Looper
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Tagline: Hunted By Your Future. Haunted By Your Past
If you’re willing to give into the hype, then apparently writer/director Rian Johnson’s Looper is 12 Monkeys meets The Matrix with a touch of Terminator 2. At the heart of the matter is time travel: when it gets invented in the future, Looper posits, it will be deemed illegal and only available on the black market, which you have to concede is a pretty cute conceit.
Speaking of pretty cute, Looper stars that unassuming heartthrob Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Joe, a hired gun waiting 30 years in the past to take care of the individuals his mob employers in the future want eliminating (it’ll all make sense when you see it, we presume). But matters get considerably more complicated when the mob decides to “close the loop,” as it were, which results in sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination.
Perhaps we’re being slightly naïve in predicting that the plot will be digestible to all but the critics seem to have had a blast taking it all in. Time Out London – while admitting that the storyline “is far too convoluted to explain” – is on board: “If Johnson’s main aim was to strike a balance between conceptual cleverness and multiplex thrills, he could hardly have done better. This is a hugely satisfying, enjoyable and thoughtful movie.” the Village Voice is keen highlight the an emotional resonance to the sci-fi storytelling, concluding that “there’s no shame in a film that favors the human scale over abstract philosophizing or meta-cinematic frippery.” And New York magazine’s David Edelstein reckons that, “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.”
MORE: Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Becoming Bruce Willis
Pitch Perfect
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Tagline: Get pitched slapped.
Remember when Up In the Air came out a few years ago and, due to the early buzz, it almost seemed nonsensical to hold that year’s Academy Awards, such was the ease in which George Clooney et al were going to waltz off with every nomination that came its way? As it turned out, Jason Reitman’s movie ended up going 0-6, and probably undeservedly so. Anna Kendrick, as eager young downsizer Natalie Keener, was easily the best thing the film had going for it (and may well have won the award for Best Supporting Actress if voting hadn’t split between her and her castmate Vera Farmiga).
In Pitch Perfect, Kendrick is out of the supporting category and into the leading role as Beca, a woman who is somehow able to bring together all sorts of college types – mean girls, sweet girls, weird girls – and meld them into an a cappella group. But is it simply Glee-lite or can Pitch Perfect carry a tune?
The omens are good: first-time director Jason Moore is best known for staging the riotous Avenue Q on Broadway, and the script is courtesy of Kay Cannon (30 Rock, New Girl) which should at least guarantee some semblance of originality. And thankfully for Moore, Cannon, Kendrick and the enthusiastic cast (especially Rebel Wilson), Time Out New York‘s somewhat snarky notice (“This film could have done with a few more mouth beats and unlikely moments of extracurricular celebrity”) is pretty much the only flat note out there. Variety states that “conventional though it may be, Pitch Perfect feels like a labor of love through and through,” while the Hollywood Reporter reports that it’s “an enjoyably snarky campus romp that’s both wildly nerdy and somewhat sexy.” A cause for glee, indeed.
LIST: Anna Kendrick’s Great Performance in Up in the Air
NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: Another solid week at the movies. Perhaps Pitch Perfect would make for the perfect opening act to the headlining Looper?