Looper

[Al Marshall]

My my isn’t it great to see all this chat about actual proper new Red Dwarf? Thoroughly enjoying this new momentum and the first episode was great, all things considered.

It looks like there are a lot of threads already about the new series (which is lovely) but I wondered if any fellow G&Ters had taken in some unrelated sci-fi in the form of Looper, starring that lad off Third Rock From the Sun?

I saw it on Sunday evening, and while I had some issues with the plot and the bizarre facial prosthetics, I thought it was a well shot, well written bit of intelligent moviemaking.

I’d certainly recommend it to anyone for a cinema outing. It’d be good to hear anyone else’s thoughts!

Topic

[paddywroks]

They totally stole the whole writing messages on your arm thing from the Better than Life book.

[si]

*note to self – stop reading posts about Looper, you’ve not seen it yet*

[HelloMabel]

I’ve seen it, and apart from a few qualms I think it’s very good. Happy to discuss it once you’ve seen it. :)

[Pete Part Three]

Niggles, especially with The Omen stuff which is just there to add weight to an argument, but quite liked it. It isn’t the saviour of film sci-if though and each of the films it nods to are better.

[bossk]

Oh man, I’d love to see this but can’t get out much. Will look forward to whenever I do get to see it. Read a review that said it’s less action based sci-fi but plot wise more thinking sci-fi? and someone commented (I think on the Guardian website) copmparing it to the likes of Inception and a film I hadn’t heard of – ‘Primer’ – I looked this up and it sounds a frikkin awesome film, right up my street – has anyone seen this? Just mention as not seen either but if you liked Looper possibly like me look this up and add it to your ‘must watch’ list?

[Pete Part Three]

Looper and Primer are both relatively intelligent films about time-travel. That’s where the similarities begin and end.

Primer is good and worth seeing. Don’t blame me if your brain melts after watching it though.

[bossk]

Hey, if you mean torture, then say the word ‘torture’. I can take it!

“relatively” sorta sounds like you’re comparing with – I don’t know? Well, something more intelligent that these films? We talking Back to the Future here? (I’ve yet to watch them only piping up with what I hoped was relevant info).

[Pete Part Three]

>“relatively” sorta sounds like you’re comparing with – I don’t know? Well, something more intelligent that these films?

Well, just films in general, really. Perhaps I should have left it as “Looper and Primer are both relatively intelligent films” as I didn’t really mean to compare them to other time travel flicks (although, for what’s it worth, I prefer The Terminator for story, 12 Monkeys for smarts, Bill and Ted for laughs, and BTTF for everything, frankly).

My thinking is that a film doesn’t always have to have a complicated plot based on scientific theory to be “intelligent”. The Toy Story movies are incredibly smart films but a child of five can understand them (and maybe that’s why they’re so smart).

So while Looper is certainly a smarter movie than, say, Transformers, it didn’t blow me away with its twists and turns and some elements (I’ll just call it TK, to prevent spoilers) I really don’t think it needed. But it deserves its success, as the “hard sci-fi” genre in cinema is flat-lining.

Primer is on Netflix (free trial available) if you’re interested.

[Al Marshall]

I don’t know why but I completely missed the messages on the arm being a dwarf thing! I liked the TK thing, but all the while I was guessing that the throwaway thing they mentioned at the start would come back- also, it was odd how they talked a lot about the rainmaker but didn’t really show how bad he had made the future.

Also, the scene where it showed Joe ageing very suddenly into Bruce Willis wearing a thinning manga assassin wig was a bit jarring. It kind of sagged in the middle too.

But on the whole, I really liked the visuals, the music, the depiction of a not-so-distant future- plus, Jeff Daniels as a mob boss!

[bossk]

Thanks for the info Pete!

I CAN TAKE IT! (my brain probably will melt I bet).

[Tarka Dal]

I think this is the thing, it’s smarter than a lot of mainstream stufff, but then a lot of mainstream stuff especially that presented as sci-fi is really little more than action-adventures with laser blasters. It works best when it’s asking uncomfortable questions; is it okay to kill a child for the things he will do in the future and so on.

Ultimately, I think what stops it joining the roll call of classic sci-fi/time-travel movies is that frankly the characters aren’t like-able enough and the third act doesn’t satisfy.

On a side note, Holy Motors… not all it’s hyped up to be either.

[bossk]

I watched the ‘Wife of a Time Traveller’ film last night. (I won’t get to watch Looper or Primer until they’re on TV or something). Enjoyed Wife of a Time Traveller even though I might come across as a big blubby softy nancy saying so.

Speaking o’ time travelling I’m keen to see tonight’s Lemons episode!

[Ben Paddon]

[Pete Tranter’s Sister]

Thank Christ he grew into his skull.

[Tarka Dal]

Can someone knock one of these up with Rimmer and change the title to Souper?

[Ben Paddon]

Someone light the P2P signal?

[Author]

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