10. 21 Jump Street
10. 21 Jump Street
Director Rian Johnson is exactly what movies need. Perhaps the best way to break Hollywood out of cliche land is to play into the most typical of genre conventions and then turn them completely on their heads.
“Looper” must be the work of someone who doesn’t finish until every little detail is drawn out, and every possible subplot comes full circle. There’s a lot to get through and a lot to sort out, but the fact that the ending pulls it off in an unpredictable way makes it work all the better.
“Looper” might be the first rurban (rural and urban) futuristic dystopia I’ve seen on film. It is not set in New York, Los Angeles, or Washington, but rather an unnamed metropolis and its outskirts in Kansas. It also occupies many different times in the future. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a Looper. In the future, time travel is discovered and very illegal. The mob sends people from the future into the past and it is the job of the Looper to kill them and dispose of the body. Basically, the Looper stands in the field and waits for the body to be zapped to them.
However, there’s a twist to being a Looper: your job doesn’t last long. Because of how illegal time travel is in the future, a Looper must kill their own future self at some point. After doing this, they get a big payday and get to live happily off of it for 30 years until they are kidnapped and brought back into the past. This process is called “closing the loop.” I’m always a sucker for creative wordplay.
I like films which hinge their character’s personalities on their careers, and only a certain kind of person is fit to be a Looper. A Looper must act on the fly, never hesitate, and be prepared to die. You can see this in how Joe shoots every person that is zapped to him without even thinking. However, when his future self (Bruce Willis) is zapped to him, he hesitates. It doesn’t feel like one of those inexplicable movie moments when you wonder “why would he hesitate now?”. On the contrary, it feels very human, as if no one can know what death is like until they actually face it.
Yet, despite an expiration date, Loopers never lose their free will. One Looper (Paul Dano) lets his older self go. Meanwhile, young Joe has no control over the reckless and unruly older Joe; his future self escapes into Young Joe’s present.
While hunting down future Joe and attempting to close his own loop, many other loops are opened, and historical events are altered. “Looper” establishes from the very beginning that time travel is possible and because of that, it never tries to explain it. A story that tries to explain time travel can have difficulty working. Time travel involves many disciplines (philosophy, physics, etc.) that I have only limited knowledge of. Watching a film explain it is like being in a complicated lecture with a professor who won’t explain his notes. “Looper” is not about how time travel came about, but rather what potential consequences it can have.
Keep that in mind when you see “Looper.” Some of the time-altering sequences threw me off guard at first, but just keep in mind that the most accomplished part of the film is that it assumes that the audience is smart enough to at least try and figure it out on its own.
Now that you know that there’s more to “Looper” than untangling mysteries, you can appreciate the immense detail put into this world. I believe this is in part what will make it so memorable. Even the guns that the Loopers use (blunderbusses) are instrumental to the story. In this future, China is the new world leader. This splicing in of timeliness made some people in the audience chuckle, but it made me think of “Blade Runner” creating a future that was heavily influenced by Japan, which was world leader at the time. Like “Blade Runner,” “Looper” can be seen as a reflection not just of how we feel the future will be, but how we feel the present is.
Of course, much has been said about Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s physical transformation into a younger Bruce Willis. This is a great feat for the makeup department. However, Gordon-Levitt pulls it off by actually morphing himself into Willis. Apparently, he only watched recent movies that Willis starred in to prepare for the role. That way, he could understand what Willis would become, as opposed to only who he used to be.
It is kind of an amazing to see two actors play the exact same person sitting in a room together. Watching old and young Joe trying to piece memories together past and present over steak and eggs in a diner is hands-down one of my favorite scenes of any film this year. It is so well directed and written that it ends up being intriguing and even funny all at once.
Then, Johnson makes an unusual choice for a film like this. Instead of speeding it up and constantly raising the stakes and the action, he slows it down. Joe still needs to clear his name. He seeks the notorious gangster and boss of all Loopers, who is named The Rainmaker, as a young boy, and attempts to kill him. Joe leaves the city and heads out to the country, where he finds the young boy living on a farm with his very protective mother (a nearly unrecognizable Emily Blunt). This section of the film might not be the most breathlessly exciting, but it is where it gains its emotional weight. At its heart, “Looper” is the story of what kind of person it takes to make the world a better place.
Rian Johnson seems like one of those filmmakers who is so well versed in cinema. At times, the characters of “Looper” communicate as if they are in a film noir, a convention Johnson also used in “Brick.” Then, it even becomes supernatural (in a way that I will not spoil). The violence in it is not glorified, but it is certainly stylized. Part of the sick, twisted fun of being a filmmaker is discovering all of the different angles you can use to show someone getting shot in the chest.
The most gloriously cinematic part of “Looper” is that pretty much everything that is brought into play at one part of the story is brought back again later on. “Looper” is a meta story because just as Joe must close his own loop, the film must payoff all of its plants and in effect, close its own loops. “Looper” takes place in the year 2044 and shows a world of hovering cars, nearly microscopic cell phones, and drugs in the form of eye drops. “Looper” is not suggesting that time travel will necessarily be discovered by the year 2044, but what it does suggest is that greed and selfishness can lead to an endless cycle of misery. And eyedrops aren’t enough to cure it.
Time Travel Confusion Scale: More than “Back to the Future,” but less than “Lost”
Also, forgot to mention this in my review: Jeff Daniels gives a fantastic performance as the surprisingly zen crime boss. He is currently having the career comeback that I never knew he deserved.
6. Argo
Surprisingly, Hollywood is very accepting of stars who reinvent themselves. After the bomb that shall not be named (but I’ll do it anyway: “Gigli”), Ben Affleck established himself as a fine director with “Gone Baby Gone” and “The Town.” In “The Town,” he showed that he also isn’t bad in front of the camera. And now comes “Argo,” which has earned rave reviews at the Toronto Film Festival. “Argo” takes Affleck out of Boston, as he makes his first foray into historical drama. It’s about the recently uncovered CIA mission to use a fake movie as a way to get into Iran and free the Americans taken hostage in 1979. It’s a story that sounds almost too fascinating to be true. “Argo” looks like a smart political thriller that I’ll enjoy because it speaks in a language that I can understand: movies. Also, Bryan Cranston is in it. Unless he decides to star in “Rock of Ages 2,”* he can do no wrong in my book.
Coming To Theaters: October 12
5. Looper
Director Rian Johnson is skilled at toying with genre conventions (“Brick”). I can’t wait to see what he has in store for science fiction. The concept of “Looper” is already boggling my brain, yet the idea of Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a younger Bruce Willis is kind of brilliant.** I am always prepared for disappointment but I am envisioning this being a film along the same line as “Blade Runner” and “Minority Report.” Both of those films were misunderstood upon their original releases, but gained future followings. I am hoping that “Looper” breaks through in a big way, because Hollywood still needs to see that original ideas can succeed. No matter what happens, I believe “Looper” is the kind of film that will get better and make more sense upon repeated viewings.
Coming To Theaters: September 28
4. Seven Psychopaths
It’s been four long years since Martin McDonough’s brilliant debut feature “In Bruges.” His sophomore effort, “Seven Psychopaths,” looks just as twisted and funny but with less existential dread. “Seven Psychopaths” takes us into the underworld of dognapping, which I didn’t even know existed. While its poster is very similar to the poster for “Snatch,” I believe this one will be nowhere near the same, as McDonough isn’t just constantly trying to rip off Tarantino. Plus, it boasts a nearly perfect cast that includes Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken, and Sam Rockwell. No word on whether or not, like “In Bruges,” this one will also include a midget being karate chopped. I will say that I have no idea what will happen in this movie, and that unpredictability is what will make it so fun.
Coming To Theaters: October 8
See the top 3 after the jump:
3. Lincoln
“Lincoln” is the kind of film that so many have dreamed, but never thought would actually exist. It has Spielberg at the helm and Daniel Day-Lewis playing Honest Abe. Hopefully, Spielberg will appeal to his darker side and this one won’t end with the family’s house totally intact despite the fact that the entire city has been destroyed by aliens (I’m still mad about the end of “War of the Worlds”). However, recounting history is one of the things Spielberg does best. Also, did I mention that Daniel Day-Lewis is playing Lincoln? Just from one glance of the first headshot of him as Lincoln, I could already tell that this will be the closest to the real thing that we will probably ever get.
Coming To Theaters: November 9
2. Skyfall
After the Bond series reinvented itself with a vengeance with “Casino Royale,” it did a spin in the wrong direction with the disappointing “Quantum of Solace.” However, I will see a Bond movie whenever it comes out, a tribute to how timeless 007 is. Thanksgiving never feels the same without him. Plus, Sam Mendes (“American Beauty,” “Road to Perdition”) is directing and should be able to breath some new life into it. And Javier Bardem, who has a talent for playing villains (see: “No Country for Old Men”) will play Bond’a new nemesis. If Mendes can infuse the wit of classic Bond movies with the grittiness of “Casino Royale,” minus the technological lunacy of the Brosnan years, then “Skyfall” could be the best blockbuster of the second half of 2012.
Coming To Theaters: November 9
1. The Master
Only Paul Thomas Anderson could make a film that’s already being hailed a masterpiece based on its trailer alone. Trailers are usually misleading, but I have a good feeling that what we saw (at least in tone) is what we will get, plus much more. Seriously, I could watch that trailer on repeat. Anyway, I am beyond excited to see Anderson’s latest take on false prophets. There has been controversy about the film’s blatant Scientology inspirations, which I don’t think will stop anytime soon. Anderson’s films haunt me long after I leave the theater. After the end credits for “There Will Be Blood” abruptly came up, I sat there glued to my seat, as if I had been shot with a stun gun. Such visceral reactions are an exciting thing that have been missing from movies lately. “The Master” is that jolt of cinematic awe that I’ve been waiting for.
Coming To Theaters: September 14
*I really hope this never gets made.
**As long as it’s not “The Kid.”