerizing on screen. She describes working with him in detail, and I think it's the funniest thing that the kid could be so "on" when he was being filmed, and then between takes he's just a boy without even a clear big-picture sense of everything in the movie.

 

[Burger King]

Oh man, the way you described it...I want to watch now. So Bruce goes on little time traveling adventure. Wasn't there another movie where he time traveled....I think it was called 12 monkeys. This guy...

 

[swordpath]

[MENTION=7]Jennifer[/MENTION]

Are there any gratuitous sex scenes or anything else that would make seeing it with my father an awkward experience? He likes good movies, but he's religious so if it's too offensive and over the top with certain things then he won't enjoy it.

As for me, I rate the quality of movies based on how many pairs of breasts I see.

 

[Totenkindly]

[MENTION=7]Jennifer[/MENTION]

Are there any gratuitous sex scenes or anything else that would make seeing it with my father an awkward experience? He likes good movies, but he's religious so if it's too offensive and over the top with certain things then he won't enjoy it.

As for me, I rate the quality of movies based on how many pairs of breasts I see.

Note: The spoiler is still pretty general and doesn't give away specifics, but in case others don't want to read it...

Yes, there is a scene without sex but the woman straddles the man, without a shirt on. (She's an adult sex worker.) You can see nipples.

There is also a sex scene that shows almost nothing and only really shows two people kissing and lying down on the bed.

There's some hardcore violence -- blood splatters on people's faces, for example, and an implied torture scene that is powerful although you don't really see it occurring directly on screen.

The movie is really an action movie with scifi motifs/narrative elements and some character study, as well as really good acting by pretty much everyone involved. So I'm not sure whether the few scenes with sexual elements will stand out as such.

Oh man, the way you described it...I want to watch now. So Bruce goes on little time traveling adventure. Wasn't there another movie where he time traveled....I think it was called 12 monkeys. This guy...

Yes, although Bruce isn't crazy in this movie. I'm sure there will be some comparisons, because (1) Bruce Willis is in both and (2) they both involve time travel, although thematically it's pretty different.

 

[Poindexter Arachnid]

12 Monkeys was a significantly better movie.
David Webb Peoples and Terry Gilliam? No contest.

Still on the fence with Looper.
I'll need to see it again before I can truly make a judgment.

 

[Poindexter Arachnid]

12 Monkeys was a significantly better movie.
David Webb Peoples and Terry Gilliam? No contest.

Still on the fence with Looper.
I'll need to see it again before I can truly make a judgment.

 

[The Ü™]

I think I have to update my top movies of the year list, but maybe later. There were a couple of things I didn't like, mainly

the explanation of the telekinetic powers the characters have...I remember it being described very briefly and it almost felt like a footnote merely set up for a useless subplot. They should've drawn it out more.

Another thing that irked me, and this is a minor "complaint" that's not even a complaint, but I thought it was kinda funny seeing a digital matte painting of a giant futuristic city surrounded by nothing but farmland. I don't know why it's funny, precisely, but I always figured that a sprawling metropolis would be surrounded by suburbs. Sue me, as a film critic, I need to find something to bitch about.

A nice touch was the modified gas tanks (presumably electric) on the old pick-up trucks. I wonder why they didn't explain how that worked in a footnote narration like the one in the spoiler tag. The futuristic motorcycles are pretty cool, also. And great attention to detail was put into how they would interact with potholes.

Seriously, I have nothing else to complain about. I loved the movie.

I want to see a bad movie so that I can write longer posts. When is Les Miserables, AKA Hugh Jackman's coming out party...um...coming out?

 

[Poindexter Arachnid]

^And you, my friend, have explained my major complaint with the movie.

There was no need for the "telekinesis" subplot. In fact, I'm not sure you could call it a "subplot" as it completely hijacked the picture. Akira (for instance) had a very logical and dare I say obvious reason to explore this phenomenon. With Looper it didn't match up thematically. It was a completely unnecessary addition.

The first two acts were solid. Derivative, yet distinct. While the third act had a much needed emotional element, once the cat was out of the bag it had nowhere to go. I'm not a fan of "twists" but this movie was in need of one. For the first time in years while watching a movie in the theater, I had no grasp on where this movie was going or how it was going to wrap up and I it was one of the better aspects of Looper for me.

But it didn't go anywhere. It was a lot of build-up for nothing. In fact, the anti-climatic finale was downright insulting. Prosthetic Joe goes Michael Biehn while Bald Joe kicks ass as The Terminator? C'mon.

And let's not even start on Bruce Willis. His role in Looper required him to portray a parody of a parody of himself (if that makes any sense).

Rian Johnson has got some chops. But he needs to refine his abilities.
This was one of those movies that could have been great, but instead it left me indifferent.

 

[Totenkindly]

...That's too bad it didn't work for you. Most of your complaints sound more preferential than universal.

 

[Poindexter Arachnid]

It's not preferential. If anything, that sin falls on the filmmakers.

It was shamelessly derivative, while the story itself was "original". There were various classic sci-fi elements forcibly shoehorned into the script without any basis, and it betrayed the internal framework of the story. I like Tetsuo Shima and T-101 as much as the next guy. Nevertheless, they obviously don't belong in the same movie.

 

[Totenkindly]

Obviously not everyone agrees with you. (In fact, you seem to hold a minority opinion.) hence, it's not universal. Obviously a lot of professional reviewers who are well-versed in cinema did not have issues with the mixing of elements that seems so bothersome to you. I didn't really have an issue with it either.

I do agree with you about not having any idea where the movie was going, something that rarely happens with me, and so I could appreciate that aspect as well.

 

[swordpath]

Note: The spoiler is still pretty general and doesn't give away specifics, but in case others don't want to read it...

Yes, there is a scene without sex but the woman straddles the man, without a shirt on. (She's an adult sex worker.) You can see nipples.

There is also a sex scene that shows almost nothing and only really shows two people kissing and lying down on the bed.

There's some hardcore violence -- blood splatters on people's faces, for example, and an implied torture scene that is powerful although you don't really see it occurring directly on screen.

Thanks!

 

[MacGuffin]

Obviously not everyone agrees with you. (In fact, you seem to hold a minority opinion.) hence, it's not universal. Obviously a lot of professional reviewers who are well-versed in cinema did not have issues with the mixing of elements that seems so bothersome to you. I didn't really have an issue with it either.

Appeal to authority?

I'll probably see it on DVD...

 

[MacGuffin]

Obviously not everyone agrees with you. (In fact, you seem to hold a minority opinion.) hence, it's not universal. Obviously a lot of professional reviewers who are well-versed in cinema did not have issues with the mixing of elements that seems so bothersome to you. I didn't really have an issue with it either.

Appeal to authority?

I'll probably see it on DVD...

 

[The Ü™]

Oh yeah, there's another complaint about Looper I neglected to mention. It was shamelessly predictable, but at least the journey leading up to the predictable resolution was a gory fun ride.

At least it wasn't disappointing like Dredd, which felt like an hour-and-a-half TV episode. All the action took place in the same goddamn building -- there was a lot of wasted potential, like futuristic car chases. Comparatively speaking, Stallone's movie was a far more ambitious undertaking, even though it was a bit misguided -- fucking Rob Schneider -- and pissed comic book purists off. (I don't see what the big deal was about Stallone's Judge Dredd removing his helmet.)

 

[Totenkindly]

Appeal to authority?

What an intellectually lazy response.

I think it's appropriate if someone says, "This should be a problem for ANYONE watching this movie -- it universally is wrong," and the reality is that the huge majority of the universe says, "Uh, we actually liked it." There is a discord between someone's claim (speaking for others) and the actual opinion of the others.

This is called projection.

 

[Totenkindly]

Appeal to authority?

What an intellectually lazy response.

I think it's appropriate to make this kind of argument if someone says, "This should be a problem for ANYONE watching this movie -- it universally is wrong," and the reality is that the huge majority of the universe says, "Uh, we actually liked it / didn't have a problem with it." There is a discord between someone's claim (speaking for others) and the actual opinion of the others. The single viewer is trying to speak for the bulk of the audience.

This is called projection.

 

[Poindexter Arachnid]

Obviously not everyone agrees with you. (In fact, you seem to hold a minority opinion.) hence, it's not universal. Obviously a lot of professional reviewers who are well-versed in cinema did not have issues with the mixing of elements that seems so bothersome to you. I didn't really have an issue with it either.

I do agree with you about not having any idea where the movie was going, something that rarely happens with me, and so I could appreciate that aspect as well.

I certainly don't wish to be the contrarian here.

It wasn't the mixing of elements--my complaints stem from the approach and technical aspects. The script needed a bit more polish--the two opening acts went forth at full locomotive speed and ran out of steam once it reached the end of the line.

To me, the third act felt fabricated as opposed to organic segue. The themes and concepts presented are not common in mainstream science fiction, but Johnson didn't really go anywhere with them. Ultimately, he chose the easy way out. The mainstream exit.

Nonetheless, I can understand how Looper is critically lauded.
Upon closer inspection, it is, indeed, a very good movie.

But it should have been great. An instant classic.