Posts tagged Joseph Gordon Levitt
“Looper” about Time-Travel Assassins
Oct 11th
“Time-Travel Assassins”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Looper is a pretty good movie about time travel that uses the classic paradoxes about time travel, but doesn’t bother going into too much detail trying to explain them.
That is why they are called “paradoxes.”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Joe, and Bruce Willis stars as Joe, too. I mean, “also,” not the number “2,” because they are both playing the same person. So, let me call the Willis character Old Joe.
The story begins in 2044 in Kansas, and Joe is an assassin for the mob 30 years in the future who is called a “looper.”
You see, even though time travel is illegal in the future, the mob uses it in order to get rid of people they want killed. If people are killed in the past, then they never existed in the future, right?
Then Joe tells us in a voice-over that the mob boss of the future, who is called The Rainmaker, is closing all the loops by sending his assassins’ future selves back in time to be killed by their younger selves, and he says, “This is called ‘letting your loop run’; it’s not a good thing.”
Joe is notified of the time that a victim will show up, and it occurs out in a field where Joe has already made disposing of the body easy. The victim suddenly appears with a hood on, and Joe blasts the person with his weapon, a blunderbuss that can’t hit anything over 15 yards.
Joe is paid with bars of silver strapped to the victims’ bodies, and he is saving for his future and learning French, because he plans to retire and move to France.
However, Joe knows about “closing the loop,” and so he is not completely surprised when Old Joe shows up as a victim.
Then we get some flash-forwards into the future that explain Old Joe’s life and how he suddenly shows up in 2044 in Kansas, but in different circumstances from Joe’s other victims that allows Old Joe to escape from Joe.
And so the rest of the movie is about both Joes trying to kill his other self in order to get out of the dilemma he is in, which also involves a Kansas woman named Ana, played by Emily Blunt.
Looper closes all the loops and then manages to end.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Looper – Movie Trailer
Oct 4th
In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good… until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination.
“Premium Rush” Is Breakneck Fun
Sep 24th
“Breakneck Fun”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Premium Rush is the ultimate chase movie through the streets of New York City centered around a story about Manhattan bicycle messengers.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Wilee, an obvious reference to Wile E. Coyote of the Road Runner cartoons, but a more appropriate nickname would have been Road Runner itself, or maybe Double R, or possibly even Runner, but that would have been confusing, because he spends most of his time on a bicycle riding and not running.
However, throughout the movie Wilee is not the chaser, but the chasee. Because of an envelope he is delivering for his service, at one time or another Wilee is chased by a mysterious man in an automobile, by a policeman on a bicycle, and even by a plainclothes policeman in his automobile.
Yes, it is a dangerous job being one of the 1,500 bicycle messengers in New York City, and Wilee even says in a voice-over, “One time or another, we all get hit.”
In fact, the movie starts with Wilee having an accident at 6:33 p.m., and then we get a flashback to 5 p.m. when Wilee picked up the envelope, which was a premium-rush delivery that has to be delivered by 7 p.m.
Once he is outside after picking up the envelope, Wilee is stopped by a man who asks for the envelope with a logical story for why Wilee should turn it over.
However, Wilee is suspicious, because a bike messenger’s rules are after a delivery is put in his bag, it is given only to a person at the address where the package is to be delivered, and so Wilee takes off running–I mean, riding.
Then the man chases after Wilee in his car, and they both tear through the streets, avoiding traffic and pedestrians and even running red lights until we are back at the point of Wilee’s accident at the beginning of the movie.
Wilee is different from other messengers in that his bicycle has no brakes and no gears, and he prefers it that way.
Eventually we get more flashbacks for background explanation as to why the envelope is so important to so many people, and the premium rush of the title becomes a premium rush for the audience, as well.
Premium Rush is breakneck fun for everyone.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
