I just watched Looper (2012) https://trakt.tv/movies/looper-2012 #Looper #trakt

Nagalite, by LILI REFRAIN 4 track album

Lili Refrain new release:
https://lilirefrain.bandcamp.com/album/nagalite

#LiliRefrain #Folk #NeoFolk #Goth #PostPunk #MultiInstrumentalist #NeoclassicalDarkwave #Fusion

Also, the letters look cool as shit now, too. It kinda reminds of... street fighter, maybe? Idk, it's a fresh, cool look, though.

It's always fun when I get to a #film I dislike before anyone else on #ReelRank 😆

F-, & that's not even nearly as bad as it could be. I've gotten a lot of #movies started with an F--- on there 😤

Here's the ReelRank review that tanked #Looper 's grade: review.reelrank.net/67fd415b-791...

#FilmSky

A ★★ review of Looper (2012) This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.

This went straight into my #letterboxd #ThisIsNothing List, & it barely earned ⭐⭐

There's enough interesting, worthwhile stuff to save it from total 1-⭐ ignominy, but what a deplorably huge waste of everyone's time except Bruce Willis's, who was barely there.

boxd.it/dH57sx

#FilmSky #Looper #Film

Not his best work. Neither is it his worst! This is just a "this is nothing" film for me. And I think Old Joe really did kill that kid. Fuckin Christ.

Ha. Dr. Zoidberg, in the moment that inspired my snarky bleet.

Boo. Your movie is bad, and you should feel bad.

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

Looks like he's casting the Winds of Watoomb, lol.

Utter schlock 😆

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

Sometimes, we even get insert shots of her ankle twisting or whatever, like it's an 80s slasher film. Wild trope, and what's it doing here?

This bird is constantly falling lol.

This broad is ALWAYS tripping and falling over. Like, constantly 😆

She's worse than Mia in The Princess Diaries. Good Lord.

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

The way it's signaled to us that she's thinking about sex is that she fingers the hem of her nightgown, then touches her lips, and I'm like 'what?' She could have just been jerking off (tastefully!) which would have made more sense to me, but whatever. I get it.

This is the communicator the kid has built, and it's for when she's in danger, and she doesn't even hesitate once her mind is made up.

But, like, I think the script betrayed her, because I do not buy that that's how any of that would have gone down. She's a grown-ass woman, and she'd have thrown on a coat and gone down to where Joe is rather than signaling him and having him potentially burst in guns blazing.

I think it's really funny that Sara uses the frog-toy communicator to summon Joe for sex that she wants, but also, how that all is communicated is sooo ham-handed (she's clutching the hem of her nightie?), and character-wise I DO NOT BUY IT.

AT ALL.

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

That's visually... something. Interesting, maybe.

Kind of a cool shot here as we see Sara's face framed by the crooked arm of the bloke in her kitchen, drinking her water.

#Looper is intermittently interesting or cool, but it always feels like it wandered into it by accident.

#FilmSky #MovieSky

Did Old Joe kill that kid earlier? It's unclear, but I think not. And I think we're meant to be surprised when it's revealed he didn't kill him? This movie thinks we're stupid, I think, but Rian Johnson also has a reputation for terrible, unhinged subversions, so maybe he did kill the kid. WHO KNOWS OR CARES?!

I mean, am I even sure that is Bruce Willis? I'd argue I'm not. That could be a stand-in, or, at best, filmed with no effort very quickly during the half-day they seemingly had him.

Once again, nothing Bruce Willis is doing requires any other actors, and is clearly favoring having him for only a very short time.

He's mostly just peering into and out of things in #Looper so far, and we're fully 80 minutes in 😆

#FilmSky #MovieSky

Again, I like what Emily Blunt and Pierce Gagnon are doing. Everything else around it, I could take or leave, and would mostly rather leave.

This moment made me tear up a bit 😭

I'm the world's easiest cry, but a lot of #films don't even manage it, so this is points for #Looper, which is not a worthless #film, but does seem pointless.

Every interesting moment so far involves at least 1 of these 2 characters.

#FilmSky #MovieSky

Quite a bit of this movie is just a one-shot and an actor reacting to something either in their head or off screen, and it's becoming noticeable. This was, like, probably a half-day of Emily Blunt's work-life, being alone on a set and having to back away from the camera in a crab-walk, pretending to be horrified by what she's triggered.

I love what this kid is doing, man. I don't think the script or the filmmaking really even favors him, either. I just think he's making bold, interesting choices, and maybe he also intuits on some level this is not a very good movie, so who cares, but I think his performance is effortless and realized and interesting, which is more than I say for anyone else here.

Look at that kid just fuckin go for it. That's awesome. It makes a difference. You can't fake that kind of commitment or energy.

This kid actor playing Cid (Pierce Gagnon) is positively going for it, and I think it's terrific, but big-picture, this is nothing I haven't seen a million times before and done way better.

But Gagnon is doing interesting things with an uninteresting directive, imo 🤩

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

The creepy, gifted kid is kind of a trope, but whatever, it's working here. I like this kid actor's performance, and this is the first engaging, interesting conversation that's transpired in the film. I feel like it's revealing character a bit, rather than forcefeeding me shoeleather and exposition.

Hilariously, Joe casts about for the right answer for a while, and then sort of gives up and says, "Uh, sure, let's say I kill people." You DO kill people, Joe, lol.

Kid: "Do you kill people?"

Young Joe [searches for a response]: "Uh, sure, let's say I kill people."

🤣

That's the 1st time #Looper 's #script has made me laugh out loud. This conversation between this weird kid and Young Joe is kind of compelling, though prob by accident.

#FilmSky #MovieSky

Lest you think anything actually happened on this side of the needlessly-bifurcated narrative, nah, it's happening to Young Joe, like everything is.

There it is. This is where stuff happens, because the actors here on this side don't cost ONE MILLION DOLLARS A DAY. I'm not kidding. That's what Willis both commanded and demanded at this point in his career, and he turned down an offer from Expendables film franchise for a $3M, 4-Day shoot, lol.

For a moment, I was, like, "OMG, did something just happen in Old Joe's storyline?!"

Of COURSE not, idiot.

That's just yet another in an exhausting series of heavy-handed allusions to the fact their memories/experiences are tied.

Young Joe as uncanny and dumb-looking as ever 😆

#Looper #FilmSky

It keeps flashing back to Bruce Willis, and it's clear they felt they needed to shoot more of him, or have more of him in the film (maybe contractually obligated?), and we just keep cutting back to him grabbing his head as his 'memories change,' trying to hold onto the memory of this broad who's not a character and absolutely nobody gives a shit about, if she even exists anymore. WHO CARES?! It's infuriating.

So, for honestly (no exaggeration), the last 20m of this #movie (following 8-10m of skulking around behind future-cars), Old Joe Loop has been sitting, alone, in a sewer, & it's so radically, mood-alteringly boring & nothing.

Acting to no one; nothing happens; WTF is this? 😑

#Looper #FilmSky #Film

I'm kinda meh on Emily Blunt, tbh. She hasn't made much of an impression on me up to this point, despite being in tons of stuff. She's standing out here, though, by virtue of being the only performance that doesn't make me go, "Wut."

Again, the only element of this film that makes any good damned sense or seems like it should be the way it is.

Emily Blunt is really good in #Looper. She's honestly giving the only performance in this #film that seems dialed-in and isn't positively baffling me.

A lone bright spot in a field of weird, listless, lifeless, cartoonish acting.

She seems like she's in a different #movie 😆

#FilmSky #MovieSky

I mean... it totally reads in screenshots/still frames how bad this is, I think.

"What have I done?" Barely show up to an acting gig, lol.

"Can I seem to cry so hard that I dive out of the frame and don't have to emote any more at all?" Kind of!

This is honestly some of the least-convincing "I'm breaking down right now," #acting I've ever seen in my life 😑

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

I don't buy it, but if Joe kills this kid, I'm out.

So manipulative. I resent it.

What's going on in the bald head, I wonder?

The #Looper #screenplay seems to be strongly suggesting that Joe Loop is about kill this kid, and I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell it actually happens (I'll turn this off), so I'm a little resentful at the attempt to generate tension.

Go ahead, Bruce Willis. Give me a reason 😑

We’ll get back to #Looper later, but I want everyone to read my crazy story about the #USArmy kidnapping me one time, so I’ve pinned that for now, and I’m just going to punish everyone with it until it has enough engagement for me to feel good about it, so it’s easier to just give me what I want 😈

He is in a different outfit, so he had to do wardrobe and hair/makeup at least two times. I'm guessing two days on set, based on what I've seen so far. If we get him in a second location, I might bump that up to a week of shooting.

You know what? 🤔

Jeff Daniels seems like he's having fun, and probably had to do ~2 days of shooting in a single location, so good on him.

It's fun to watch actors have fun but I don't get the sense JD took this seriously, nor should he have.

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

I'd honestly rather deal with disappointing Abe than disappointing my father. Dad never picked up a hammer, but he also never just hit me once, either. I could work with this, lol. By the way, it's consistent with Abe's character, in a way. He's not excessively violent, and prefers diplomacy and threats, but this scene is played with tension like he might really do something wild. I'd have done more than hit this idiot's hand with a hammer one, single time, believe that, and I'm not even a psychopathic future-gangster. I think I just have higher standards than Abe.

#Looper is so odd. Rian Johnson is trying to make Abe too many different things, so this is set up like it's a torture scene, & Abe takes Blue's "gat" & seems like he's going to maim him, but he just hits him 1x in the hand with a hammer.

For a #movie gangster, that's basically a love tap

#FilmSky

I'd rate this movie R for the hand-stuff alone (I'm kidding; I don't believe in movie ratings, and think they're sophomoric, banal evil)

This #movie has a thing with hands, and I'm not going to say it's the same as Tarantino with feet, but it's not totally different, either.

Every time I look up, there's another closeup of hands rubbing each other in the frame. Starts to feel a little sus after a while 🤔

#Looper #FilmSky #movieSky

I'm meh on Emily Blunt. I don't have any issues with her that I know of, but I'm not, like, excited to see she's in something.

Oh, hey, Emily Blunt is in this.

First appearance at 52:57 of 1:48:18. Pretty good work, if you can get it.

#Looper #FilmSky

I think a lot of you guys know my theory on this. All art and entertainment are highly derivative, but you only feel or notice the grinding weight of derivation when the creative product has no novelty or originality of its own to trade on, so it's just drafting off a lot of cooler ideas you've seen done better. That's Looper, in a nutshell.

This was not by any means a good or interesting part of the Star Wars canon, for me, but it's inarguably more interesting and more iconic than whatever is going on over in Looper.

"I like the speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi, but what if they looked like Harleys?"

"Now we're cooking with jet fuel, Rian!"

is how I imagine the conversation regarding the hoverbikes in #Looper went. I don't know who he's writing with in this scenario, bc he's the sole-credited screenwriter

I don't think this makes any sense, and I'm not stopping totally down to get into the plot mechanics, but the whole idea is that things like blood and tissue can be readily and easily identified and traced in the future, so they have to send them back. In fact, they have a stun gun they use on Joe in a second, which is what they'd do instead of going in with actual-guns drawn if the stakes were that high. Like, a murder has clearly occurred at this location, regardless of what they do with her body. Also, she's clearly getting saved in the time-loop sense by the end of the film, I'd reckon, but it makes very little sense why she would have been in this specific situation or danger, given the bad guys' priorities. More likely, they'd shock her and kill her offsite like they're doing with Joe, if they even deemed it necessary.

What they wouldn't do is fire a bullet through a glass window into the human body of the house's occupant, leaving blood and viscera all over the scene, which is the whole thing they're trying to avoid by sending victims back in time. THIS IS EXHAUSTING, and it doesn't pay off. It's not worthwhile exhaustion or investment.

I really don't want to pick nits with a pretty-broad, dumb story too much, but...

The whole conceit of why they do this time-travel bullshit is bc they're so good at identifying bodies in the future, but it can't be JUST bodies. Any blood at the scene would surely be disastrous...

#Looper #FilmSky

It's like the movie knows what it's done, but if it did, why'd it do it? It's baffling to me, but Looper is leaning into how weird and uncanny JGL looks.

Bruce Willis is not without his charm, but it seems to have been out of pocket for the duration of this film, at least.

"It's hard staring into your eyes. It's too strange." Yeah, fair enough. I won't argue with that.

Old Joe [gazing at Young Joe, then looks away]: "It's hard staring into your eyes. It's too strange."

Tell me about it. I've been saying that for damn-near 45 minutes now 😆

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

Often, even usually, when a character delivers a line, but we can't see the mouth move because the camera is peering over their shoulder (usually at the partner of their two-shot), it's because the way their mouth moved in the non-coverage shot straight at them doesn't match the language that was eventually settled on. So they'll have the actor (Bruce Willis, in this case) come back in and do a day or two in a sound booth to get those lines, and it's called ADR, and it noticeably happened here with the "I never regretted learning French" line, which is odd, because that learning French stuff is so centered in the narrative. It couldn't possibly have been added late, could it? Wild. Not sure what to make of that.

The line, "I never regretted learning French," following, "You gonna tell me I should be learning Mandarin?" is delivered using coverage shot over Bruce Willis's (or his stand-in's) shoulder, suggesting it might've been a pickup or late addition to the script.

Odd 🤔

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

I like her a lot! Beatrix is an odd name. Future-Beatrice, I guess? I mean, Beatrix is not a totally-unheard-of name, you just don't see it in film and TV a ton.

Beatrix is played by Tracie Thoms, a favorite from Rent and The Devil Wears Prada. It's always fun when she shows up in anything, and she's giving a dialed-in, interesting performance amidst a lot of nonsense.

#Looper #FilmSky #MovieSky

Mark it. 42:34 in, and it's only getting dumber-looking and harder to gaze upon. Having it in the same room as the guy it's trying to ape doesn't serve it any better, I can say that much.

There's quite a bit of them staring at each other. I seem to recall this was in the trailer, and a big part of what they seemed to think would be the draw. By the way, this movie was a huge hit. On a miniscule (somehow) budget of $30M, it made nearly $300M, but it isn't, like, any good.

Well, almost never seen anything quite like it. And, to be fair, I have not seen whichever Twilight this is (or any of them), but I know the baby looks uncanny and horrifying for a lengthy stretch of it.

I have not remotely gotten over or past how Young Joe looks, nor have I settled into it. The uncanniness and skin-crawly eeks-stomp-it-ness only continue to accelerate as we get deeper into #Looper 's runtime.

Remarkable. Never seen anything quite like it.

#FilmSky #MovieSky

Looper is no Heat, which is not to say that I like that film, because I do not. I find it boring and self-important, which is also true of this movie, but I acknowledge that Heat is operating on a much-higher level than Looper.

I won't tweet a screenshot this time, but the carving-words-into-body-parts thing does literally become actual self-harm when Joe does it to himself to suggest Beatrix might be in danger.

That feels even more probbo than before, & icky.

#Looper now doing what feels like a #Heat thing 🙄

#FilmSky