LOOPER - qed proscribed

Looper, the latest attempt at narrative time travel, was a welcome surprise. The story didn't quite proceed the way I expected from the trailer and that is almost always a good thing. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, stars as the looper, the man who executes people from the future sent through a primitive time machine. He kills those that his crime organization affiliates deem no longer worthy of breath. This organization ties up their loose ends. They send the older loopers themselves back to their younger selves to be killed, thereby guaranteeing a rich but brief 30 year lifespan. Bruce Willis is the older Gordon-Levitt. We can surmise all of this from the trailer. What I didn't expect, however, was the telekinetic mutants. 

TK people, as they are known, have come to find themselves with, a new to the human race, ability to levitate small objects through telekinetic powers. It apparently stems from a genetic mutation probably caused by cosmic rays. (my guess anyway) This ability has become a banality to the masses and just a basic conjurers trick by most standards, except—that is—for one very special boy. This young child of uncanny weirdness turned out to be an excellent casting choice. He was so convincing and disturbing. He befriends the titular looper only to find himself hunted by the older version because in the future he will kill his wife. Scifi action ensues. I don't want to give much else away of the story. 

The futuristic gadgets felt accurate and well placed like the near holographic computers, hover bike and small square cellphones. The time travel actually made sense to me and was not unnecessarily complicated. That is a rarity. There is a very odd sense of humor running in tandem to the characters as well. All in all, a decent film. 

Recommended Viewing: Primer - Safety Not Guaranteed - Back To The Future

              Bob Scale: The Critic: 7.9   -   The Fan: 8.4

             MetaCritic: 87

 Rotten Tomatoes: 93

                    IMDB: 8.5

THE FIVE YEAR ENGAGEMENT - life turned on

The Five Year Engagement comes to us from Nicholas Stoller who also directed Get Him To The Greek and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It feels appropriate that this type of dramedy would come next.

This film had me in spurts of laughter and genuine empathy. I think the story infrastructure is quite well done and alludes to some really interesting points that many relationships may suffer from today's world of two careers within one family unit. Superficially, however, TFYE is quite banal and cliché. The humor feels forced and doesn't quite flow naturally most of the time. I like Jason Segel, but like his previous film, Jeff Who Lives At Home, TFYE has a need to throw in vulgar humor when it would stand better to just elaborate on the drama at hand with more subtle comedy. 

TFYE brings to light some important issues that might very well not be solvable until your already caught up in them but should be thought of with more foresight and competency, if possible, while in the beginning of the short lived (unfortunately) love sick inception. It's not even near the merit of Bridesmaids, but don't let that prevent you from seeing it. There are a number of fun cameos thrown in for good measure and notice how hair style really changes the entire vibe of the character (rightly or wrongly). At one point Emily Blunt looks exactly like Zooey Deschanel. 

Recommended Viewing: Bridesmaids - Muriel's Wedding - Father Of The Bride (1991) (1950)

              Bob Scale: Objective: 6.5   -   Subjective: 6.9

             MetaCritic: 61

 Rotten Tomatoes: 64

                      IMDB: 6.9

SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN - i'll have the samak please

Oh Lasse, what have you done here! You have crafted a film that is beautifully romantic and plausibly realistic and yet so unforgivably full of terrible cliches that I want my money back.

I liked the romance of the story quite a lot. The scientist and the office girl meet and have no mutual attraction and no special intentions. In fact they are both involved in other relationships which is made painfully clear at the start. This initial a-fortuitous encounter becomes a relationship that blossoms into fluorescence with great yearning from the audience. I suspect from the trailer that you would expect a rather normal romance between man and woman but that becomes clearly more complicated especially when you discover they are both entangled with someone else. I wonder if trailers intentionally deceive so that that shocks of this nature are more pronounced? Yes they do!

The way the romantic leads unfold their personalities is the stuff of good cinema, engaging and tear inducing. Lasse Hallstrom has made no less than six romantic dramadies and knows how and when to pull the heart strings. Is this a first rate romantic movie with a few laughs? YES. Is this a film in which we should place our ideals? A definitive - NO.

Take Ewan McGregor's character -  a stuffy scientist that has no emotions. What?! Being a lover of science myself I take slight offense to this badgering idea that all science and scientists offer are hard facts regardless of humanity. Science can be rigid but it is also wonderful, fascinating and mind-blowing - not emotionless in the least! I also despised the insertion of the Arab who keeps telling the scientist to have faith which is such a terrible jab at science itself. Science is based on that which is the opposite of faith - fact - or in so much that we have observable evidence and experimental data. Faith is believing with no evidence at all, so trying to prove that the scientist has faith through a silly anecdote is horrendously appalling. 

The Kristin Scott Thomas character is also a shameful representation of a PR person. I know from working in the music industry that PR reps have tendencies in this way - uncaring and inconsiderate - but since this movie exploits cliche after cliche of niches of public figures, I find it important to say that the writer or director's ulterior motives are on disgusting display here. The Prime Minister is also represented as a complete buffoon which is funny but after all the unwelcome effronteries, this just becomes another annoyance. To conclude, i really liked the film as a pure cineast and lover of idealistic romance but as a thinking person, I loathed every bit of it. I kept imagining what Richard Dawkins might say if he watched this film...

Recommended Viewing: The Hoax - Beginners - Random Hearts

              Bob Scale: Objective: 7.0   -   Subjective: 6.8

             MetaCritic: 60

 Rotten Tomatoes: 68

                      IMDB: 7.2