Review: Looper (dir. Rian Johnson)

Story: Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a ‘looper’: he assasinates people who are sent back, by criminals, from the future. He is pretty happy with this until one day, the person being sent back is his older self (Bruce Willis). Joe fails to make the kill, and subsequently both Joe’s are on the run from their criminal employers. But old Joe has a plan to make sure that all of this will actually never happen…

Time travel films are tricky. They are necessarily filled with inconsistencies. Take for example this scenario. Person A travels back in time to prevent disaster X from happening. However, if he succeeds, then there will be no need, in the future, for person A to travel back and prevent disaster X from happening. So it will happen, prompting person A, in the future, to travel back in time and prevent it from happening. The big question is always, if someone from the future travels back in time, is his past (the future) than past or future? And what is that that you are changing? The past or the future?

The only film I ever saw getting it right was Back to the Future. And that film took two guys three years to write! So, considering that we quite enjoy time travel films, we must necessarily accept that there are often loopholes in them. Plotholes. Inconsistencies. Mistakes. Actually, part of the fun of the time travel film is trying to figure out where they went wrong…

Of course, not too much time doing that must be spent while the film is still playing. It is best if you only start puzzling after the end credits roll. As was for instance the case with last year’s Source Code. This film certainly wasn’t flawless in its time-travelling logic, but I only noticed that after the film. While it was playing I was completely involved in the action and the story.

Unfortunately, Looper had me puzzling throughout the film. Which is not to say that it is more inconsistent or illogical than other time travelling films. It is just too complex. Too tricky. Back in the middle ages an English monk called William of Ockham proposed the following: if two explanations of the same phenomenon explain that phenomenon well, than the simplest explanation must be right. ‘Ockham’s Razor’ this is called. And Looper would benefit from a close shave by old William. Why, for instance, must future loopers always be killed by their past selves? Isn’t that unnecessarily complex, and asking for problems?

All of which is, again, not to say that Looper isn’t a good film. Quite the contrary. It is well acted. Joseph Gordon-Levitt carries the film, proving himself as a confident and grown-up lead actor. Bruce Willis does a good job, especially in a devastating scene with a little kid that will have you on the tip of your seat. And Emily Blunt, Paul Dano and Jeff Daniels have interesting supporting roles.

Director Rian Johnson previously made equally stylish (if not equally succesfull) films with Brick and The Brothers Bloom. Johnson is a bit of an oddball director. His earlier films had an air of cold detachment to them. This worked very well for Brick, but less so for The Brothers Bloom. In Looper, there is hardly any detachment. In the shocking finale, there is no lack of engagement. You are there, with the characters, in their world and their story. And yet you do keep puzzling: “Wait, if he does this now, than what will yet to have been happening in the future…?”

Final verdict: Although a bit too complex for its own good, Looper is an engaging and thrilling action adventure. A plot like a Moebius strip does not get in the way of caring for the characters, which is central to making a succesfull film.

Little-known-movie-advice-Monday: Avalon

“He Jasper, you know films, right? What do you think is the best film? Ever?” Wow. You know, that is not what I do. Anyone who “knows his films” would be able to tell you that. There is no way to argue that Jaws is better than Fargo, or Casablanca is superior to The Return of the King (well, that’s an argument I’m willing to get into). You can’t compare them. These films were made in different times, under different circumstances, with different means and intentions and different audiences. You can’t ask me which one is better.

And yet so many people do.

But lately someone asked me a much more sensible question. “Jasper, you know your films. Is there anything you could recommend? You know, like something I wouldn’t think of myself?”

Well yes there is! I mean, there are! So many! So, from now on Monday is ‘little-known-movie-advice-Monday’. And we start with:

Avalon (Mamuro Oshii, 2001)

Avalon is Mamuro Oshii’s life-action follow up of his anime classic Ghost in the Shell. A Japanese / Polish co-production that could easily be seen as just another The Matrix rip-off, weren’t it that a better argument could be made saying that The Matrix rips off Ghost in the Shell.

The plot is set in a future world in which desillusioned young people lose themselves in a Virtual Reality battle game. Literally lose themselves: some never wake up from it, and spend the rest of their life in a vegetative state. Ash (Malgorzata Foremniak) is a fanatical player who lost her lover Murphy this way. When she learns of a secret level in the game, only accessible to the best players, she thinks it is a way to get Murphy (Jerzy Gudejko) back.

This plot is played out relatively straightforward: her new quest for instance requires of Ash that she learns to cooperate in a tem. And it culminates in a final confrontation in which the state of reality is questioned, as happens in most films of the genre (The Matrix, David Cronenberg’s Existenz, Abre los Ojos and its hideous American remake Vanilla Sky, more recently Inception and Source Code). But what makes Avalon so special then?

Well, first of all the graphics in the video game battle scenes. Of course they seem outdated nowadays, and they probably were already outdated back in 2001, in comparison with more expensive American films. But you can see, if you look through the pixels, that they have been designed with flair and originality. They allow for pretty brutal violence without pushing the limit of what is pleasurable to watch. And when they are not used at a moment where you’d expect it, their absence is even more effective.

Second, the performances of Foremniak and Gudejko are excellent. It doesn’t matter that they speak in Polish, a language that I find very hard to listen to in film, as I seem to miss the emotional beats in the characters’ words. It is the eyes that are doing most of the talking. Or at least, most of the truly important talking.

And finally there is that stunning soundtrack, courtesy of Japanese composer Kenji Kawaii, with a stand-out solo by Polish soprano Elzbieta Towarnicka. Just, wow!

Order here (and no, I’m not getting paid by Amazon, just so you know).

The Top Ten Best Films of 2011

Disclaimer: due to the usually late release dates of film in The Netherlands I have not yet seen some films that have already had their US/UK releases (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, The Muppets). For the same reason some films are for me part of 2011 despite their first release in 2010 (True Grit, Black Swan). Finally there is one film I really wanted to see but did not get around to: Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive. I will pick it up on DVD or Bluray and get back in touch about it.

10 Tree of Life

Who would have though that a Terence Malick film, besides ethereal whispers and meditations on the meaning of (a) life, could feature dinosaurs? Brilliant!

9 The Adventures of Tintin

Another film in which the plot did not matter ebcause the visuals were so beautiful. Spielberg explored the possibilities of animation, motion capture and 3D and comes up with some of the most captivating action sequences and original transitions of the year.

8 Contagion

A film that literally gives you the creeps. I was scared to sneeze, to touch my face, to touch objects in public places. Well, for an hour or so at least. Soderbergh manages again, after Traffic, to mix topicality with suspense and entertainment.

7 Bridesmaids

I called it the best comedy of the year, and Bridesmaids is the ultimate proof that, despite the inevitable toilet humor, American comedy is still very much alive. Also: despite the involvement of non-funny-man Judd Apatow.

6 Source Code

The 2011 heir of Inception. A smart intelligent action sci-fi flick that only revealed its plot priblems upon retrospection, never during the movie itself. And upon finally seeing Duncan Jones’ previous film Moon (2009) one could argue that Inception is the heir of Moon…

5 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Based on the Jasper’s Take Award winning trailer my expectations were perhaps set too high, and my disappointment inevitable. But Thomas Alfredson delivers a moody, beautifully designed and shot thriller with outstanding performances accross the board.

4 True Grit

The best thing about True Grit is that it is not a typical Coen brothers film. It is first and foremost a gripping western and a great adaptation of the Charles Portis novel. The directorial peculiarities are restricted to the details, which is nice after the essential Coen film that was A Serious Man.

3 Carnage

I called it the best comedy of the year. Polanski does Sartre, but with laughs. And the old master is getting a bit sentimental in his old days, considering the last shot. Furthermore Carnage had the best ensemble performance of the year.

2 Black Swan

A film that touched me, literally, physically. I could not get up at first when the ending credits started to roll. Aronofsky may not be for everyone, but for me he is the most consistently overwhelming filmmaker of the last two decades

1 The Artist

It’s not original to think this is the film of the year, but it is. Especially for me, as I am closely studying both silent film and its musical accompaniment, and the aesthetic changes brought about by the introduction of sound. A film that forms a perfect tripple bill with Singing in the Rain and Sunset Boulevard. A feelgood film, a romantic adventure and a modern classic of the postmodern age, but without an ironic tone. The best film of 2011 was without a single doubt Michel Hazanavicus’ The Artist.

In Time, Out of Ideas – the In Time review

Let’s make one thing clear: it is a good thing that films such as In Time, are made. On proper budgets, with big stars. There is considerable value in the genre of the intelligent sci-fi action blockbuster. Much more so than in the genre of the stupid-robots-hitting-each-other-while-the-apocalypse-looms films. Not each and every one of these intelligent sci-fi action blockbusters is actually really good. But it is good that they are made. They are brave attempts to make movies based on ideas, with the explosions and chases as extra attractions instead of as the core ingredient. Source Code, earlier this year, was a very successful attempt. And the big example is of course Inception.

In Time, the new film of director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, Sim0ne, Lord of War, writer on The Truman Show) is not by far as good as Inception, or Source Code. But it is an interesting film, that at least in its first hour is entirely idea-driven. Justin Timberlake plays Will Salas, a factory worker in a future society in which time is the currency. People don’t age beyond their twenty-fifth year, but from that moment they have to earn time to stay alive, pay rent and buy food. As a consequence the poor working class, literally, live day by day, while the superrich are as good as immortal. It is only when Will is given 100 years by a rich, suicidal stranger that he can afford to question and fight the system. “No one should be immortal if only one person has to die” is his conviction.

But after an hour or so the idea runs out of steam, and so does the film, and Niccol has to resort to bank heists, chases, running around and even more chases to fill the two hours. All good science fiction combines original, philosophical ideas with universal, or at least classical stories and characters. The problem of In Time is that the first half is all ideas, and the second half is a strange mix of Robin Hood and Bonny & Clyde.

On the plus side Timberlake is convincing as a working class rough. With this film and last year’s The Social Network he has shown to be a proper actor. Perhaps even a better actor then he is a singer. Next to him love interest Amanda Seyfried falls a bit flat. It is striking that I thought of Timberlake’s as Will Salas, whereas I kept forgetting the name of Seyfried’s character. The third major role is played by Cillian Murphy, who is a sinister ‘time cop’ on the hunt for Will. Murphy does his best, but he has little to work with and is obviously typecast, with his strange, sinister big blue eyes.

And while Timberlake, Seyfried and Murphy run circles around each other in the second part of the film, some glaring inconsistencies, mistakes and stupidities show up. And, worse, you have ample time to notice them and worry about them. If no-one ages past twenty-five, then how come Cillian Murphy looks forty? If bank heists are so simple to pull off, then why did no-one think of doing them before Timberlake and Seyfried? And how in God’s name can Seyfried run around on that fast on those heels? Why does her character even bother to wear high heels?

When you start asking yourself these kinds of questions, while the film is still running, than that is a bad sign. In Time is not a bad movie, it is the right kind of movie and more like it should be made. But better. Please.

Where We Stand: Nine Months in the Multiplex

It is September. We’ve had the Oscars, Cannes and the blockbuster season, and this weekend saw the end of the Venice film festival.  So, most of what was to happen in film this year has already happened. Time for a little overview then.

Last year I kept lists of the best ten and the worst ten films of the year. I’ve done the same thing for this year so far. And to start off on a good note: this year’s worst films aren’t that much worse than last year’s worst films. 2011’s Clash of the Titans was Conan the Barbarian, in terms of noisy nonsense, but Conan still offered some fun. Last year we had a Sex and the City sequel, this year we had the third Transformers movie. Those two cancel each other out. The same goes for Sucker Punch and Prince of Persia, and for Get Low and Fair Game. The ‘worst films of 2011’ list, for all the dreadful terrors that are on it, is not my main concern.

I have two main concerns. The first one is the list of films that should have been on the ‘worst film’ list, but aren’t there, because the list is already filled. I’m thinking of Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, of the superfluous The Eagle, of the failed Horrible Bosses and the incoherent The Rite (review forthcoming). That these films are now in the large bulk of ‘mediocre’ films is a problem.

My second concern is the ‘best films of 2011’ list. There are films on there that really don’t deserve to be there. Mainly because I am still to stumble upon anything resembling A Serious Man, or The Hurt Locker. True Grit, though good, was nowhere near the Coen’s best work, and Oscar grabber The King’s Speech felt strangely tame and artificial, despite outstanding performances.

So on this year’s ‘best of’ list, so far, we find such films as Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Rango. For a film to be simply exciting (Rise…) or simply funny (Rango), and for it to showcase impressive technological advances (both) is now good enough. Just compare: In 2010 the one animated movie on the list was Toy Story 3. Now it is Rango.

Of course The Fighter was excellent, and so was Black Swan. And Bridesmaids was fantastically funny, despite the excessive vomiting and diarrhea. Source Code is the closest we’ll get to an Inception this year. But it is the closest to it, not a match. Furthermore Bridesmaids doesn’t hold up to Four Lions or Kick Ass. And I am yet to find anything as emotionally charged as Winter’s Bone or El Secreto de Sus Ojos. Harry Potter 7.2 was satisfying, but not much more than that…

Nothing to feel really good about then? Well, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger were not as bad as I expected them to be. They were surprisingly entertaining actually, apart from the action scenes. X-Men: First Class lived up to its expectations, and Fast Five was an outrageous guilty pleasure. These films kinda make up for the big let down of Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides.

But in conclusion, all in all? Quite too many films did not live up to potential or expectations or the sheer common decency of meeting the lowest level of quality you can still get away with. 2011 is just not good enough. Yet.

What’s left to look forward then? Well, the award films will start pouring in, with strong contenders in We Need To Talk About Kevin, Martha Marcy May Marlene, War Horse, The Help, The Iron Lady, We Bought a Zoo and The Ides of March. And perhaps the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo remake. But I’m looking forward most to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which really should see Gary Oldman pick up a long overdue little gold statue.

Best of 2011 so far: Black Swan, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, True Grit, Rango, Source Code, Bridesmaids, Harry Potter 7.2, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Tree of Life.

Worst of 2011, so far: The Green Hornet, The Green Lantern, Paul, Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Unknown, Sucker Punch, Get Low, Conan the Barbarian and The Tree of Life.

Yes. Malick’s is in both categories. Everyone who has seen it will understand.

Thriller-trailers

The Adjusment Bureau (George Nolfi)

Source Code (Duncan Jones)

Super 8 (JJ Abrams)

Scream 4 (Wes Craven)