IllusionOfLife

Looper, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt is set in the year 2044 where time travel has not yet been invented, but 30 years from then it will be. In that future, crime syndicates have gained widespread power, but due to advances in technology, murder and disposal of bodies has become increasingly difficult. The solution they have found to this problem is hiring hit men in the past called Loopers to execute and dispose of the people the mob wants gone; sending them back in time, bound and gagged, to meet with the business end of a Looper's blunderbuss. The story follows Joe, a Looper who is leading an extravagant, but self-destructive life off the considerable paycheck he gets for his particular line of work. However, that all changes when one day the person who is sent to be killed happens to be himself, 30 years from now.

Let me just cut right to the chase, Looper is incredible. It's the kind of truly unique, smart, entertaining, well told, and exciting film that reaffirms why we love the movies in the first place. I had been hearing some really high praise for this film so I went in with high expectations yet I was still completely blown away. The film understands its themes, its settings, and its characters, and uses all of these elements to their fullest effect. It never cheats by betraying its own integrity, and because of that is able to craft the best time travel story I've seen in years. Time travel is always a tricky thing to tackle. The very nature of it comes prepackaged with messy paradoxes and inconsistencies, but writer/director Rian Johnson establishes very clearly his rules for time travel in a way that doesn't get bogged down in endless exposition. It trusts is audience to be smart enough to fill in the details and sets up only as much of the mechanics as are necessary for the story. Because of that, though this is the kind of movie that certain types of people will hate (mostly stupid kids on the internet pretending to be smart) because they'll focus on trying to pick out any logic flaws with the plot and utterly miss the point of the narrative. However, despite being based around a plot device as inherently messy and illogical as time travel it establishes its rules firmly and never deviates. If you dig deep enough you're sure to find holes in the plot, but the narrative is absolutely rock solid, and that's what really matters.

Every element of this film helps to sell the story. The future in Looper feels like a real place and each scene is full of little details that, while never highlighted, help ground the film and paint a more vivid picture of this world. The film also boasts a slew of excellent performances. Gordon-Levitt and Willis are the obvious standouts, brilliantly playing the same person separated by 30 years of life experience. It's somewhat incredible how they have managed to capture the duality of that relationship; the reality that while you may be the same person in the literal sense, age and experience fundamentally changes who you are. It's an interesting theme and the film handles it masterfully, illustrating how time can change a person's goals, their priorities, and the things they are willing to sacrifice. I do kind of wish, though, that they hadn't given Joseph Gordon-Levitt the Bruce Willis makeup, because at times it can be slightly distracting, and the performances are honestly good enough to sell that these two characters are the same person without the need for makeup. It's a small complaint, but it's about the most I can find fault with in this film. The performances from the secondary characters also shine quite a bit in their own right. Every character feels real and textured, and it all contributes to the reality of this world.

The film also impressed me by not taking the obvious route concepts like this tend to take; instead it charts its own unique territory, creating a truly memorable experience. In some alternate universe there's probably a version of this movie that does exactly what you'd expect a film like this to do, and it's probably a solid and entertaining film. However, by taking the story in a direction that is different and unexpected Looper is so much more effective. There were several times during the film where I marveled at the quality of the story telling, taking seemingly throwaway details and later using them to lead to genuinely smart and surprising developments. Nothing in the film is wasted. Expectations are turned on their heads, and just about every time you think you've figured out where the film is going it will either go a different direction or get there in a way that is surprising. Despite this, it still remains absolutely true to itself and every single twist or development has the feeling of unexpected inevitability that is so crucial yet so hard to achieve.

Looper is a fantastic film. It masterfully combines action, suspense, genuinely smart twists, and is all grounded by a compelling setting and a strong element of human emotion. It has jumped to the top of my favorite films of the year list, and is arguably one of the best time travel stories I've ever seen. I highly recommend this one. It is an absolute breath of fresh air and the kind of film that makes you fall in love with the movies all over again.

I came into ParaNorman with a sense of cautious optimism. I absolutely adore stop motion animation, and I genuinely fell in love with Coraline, LAIKA's previous effort, but the trailers for the film didn't capture my interest in the story in the way I hoped they would and this film also didn't have the benefit of being helmed by the brilliant Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, Coraline). That being said, I am extremely happy to report that ParaNorman absolutely delivers on every level you could hope for.

ParaNorman tells a story about a young boy named Norman who has the unusual ability to see and talk to the dead, an ability which has led him to be ostracized by the other members of his community, including his own family. The New England town in which he lives is famous for a historic witch execution, along with the legend of a curse that the witch put upon those who sentenced her to death. It turns out that the legend of the curse is true, and that Norman, with his ability to talk to the dead, is the only one who can prevent the curse from raising the dead. Unfortunately, Norman is unable to act fast enough and the Witch's curse begins to wreak havoc on the town.

ParaNorman is a film with many strengths. Stop motion animation is always a beautiful and fascinating process, and with new technological advances the filmmakers have been able to bring it to a level of detail and expression that are simply astounding. While the scope of the story may be smaller than something like Coraline or Nightmare Before Christmas, the scale of the stop motion sets for this town are truly incredible. The film absolutely immerses you in this world that feels like a living, breathing, place. As beautiful as the animation in Brave was, ParaNorman is easily the most visually impressive film I have seen this year.

As beautiful as the film is, it never falls into the trap of so many other animated films by simply being visual spectacle with no narrative soul. The story of the film is fun, intelligent, and heartfelt, and is supported by a great cast of characters. The odd kid who is misunderstood is a common trope in kids' movies, but what makes Norman stand out is that he's never mopey about it. He is ostracized, bullied, and rejected, but he's come to a kind of acceptance about the whole thing. He's certainly not happy about it, but at this point he's not trying to fit in, he's really just trying to keep his head down and get through the daily grind. This is part of what makes his relationship with the other characters in the film work so well. For instance Neil genuinely accepts Norman for who he is and it's obvious that this throws Norman for a loop and he doesn't really know how to interact with someone who "gets him." This is never spoken, but it plays out naturally through the performances of the characters.

As the narrative progresses it takes some really interesting turns, and at times is genuinely surprising and emotional. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that a large part of the narrative revolves around assumptions and misunderstanding, and it brilliantly uses the audience's assumptions and expectations about the genre and its conventions against them.

It's also worth mentioning that this is one of the rare films which decidedly benefits from the addition of 3D. There's some fun play with perspective, and being able to see the dimension that exists in these sets adds a lot to the experience.

I genuinely loved ParaNorman and it's easily one of my favorite films this year. It's not a movie for everyone, but if any of the trailers gave you even a glimmer of interest I would definitely recommend checking this one out. LAIKA is certainly beginning to make a name for themselves in the animation scene and I'm really looking forward to whatever their next project will be. I think I still prefer Coraline which definitely benefited from the combination of Neil Gaiman's fantastic story and Henry Selick's experienced hand, but ParaNorman is a truly fantastic film and it's definitely worth a look.

A-

If you look at Hollywood's long history of trilogies it seems like ending the series on a no- reservations high note is nearly impossible. The first film may spark interest and build a fan base, the second film may improve upon the first in every aspect, but then, once the third film comes along it seems most trilogies can never quite stick the landing. In fact, the only two trilogies I can think of in which every film is as good or better than the one before are Toy Story and The Lord of the Rings.

So what about The Dark Knight Rises? Does it join Toy Story and The Lord of the Rings or does it fall victim to the third movie curse and join the ranks of Return of the Jedi, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and Spider-Man 3?

The answer, unfortunately, is the latter. Now let me be clear, this film is not bad, in fact it's actually quite enjoyable and ends up being a rather satisfying conclusion to Nolan's Bat-films, but there are a lot of areas where it fails to recapture the magic of its predecessors, particularly the second film which many people rightly call the best super hero film ever made.

The Dark Knight Rises feels like it's afraid of its own shadow. The legacy of the first two films looms so large over this one that it almost feels as if the film goes out of its way to be "bigger" and "more epic" in every way in order to live up to the incredibly unrealistic expectations people have for it, and its to the film's detriment. It kind of falls into the same trap as Iron Man 2, where there are just so many plates spinning all at the same time that it becomes overwhelming and slightly schizophrenic. At 165 minutes the film is very long, and in reality it probably could have been cut down and streamlined into a more efficient story if they had set aside the goal of being bigger than The Dark Knight. The plot of the movie is actually quite interesting; it has intriguing story beats, a compelling villain, a handful of excellent new heroes, and a great take on the final evolution of Batman's relationship to Gotham. The problem, however, is that the way the film is structured does a disservice to these interesting ideas. Too many characters are introduced early on that are essentially single-use plot devices, and by the time you actually start keeping track of who they are and what their motivations are they've essentially exhausted their usefulness to the plot and are discarded. Certain moments of plot revelation and character growth are handled in ways that are clunky and, in some cases, redundant, and although the basic story is easy enough to follow the details become so muddled and convoluted that it begins to distract from the narrative rather than add texture to it.

The narrative simply is not elegant in the same way that the first two films were. The second film particularly had a lot of ins-and-outs with shifting motivations, betrayals, deceptions, character revelations, etc. but despite these complexities of the plot, the narrative was told in a very elegant way; one thing flowed into another logically, and everything served to enhance the narrative rather than distract from it. Inception is another great example of this; despite all the complexities of the plot, the narrative was told in a way that was intuitive, fun for the audience to follow, and, as I've said, elegant.

Despite this, though, the movie still is a very enjoyable experience, and the things it does well it does *really* well. Anne Hathaway is fantastic as Selina Kyle (Catwoman, although none of the characters in the movie actually call her that) and she completely steals the show every time she's on screen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, a Gotham City cop who grew up being inspired by the Batman is a great addition to the cast (and, in a lot of ways, is more the main character than Batman himself is this time around), and then you of course have the returning cast who are, as always, excellent. The action set pieces are exciting and the cinematography is great, particularly in the expanded IMAX format. As for arguably the most important thing this film had to do, concluding the story of Christopher Nolan's Batman, it does so in a way that is both fitting and satisfying. The film also, somewhat surprisingly, has more comic book fan service nods than I was expecting given the tone Nolan has gone for with this world. One of them in particular at the end of the film is a little bit too on the nose, but I can forgive it because the overall effect works.

This feels like the kind of movie that my opinion on will evolve with subsequent viewings, and I expect to either warm up to it a bit and forgive it for some of its narrative missteps or perhaps sour to it and see the structural issues as more glaring. At this point, though, I'm going to call it good, but not great. It's still definitely worth seeing, and I would try to catch it while its still playing in IMAX because Nolan and Director of Photography Wally Pfister are currently unmatched when it comes to using that format to its fullest potential. It may not have stuck the landing, but it was an admirable, if flawed attempt that still manages to be entertaining and satisfying as an overall experience.

B