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Joseph Gordon-Levitt IS Bruce Willis IS a Time-Travel-Assassin-For-Hire: LOOPER
Sophia:
This guy is sooo creative...if you go the theatre and see Looper, he wants you to take a picture of you in the theatre and send it to his facebook page were he publish it.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://www.vulture.com/2012/09/movie-review-looper-david-edelstein.html
The Time Traveling
Looper
Delivers in Spite of Iffy Logic
By David Edelstein
Yesterday at 9:30 AM
You must remember this: The fundamental things don’t apply as time goes by in the ballyhooed time-travel thriller Looper. In the fat gob of exposition that opens the film, Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the protagonist and narrator, explains that time travel exists in the future, but it’s illegal. But for some inexplicable reason, the mob finds it expedient to send the bodies of people they want murdered back to the past (i.e., the film’s present, 2042), where they’re disposed of by “loopers” like Joe. (Question: Once cops in the future discover the practice, wouldn’t the corpses’ route be easy to trace?) For some other inexplicable reason, aged loopers in the future are sent back to the past to be shot by younger loopers—who would seem, on minimal reflection, the least reliable assassins, given their ties to the people they’re supposed to kill (not infrequently their older selves). However, if the loopers don’t shoot the old loopers, they (the young ones) will be hideously mutilated—but not killed, since killing them would change the future. (Question: Wouldn’t sawing off their limbs change the future, too?)
Joe’s boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels), tries to ’splain all this to Joe and then throws up his hands and says, “Time-travel shit fries your brain like an egg”—the sort of line a friend calls a “Get Out of Jail Free” card that filmmakers give themselves. Getting permission to be bewildered is a gift to the audience, too. You can relax and enjoy the movie, which delivers in spite of its iffy logic.
At the recent Toronto International Film Festival, Looper was acclaimed for its stylishness and narrative invention, which testifies to writer-director Rian Johnson’s greatest talent: making clumsy storytelling look tricky and sophisticated. Tropes from Blade Runner, Twelve Monkeys, and the odd French New Wave thriller are mixed and matched to give the illusion you’re watching an “existential” mystery. Joe the looper turns out to be a junkie who gives no thought to future consequences (Quelle ironie!), styling himself like a twentieth-century American movie-star crook (or like Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless styling himself like a twentieth-century American movie-star crook). Early on, he sins in his own eyes by going all Judas on a looper pal (a mewling Paul Dano) who let his older self get away. Joe barely has time to ease his conscience—he offers a hooker his filthy lucre so she can start a new life with her son—before he’s staring down his gun at his own older self (Bruce Willis—and no, the two Joes don’t mesh in your head—Willis’s personality is too distinct). Young and Old Joe do not like each other one bit. “Why don’t you do what old men do and die ?” “Take your little gun out from between your legs and do it, boy ,” etc.
The second half of Looper is part The Terminator, part Stephen King’s Firestarter. The elite loopers (“Gats”) chase Joe, who’s chasing Old Joe, who’s hunting someone who will grow up in the future to be a mighty looper-killer called the Rainmaker. Young Joe stumbles onto the farm of hillbilly Emily Blunt, who points a shotgun into her wheat and yells, “Ah will cut you the fuck in hay-alf!” She has a strange little boy (Pierce Gagnon) with pouty lips, a big head, and temper tantrums so forceful she has to tuck herself into a steel cabinet and shut the door.
Looper is all over the place—a series of barely aligned loop-de-loops—but if high-toned futuristic time-travel pictures with a splash of romance float your boat the way they do mine, you’ll have yourself a time. The climax is tumultuous, the payoff happy and sad in the right measure. The future might be ghastly, but heroism lives. The stars work hard, Gordon-Levitt to purge all traces of his puppy-dog persona, Willis to suppress his smirk, Blunt to smooth transitions that would trip up lesser actresses. (Her face seems incapable of registering a banal emotion.) Jeff Daniels creates the year’s most hateable bad guy by gazing on unfortunates with moist, sympathetic eyes before shattering their bones with a ball-peen hammer. As I left the theater, I heard two people in nearby aisles trying to explain different plot points to their companions. I didn’t listen. That information should only be dispensed on a need-to-know basis.
This review was originally published in the October 1 issue of New York.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://www.film.com/movies/looper-review
Film.com/movies
Review:
Looper
Is a Masterpiece
By Jordan Hoffman
September 24, 2012
This review was previously published on September 6, 2012, as part of Film.com’s Toronto International Film Festival 2012 coverage.
There is a shortlist of movies whose openings are mini-masterpieces of economic storytelling. An explosion of perfectly boiled-down moments stitched together with a dynamism and precision that simply does not let up. The gold medalist for me will forever be “Annie Hall” with “Raising Arizona” and “GoodFellas” nipping at its heels. It will take another viewing to confirm this, but the whirlwind beginning of the high concept science fiction adventure “Looper” may be a new addition to this club.
That second viewing is definitely in the cards for me, not because “Looper” is difficult to follow, but because I’m still shocked and amazed that this time-travel movie made so much sense. In an age where filmmakers are more likely to to shrug and suggest you simply embrace mystery, writer-director Rian Johnson (“The Brothers Bloom”) draws a line in the sand and says “no.” He has ideas – fun ideas – and he’s got a story to tell. Fans of rich sci-fi may want to keep a handkerchief on hand lest they find themselves drooling, while those who simply like a fun adventure with great actors in juicy roles ought to have a good ride, too. “Looper” is, no doubt about it, a terrific film.
It’s the future. It’s a mess. Crime syndicates run everything and those looking for a way out of poverty are working for them. One job is as a Looper, a low-rent assassin whose only skill is to be punctual. You go to a spot in a field, wait for someone to magically appear, then you blast them with a special kind of gun that never misses its target if used at close range.
Wait, magically appear? Yes, because in the far future (the future’s future, work with me) they have invented time travel. Disposing of bodies is impossible in the future, so the mob sends guys they want to whack back in time where no one will miss them. Being a Looper is steady work (with access to addictive drugs) and there’s a nice severance package. You get a solid pay-out on the day you “close your loop” – when you kill your future self. (The crime lords like to sever all ties to the very illegal use of time travel.)
On the day you close your loop, you get a ticket to live 30 years in a party frenzy (or so it would seem) – but what happens when you can’t kill your future self?
Can’t kill or won’t kill? This and many other scenarios are played out and, my Lord, this is all still in the very first chunk of the movie and I’m still leaving a boatload of stuff out. This alone makes “Looper,” a studio movie with a genuine budget, an absolute miracle. How the hell did the studio heads sit through the pitch?
“Looper”‘s star is ostensibly Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but he shares an awful lot of the spotlight with his older self, Bruce Willis. JGL (and a soupçon of makeup) evoke the spirit of Willis without resorting to mimicry. It’s a very different type of role for him; he’s sympathetic, but frequently makes the wrong or selfish move. Willis is similarly layered. It’s one of his quiet, brooding performances, similar to “Unbreakable,” and while he may come off mean or amoral, there are quick flashes justifying his behavior that are quite heartbreaking.
“Looper” is not flawless. There are a number of narrative twists (again, how did this get greenlit?) and, for my tastes, the movie ends in a corner of the story less interesting to me than some of the other stuff. That there are so many crevices, however, is a testament to its world-building. From the billboards, to the costumes to the weapons and props there is, quite simply, a surplus of stuff up there on the screen. I mean, it took me until the end of the movie to realize that Garrett Dillahunt, one of my favorite character actors, was in this movie. That’s no diss against Dillahunt, it’s a salute to the dizzying nature of the film.
When the movie does eventually slow down it may shift a bit, but it never stops making sense. All the sci-fi works. The paradoxes of time travel are shown rather than, to paraphrase Willis’ character, mapped out with straws on a table. I scribbled a number of questions during the film and, upon reflection, 98% of them were all answered in the text. The few niggling issues feel resolved in a thematic sense. This is, in short, a smart movie.
It’s also a movie that rarely gets made these days. “12 Monkeys,” I suppose, might be the last whacked-out big budget trip that felt so legit and so accomplished. Let’s hope Bruce Willis can continue to come back to us for more.
GRADE: A-
Sophia:
We are so in Joseph Gordon-Lewitt bubble...tonight we saw Looper. ;D :) But we missed the real Joseph, even thou he did younger Bruce Willis very well.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
--- Quote from: sophytofu on September 29, 2012, 09:34:16 pm ---We are so in Joseph Gordon-Lewitt bubble...tonight we saw Looper. ;D :) But we missed the real Joseph, even thou he did younger Bruce Willis very well.
--- End quote ---
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
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