Looped

I don’t go to the movies often. I blame my flagrant frugality – almost twenty bucks to sit in a big room with a bunch of folk crunching, whispering, rustling over-priced lolly packets and forgetting to turn their mobile phones off is not my idea of a bargain. But this weekend I went to my local independent cinema. The tickets were 15 dollars (better) and the cinema itself was one of those tiny ones with a half-sized screen and seating for about 50 people. In our session there were about 5 other attendees, all of whom were quiet and kept their candy consumption to a suitable volume.

We saw Looper, the time-travel/gangster film with Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon Levitt and I left the cinema feeling extremely impressed. I love the kinds of movies that spark conversation and debate as you work out all the little bits.

I’m not sure what it is about me and time travel movies, but I adore them. They make my head spin as I get all giddy trying to wrap my mind around the loops and implications of the past and the future meeting. And Looper was wonderful for that. I really thought the world that Rian Johnson created was something special. We only got glimpses of it outside of the main storyline, but it was real and a little scary and fascinating – I wanted to see so much more of his future creation. The movie didn’t spare a lot of time to explore it, but the little insights into a broken world were tantalising.

I have to say -  if you are seeing Looper merely to lust over JGL, you are kinda outta luck.

Me, a fan-girl? What makes you think that? I’m in this for the time travel.

He transforms himself (with both excellent characterisation and a whole bunch of make-up) so thoroughly into a younger version of Bruce Willis that he is almost unrecognisable. He’s amazing and all the tiny mannerisms he incorporates were genius. But, there’s this:

Look away, look away!

My friend Patrick said, “I couldn’t stop thinking that whoever did Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s makeup was the same lady who made Potato Jesus…” He’s not wrong and it was somewhat distracting.

I can totally see the resemblance.

I liked Looper‘s mish-mash of the dystopian-futuristic-timetravel-gangster genres. It had the potential to be grating or to overly convoluted, but it wasn’t. It was clever, complex and beautiful while still being accessible (cough, cough, Inception.)

Seen Looper? What did you think?