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Well, when I say the film feels kind of wishy-washy, I realise that in some ways it’s intentionally so. Bruno out-and-out says not to think about the time travel mechanics too much and that the whole deal in that regard is fuzzy.
My favourite things were the performances of the kid, Emily Blunt and Jeff Daniels. I also thought Gareth Dillahunt was really good in that small role as the gat man who finds JGL on the farm. But the thematic and moral and emotional weight is for JGL and Bruno to carry and I didn’t think they pulled it off. I’m not saying that’s purely because of their limitations as performers, I think the writing falls short of the sort of poignancy its shooting for.
Jeff Daniels’ character sums it up fairly well when he makes those remarks about how JGL’s style is inspired by movies which are inspired by other movies. I’m starting to feel like Johnson’s understanding of people all comes from movies. It worked a treat in Brick, because that’s the whole conceit to that film, but with Brothers Bloom and now Looper it’s felt like something vital is missing when it comes to heart. Dude’s very smart technically but still has a way to go in getting his films to work emotionally. He has a ton of potential, but he’s no Spielberg. Yet.
I love that he’s ambitious though. I’d rather see people like him and Nolan and Cuaron aim high and fall short than watch something like Battleship or The Day After Tomorrow play it ridiculously safe and succeed at that.
Did you see that he already has a commentary track available? – http://soundcloud.com/rcjohnso/looper-theatrical-commentary
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
I did see that about the commentary.
Funny that you say that about aiming high – I make a similar comment in my mini-show.
This is a really good chat about the film Johnson did last week with a podcast he sometimes guests on. His familiarity with these guys lets him be more relaxed and open than he otherwise might be and a lot of good stuff gets discussed, from the writing, shooting and editing of Looper to the films which inspired it to Dave Chen’s Skype avatar (every time he’s on the show he makes fun of Dave in some way). Either listen or download here or find it in iTunes.
http://www.slashfilm.com/filmcast-ep-202-a-morning-with-rian-johnson-director-of-looper/#more-141951
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
Pretty neato.
This is a strange curiosity I thought might be interesting – just after I finished the script for Looper but before we began preproduction I asked Joe to record some voice-over, and with help from my friend Ronen Verbit constructed this “fake trailer” using clips from other movies. This is a fairly common thing to do when you’re trying to get a movie off the ground, but it was the first time I tried it. It was meant to show more some of the film’s tone, and to show how the odd concept could be presented in a clear and compelling way in the marketing. Zach Johnson did the sketches. Note that we hadn’t begun the casting process yet, and the clips were chosen just based on their visuals and not by who is in them.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
FOUR HOURS of Rian Johnson talking to Kevin Smith? Yes please!
http://smodcast.com/episodes/skip-to-my-looper/
http://smodcast.com/episodes/smoviemakers-15-rian-johnson/
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
@Bucho 50262 wrote:
FOUR HOURS of Rian Johnson talking to Kevin Smith? Yes please!
Any of y’all sons of guns listen to these? I liked them quite a bit.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
I haven’t, but that’s probably because Kevin Smith is starting to tire me out. He was on the Talking Dead (the little talkshow after the Walking Dead) and all of his jokes were all right on the surface, and almost like the jokes you’d hear out of somebody twenty years older.
With that being said, do you still think I should listen?
That’s funny, to me Kevin Smith’s jokes are like the jokes you’d hear out of somebody 20 years younger.
Depends how much you’re interested in Rian Johnson. I became an even bigger fan than I was after seeing Brick from hearing him a whole bunch in his guest appearances on the Slashfilmcast where he could goof around in a less formal setting than your usual, average interview situation. Talking to Kevin Smith he’s not quite as loose as he is on that podcast but he’s similarly unguarded. They spend a bit of time sucking Nolan’s dick but you probably don’t need to hear that since it’d just be preaching to the choirboy. Of course they had completely different experiences working with Bruno so you get to hear them compare notes on that huge movie star.
I don’t know. It’s not vital listening, and you may have heard Rian talk about his particular methods of writing and making movies but I found the full 4 hours entertaining.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
To me Kevin is done being funny or interesting. I liked it better before he was getting high all of the time, and was 1/4 of the man he is today. I dunno… seems like he’s just gotten lazy, and uses the word cat way too fucking much. If I never hear/see him again, then I guess my plan will have worked. But that’s wasn’t the point of my post, now was it? WAS IT?!?
@Version3 50304 wrote:
I liked it better before he was getting high all of the time …
That’s a bingo.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
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