Brick (2005), The Brothers Bloom (2008), Looper (2012)

[cinematixyz]

Hello everyone, R here with what is likely going to be a bit of a word-vomit about these three movies by director Rian Johnson. Bear with me! I have wanted to review these three movies as a loose trilogy of sorts since I came on board here at cinematixyz First because I loved Brick so very much, really enjoyed Looper, and thought this would be good impetus to

Comments

[barush]

I'm biased, because both Brick and Looper are in my Top 10 movies of all time, so I won't attempt some deep analysis and just say that I love Rian Johnson :D And JGL too, I love their bromance :P I wasn't so much into The Brothers Bloom for some reason, even though I tried to love it. Oh well.

Although I will say that I love what Joe once said about the characters in Brick, that they're not children, but archetypes.

Comment By Zuz

[cinematixyz]

I haven't seen the other two..I only saw Looper (STOP THROWING TOMATOES!!!!) but my issue was literally 1/3 the way through "Looper", I asked Y. "I thought Joseph Gordon Levitt starred as the younger B.W." and Y pointed out that was him, but had to look it up to double check. His acting and mannerisms were good enough...he obviously studied the guy, especially his younger materiel/work

Re: Comment By Zuz

[barush]

Again, I have seen this movie many, many times and I'm pretty sure I've seen and read every interview with Joe and/or Rian about this movie, so I'm unable to discuss it objectively anymore lol That said, the purpose of the make up was always for Joe to disappear. He didn't want to shine, he wanted to disappear so much that people would forget it's JGL and believe it's someone who could grow up into Bruce Willis. And I think it worked. But I get the make up might be distracting for some people. I knew what they were doing before I went to see the movie, so I was prepared for Joe's changed face and could focus on the movie only.

Also, I haven't seen Django, but I doubt I'd like it more than Looper :D

Re: Comment By Zuz

[cinematixyz]

Honestly, as a timey wimey film lover, it was distracting and I COULDN'T get into it because of the crappy make up. It was unnecessary. JGL (OMG, those are the initials of two family members...CREE-PY) was doing a great job without it. As SNL says "It's called Acting!!" LOL

[pyjamagurl]

The thing I couldn't wrap my head around with Looper (and I love Time Travelly stuff, it was the reason I wanted to see Looper) was that the future that 'Old Joe' lived wouldn't have been as tortured by the kid being a dictator because 'Old Joe' hadn't gone back and killed his mother, 'Young Joe' stopped that from happening, but in 'Old Joe's universe this whole thing would never have happened, so neither Joe would have died? The mother wouldn't have died either, so why did the kid go evil? IDK I got way too caught up in that, perhaps I'm reading it wrong? But yeah that twist didn't work for me. (Unless I missed something in the narrative earlier? Tis the curse of watching things without subtitles for me...)

And I had liked the movie up until then, it was gory in places, and I fully admit to hiding in my jacket when they showed the part with bits of the runaway guy disappearing, I'm a wuss. At least I didn't turn my hearing aids off like I did when watching Jack Reacher.

[barush]

I saw and read way too many interviews about this movie with Rian Johnson, and the one thing he always says, when people ask him this exact same question is "look at Cid and Sarah's relationship before Joe comes into the picture." Before Joe comes, Cid thinks that Sarah isn't his real mom, so who knows where it goes from there.

[pyjamagurl]

Ah, see that makes sense! I don't know why i didn't think of that while watching the movie. I probably need to watch it again :)

[cinematixyz]

Good point! There's a moment early on where Seth (Paul Dano) is talking about The Rainmaker and mentions as part of his legend that he saw his mom get shot. Which makes me sort of take a 'which came first, the chicken or the egg' approach to the time travel. We can't find the start of the loop (hence the movie poster I picked for this entry), we're just along for the ride.

~R