LOOPER Review

Rian Johnson's "Looper" has the distinct feeling of being a classic even as you're watching it. It's set in a dystopian future -- two, in fact -- one that is 32 years in the future and another 30 years beyond that. In the way it unfolds two parallel universes recalls Christopher Nolan's labyrinthine "Inception," and the vividly detailed portrayal of a dysmal future brings to mind the gritty detail evoked by Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men." And in its characters, themes and brooding tale of justice and morality through a sci-fi neo-noir landscape, it's hard to not call it a new version of "The Matrix" and "Blade Runner" for this generation. Best of all is that in capturing the essence of each of these films, Johnson's "Looper" triumphs in being something wholly original and breathtaking that would be a shame if it didn't get remembered for awards season.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a man who was hired as a looper for the mob. He lives in the year 2044 when time travel hasn't been invented yet. Thirty years later, however, it will be, and it's only used by an illegal crime syndicate. They kidnap, throw a hood over their victim and send them back in time to be assassinated and disposed of. In this fully-realized universe, loopers carry a weapon called a blunderbuss which looks like a streamlined shotgun. Loopers have their blunderbuss while the Gat Men carry a long-barreled revolver called a gat which they cherish. The Gat Men are mafia-types who skulk around in trench coats and are led by a haggard crime boss named Abe (Jeff Daniels).

In the future, drug use has simplified to using eye drops to get a fix, and some citizens have been affected with the power of telekinesis, referred to as TK. Those who have the power, however, only twirl coins in the air and use it as a pick-up line. The exception is a man called the Rainmaker who in the future, year 2074, is apparently using his power toward evil. He's doing what's called "closing the loop," which is when the older version of a looper is sent back in time to be executed by none other than himself. A friend of Joe's, a reckless man named Seth (Paul Dano), realizes he's about to close his loop and lets his future self go, a selfish act that Abe cannot let stand.

As if foreshadowing Joe's own predicament to come, he comes face-to-face with a thirty-year-older version of himself, played by Bruce Willis. It's interesting to note how Gordon-Levitt doesn't look like himself -- thanks to subtle makeup work, his face is ever so slightly transformed to resemble Willis'. The younger actor deadpans, smirks and scowls just like his veteran counterpart, too. And playing the older Joe gives Willis his best performance in years. There's a scene where the seemingly impossible happens. Joe sits at a rural diner sitting across from himself, thirty years in the future. Having a conversation with yourself opens a door of endless possibilities, and Johnson is smart to only focus on what's immediately important to the characters' dire situation. He leaves all else the scene implies for us to decipher and question on our own.

Also artful and intelligent is the way Johnson's screenplay employs the use of time travel. It isn't so much the forefront of action but instead a backdrop to create unexpected thematic intricacies. The ingenuity of Johnson's writing really shines when young Joe finds himself on a desolate farm. It's a stirring contrast between the grime of the city where either the mob or destitute vagrants reside. On this farm Joe meets Sara (Emily Blunt), a tough single mother who doesn't shy away fending off late night intruders with a shotgun. Her son, Cid (Pierce Gagnon), becomes an extremely important element to the well-being of both young and old Joe alike.

In sci-fi action blockbusters, women characters are generally used for sexual intrigue and eye candy. In the case of both farm girl Sara and old Joe's loving wife (Summer Qing) with whom he spends a new life in China, "Looper" has elements of a rather profound love story, something that may come as an added surprise. That again speaks to Rian Johnson's finesse as a filmmaker. In 2005, he debuted with "Brick" giving us a high school noir narrated by a newly re-branded Joseph Gordon Levitt. After an underwhelming second feature, "The Brothers Bloom," Johnson is back announcing himself firmly as a new commanding presence in the industry worth recognizing.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER Review

Keeping "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" from being just another coming-of-age tale is the breadth of tough issues this sweet surprise of an adaptation touches on along with top-notch performances from a trio of young actors. This is Stephen Chbosky's second feature having written the screenplay for 2005's "Rent," and now he's adapted for the screen and directed his own best-selling young adult novel, which focuses on a group of Pittsburgh misfit teenagers navigating high school circa 1991. Chbosky's handling can be a little uneven at times, but whatever he may lack in finessed skill he more than makes up for it in sheer passion and intimacy, which makes "Perks" so honest and endearing about the struggles and joys of adolescence.

We're introduced to Charlie (Logan Lerman) just as he's about to enter his freshman year of high school. The poor kid is constantly trapped in his own mind with recurring thoughts about his best friend who committed suicide and a traumatic experience with his late Aunt Helen (Melanie Lynskey). On his first day and the days to follow, Charlie sits alone at lunch where residual friends from middle school won't even acknowledge him. His sister, too, is too preoccupied with her pony-tailed boyfriend to help him find friends. He's in over his head with waves of teenage angst crashing all around him. The first friend he does make is Mr. Anderson (a wonderfully understated Paul Rudd), his advanced English teacher who watches Charlie's growth potential with a watchful eye and kindly lends him his favorite classic books.

Mr. Anderson tells Charlie that he should speak up and participate in class. This in-class lesson translates to Charlie's predicament in the real world, as well; that is, in order for him to be happy, he must no longer be a passive observer but participate in his own life experiences. Otherwise he gets wrapped up in his own doom and gloom.

Enter Patrick (Ezra Miller), a sardonic senior who makes a name for himself by openly mocking the teacher in shop class. He also serves as Charlie's gateway into real friendship. Mustering up the courage to sit next to him at a football game, Charlie also meets Patrick's best friend and half-sister, Sam (Emma Watson). They let him into their group because of a commonality they perhaps don't even realize exists yet. Each of them have some pain and anger pent up. Patrick's frustration stems from dating a closeted football jock, and Sam is tired of falling for guys who don't treat her right.

Though she appeared in last year's British drama "My Week with Marilyn," this marks Emma Watson's first foray into American filmmaking -- and her first use of an American accent. She nails the role of the beautiful and down-to-earth Sam whose demons lurk just beneath her porcelain skin. As good as she is, it's a testament to Ezra Miller's talent that even up against a post-Hermoine Watson he manages to become the real scene stealer. The theatrical fun-loving nature of Patrick is a thin veil covering his inner battle of not being able to openly express his sexuality the way he wants to, and Miller's performance captures this. Even more astonishing is the young actor's range considering he's otherwise known for playing the deeply disturbed son of Tilda Swinton in "We Need to Talk About Kevin."

"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is both painful and uplifting about Charlie's freshman year experience which translates to not only universal themes about attending high school but about life relationships in general. This wider scope comes from not watering down the material to pander to a specific teenaged viewership, even in spite of a PG-13 rating. It's also a movie that knows and understands the unique bond friends have when it comes to the special hangout spot or that perfect song that comes on the radio at just the right moment. For this outcast trio, it's what they simply refer to as the "tunnel song." In this iconic scene, Charlie feels infinite, which is empowering for him because his new friends are only ephemeral, moving on with their lives going away to college. Charlie's freshman year was but a fleeting moment where he, for once in his life, felt like he belonged.

THE MASTER Review

Instead of the belching fire, raging fury of blood and thunder and a climax ending with the phrase "I'm finished" in Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood," here's the latest from the acclaimed writer-director, "The Master," which is no less intense but a more quiet, intimate and ultimately maddening picture. A lot of the hype surrounding this film suggests it will be a true-to-life tale of the founding of Scientology and an exposé on L. Ron Hubbard. Those looking for something along those lines, turn back now. Hubbard's rise is merely the foundation upon which Anderson has constructed a towering, twisted metaphor for American life, power and history, much in the way he used Upton Sinclair's "Oil!" as the jumping point for 2008's "Blood." Unlike that film, however, this is a more cerebral, speculative and confounding experience with a narrative trajectory that gets further deconstructed as it moves forward.

We open at the conclusion of World War II. Freddie (Joaquin Phoenix) served in the Navy, and after some post-war psychoanalysis is certifiably a mess. When shown Rorschach ink blotches, he only sees genitalia and mumbles answers about his mother's presence in a psych ward somewhere. And while he finds work as a portrait photographer in a department store and later as a worker in a cabbage field, his only real ability and interest is making potent yet dangerous cocktails out of paint thinner, dark room materials and household cleaners. This drifter walks along a pier one night and like a twinkling alluring light in the distance, there is a party boat docked with an amiable crowd aboard, and Freddie doesn't think twice about sneaking inside. He awakes the next morning after drunkenly passing out to meet Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a resolute man of clear thought and diction. Dodd sees an interest in Freddie and speaks to him as a father figure. "You will be my protege and my guinea pig," Dodd tells him.

So begins the fascinating and complex character study of contrast on Lancaster Dodd and Freddie the drifter. Their dynamic is introduced in Dodd's first "processing" session with Freddie, a sort of mental time travel, a hypnosis and search for past trauma that could trace back even millions -- or trillions -- of years. This "process" is the basis of Dodd's pseudo-religious, therapeutic cult known as the Cause. From here, Freddie's relationship with Dodd goes from pining son to devout follower to bitter cynic all with psycho-sexual undercurrents that are hard to read and uneasy to digest.

The performances that craft these characters from Hoffman and Phoenix are nothing short of brilliant. Phoenix gives Freddie a feral, hunched over demeanor with a crazed manic energy that, after Phoenix's public breakdown and bizarre quasi-documentary "I'm Still Here," feels only fitting for the actor and gives him career-best work. A scene in which a locked-up and hand-cuffed Freddie kicks and shatters a jail cell toilet right off the wall marks a shocking ferocity, a lucid contrast to Hoffman's Dodd who only shows flashes of his inner rage against doubters of the Cause. This includes his own son, Val (Jesse Plemons), who's convinced his father is making his religion up as he goes along. The opposite of this is Dodd's wife, Peggy (Amy Adams), who's pregnant and displays a motherly, wholesome feminine quality to perfectly accent Dodd's Cause. What the public doesn't see is a headstrong woman clawing at perfection. Even the masters have their masters, and Adams -- in a performance which will be recognized come award time -- shows Peggy's terrifying will in a private moment with her husband.

What's impossible to ignore about "The Master" is Paul Thomas Anderson's absolute command of the cinematic form. It's enough to keep any movie connoisseur completely enthralled with impeccable direction, mesmerizing and gorgeous 65mm (projected 70mm in select theaters) cinematography from Mihai Malaimare, Jr. (a Frances Ford Coppola favorite), which marks the first time cinematographer Roger Elswit hasn't worked on an Anderson film, and another unnerving and mind-bending score from Jonny Greenwood. It's all very much what we've come to expect from a masterful filmmaker, but then something happens that we don't expect.

As the film's narrative begins delving into dream states and Freddie's memories, the third act begins to strangely misshapen. A curious lack of development without a truly dramatic turn is what keeps Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film from reaching the greatness of his previous work. While perhaps eliciting a tinge of disappointment, this is in no way a misstep for the writer-director. I admire its contentious themes and lauded aesthetic elements, but an absence of riveting storytelling kept me from falling in love.

THE END Review

Cam McHarg's short film "The End" is about as pitch black as a black comedy can get. The humor is bleak, dark and dry as we watch Barry (Cris D'Annunzio) having the worst day of his life -- literally. Barry's car won't start, so he abandons it throwing the keys to a hobo only to then see the hobo happily drive away. As Barry checks into a dingy hotel room, there's no toilet paper, nothing good on TV, and his attempts at suicide are failing miserably. Now, obviously the reason he's attempting to kill himself isn't over the lack in amenities at this hotel. McHarg introduces us to this man at the end of what must've been a long, depressing trajectory, which opens up this ambitious ten-minute feature to some freedom for the viewer in imaging what must've gone so wrong.

The opening of "The End" is a visual splendor showing us a beautiful universe. Unfortunately for Barry this universe is conspiring against him at every turn. With high production value, a solid performance from D'Annunzio, an interesting and disturbing premise and a sucker punch of an ending, McHarg's "The End" is worth checking out. You can watch his full film here.