Showing posts with label Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Show all posts

Saturday, December 29, 2012

"Premium Rush" Movie Review

"Premium Rush" movie poster.
"Among the bike couriers in New York City, no one is more determined and reckless than Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an ex-law student more comfortable on his brakeless bike than in a suit. One day, a Chinese foreign student named Nima (Jamie Chung) arranges for him to deliver a vital envelope across the city. Unfortunately, a crooked cop, Det. Robert Monday (Michael Shannon), has a desperate need for that envelope himself and won't take 'No' for an answer. Now, Wilee finds himself relentlessly pursued by Monday and others in a situation becoming more complicated and dangerous by the minute. Together with his friends and rivals, Wilee must discover the secret of this dangerous delivery and make it through a gauntlet that will require all his cunning, daring and courage to survive." Written by Kenneth Chisholm (Source below.)

Dania Ramirez.
Directed and written by David Koepp ("Angels & Demons", "Secret Window") and cowritten by John Kamps ("Ghost Town", "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie"). The movie stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("Inception", "Looper"), Michael Shannon ("Revolutionary Road", "Jonah Hex"), Dania Ramirez ("X-Men: The Last Stand", "The 25th Hour"), Jamie Chung ("Sucker Punch", "The Man With the Iron Fists"), Wole Parks ("As The World Turns", "Law & Order"), and Christopher Place ("My Soul to Take", "Step Up 3D").

When I saw advertisements for this movie a while ago, I was a bit skeptical. Like "how will that be even remotely realistic?", "why isn't Lance Armstrong in this movie?" or "will Joseph Gordon-Levitt take off his shirt since he seems to have built muscles for this role?" But I digress. 

Jamie Chung.
"Premium Rush" isn't your usual action movie. For example: a gun is only fired once, explosions involve a cyclist running into a trash can, and car accidents are more realistic - broken windows and fender benders. 

I liked the setting, New York City is an excellent place. I think they got the frenetic pacing of the city just right. It was very interesting how you saw everything from the biker's perspective, including the GPS navigational system, how they knew which way to go, and how they basically survive delivering other people's stuff for fifty dollars. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (L) and Michael Shannon.
It was also interesting that they brought these three massive groups of people together and you saw a possibility of what could happen. Those three groups being the police, the bikers, and the chinese underworld. This is a city teeming with people and these groups of people are still so tight-knit. 

This movie rocks, it is very exciting and the characters are fully formed. I still can't give it 5 out of 5, only because there was a very simple solution to the one character's problems. All she had to do was tell her roommate about the issue and they could've gone together and probably would've done it for free. And there was one other problem: the ending was a bit like a Disney film, but I did like seeing the bad guy get his. But still an excellent and short movie, if you're just looking for a fun night in.

I give this movie 4 out of 5 typewriters.

Also, this official "training" featurette from the movie provided by ClevverMovies:

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

"Looper" Movie Review

"Looper" movie poster.
"In 2072, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent 30 years into the past, where a hired gun awaits. Someone like Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by transporting back Joe's future self (Bruce Willis)." (Link below.)


Written and directed by Rian Johnson (wrote the screenplay for "Brick"), starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("Inception", "The Dark Knight Rises"), Bruce Willis ("Die Hard", "The Sixth Sense"), Emily Blunt ("The Young Victoria", "The Devil Wears Prada"), Paul Dano ("Cowboys & Aliens", "There Will Be Blood"), and Jeff Daniels ("Good Night and Good Luck", "Speed"). It's an interesting concept and the first time travel movie in the last few years that has nothing to do with romantic bullshit.

Also, Sourcefed's review of it convinced me to go and now, after having seen it, I agree with a lot of their observations (you can see their review below).

The makeup was very well done. They had Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis shot in profile in this one scene and they freakishly looked the same. I'm really glad they decided to make Gordon-Levitt look and act like Willis, because trying to make Willis look like Gordon-Levitt may have been impossible. But great work on their part.


One of the parts that I thought was well-done, but made me a bit squeamish, was when they got the one looper to come back by torturing his young, past self. So you could see him getting scars, losing fingers, his nose, his tongue, his feet, and basically every appendage until he gets close enough so that they can kill him. You couldn't see the actual torture, just the effects of it and that was more disturbing. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (driving) and Paul Dano.
But it made me think that wouldn't that effect how the rest of that particular man's life would change and therefore he wouldn't be there to be tortured? Time travel is sort of a tricky subject like that. 

I also liked how they made the future more realistic than in previous science fiction movies. There are flying vehicles, but they are not quite up to speed. It seemed very messy there, like the world wasn't 'clean', which is probable with how people treat this planet. Everyone has solar panels on their houses and even their cars. They did a lot of good work with that aspect of it.

Bruce Willis.
I just couldn't completely feel for these loopers though. There were moments where I felt sympathy but then they usually involved somebody else. When things went wrong for them it really sucked, but they were still killing people and had a pretty good time doing it: cars, women, drugs, expensive getaways. I couldn't relate to them in that way.

I enjoyed it. There was gratuitous violence involving gunfire and torture. There was telekinesis, called TK. There was an interesting drug that you would drop into your eyes to get high. There was Bruce Willis yelling "Motherfucker!" which is always a treat. Also, there are boobies. 

Favorite Lines:

Found this awesome poster here.
Joe: Time travel has not yet been invented. But thirty years from now, it will have been.

Joe: Loopers are well paid, they lead a good life...

Abe: This time travel crap, just fries your brain like a egg...

[from trailer] 
Joe: I work as a specialized assassin, in an outfit called the Loopers. When my organization from the future wants someone to die, they zap them back to me and I eliminate the target from the future. The only rule is: never let your target escape... even if your target is you.

Older Joe: I'm going to stop this guy. 
Joe: None of this concerns me... 
Older Joe: It is going to happen to you! 
Joe: It's going to happen to YOU, it's not going to happen to ME!

Abe: I'm from the future, go to China.


I give this movie 4.5 out of 5 typewriters.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

"Inception" Movie Review

"Inception" movie poster.

"Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible-inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming." Written by Warner Bros. Pictures (Link below.)

(Back) Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Wow. I'm still trying to process this movie. It's a lot to take in, what with dream psychology, psychology, and bad relationships all in one movie. I really enjoyed it though. It was incredible to watch. I didn't even realize I was watching a science fiction until one of the actors mentioned it in an interview about the movie. 

Eames, played by Tom Hardy (who appears in another film by Mr. Nolan as Bain in the "The Dark Knight Rises"), was my favorite character because of his witty lines. 

Ken Watanabe (L) and Marion Cotillard.
Marion Cotillard was incredible as a psychopathy dead wife who made her husband's life a complete nightmare! She has officially made French people suck less. 

I had no idea that Joseph Gordon-Levitt could be so unmistakably hot fighting people in a suit. 

Ellen Page had an interesting and mothering supportive character that I enjoyed watching being too curious for her own good. 

Michael Caine was in it. And he's always an awesome addition to a cast. 

Ken Watanabe was also in this picture and although I think he's possibly the sexiest Asian I've ever seen and I have loved him since I saw him in "The Last Samurai", I feel his character wasn't as developed as the other characters were, but that's Christopher Nolan's fault. Shame on you, Christopher! 

Dileep Rao's character, Yusuf, suffered the same ordeal. He was interesting but not fully formed. But I could only imagine how long that film would be.

Cillian Murphy only seems to play a whiney bitch of a character, doesn't he? William Killick in "The Edge of Love"; the Scarecrow in "The Dark Knight". Just sayin'.

And, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio, who did an excellent impression of himself as a serious and mentally unstable person.

Talulah Riley.
And I mustn't forget, though I almost did, Talulah Riley, who played a va-va-voom character for about two minutes in the film. But I am just so surprised because the last time I saw her, she was in "Pride and Prejudice" playing Elizabeth's (Kiera Knightley's) average-looking and gloomy sister. I cannot believe the transformation and I don't think it was CGI.

It didn't feel like a two-and-a-half-hour movie either, it just kept going and kept being awesome. The costumes and scenery were breath-taking. And there weren't too many editing mistakes in it, which is amazing. Although you could argue and say that while in a dream state most "mistakes" could be attributed to the logic and law of dreams, which is to say none at all. So, were they actually mistakes?

Script available here: http://www.raindance.org/site/scripts/Inception.pdf.


If someone knows who made or owns the rights
to this poster, please let me know..
*SPOILERS* I like the way it ended too. It gets me thinking: if it was all a dream, how many levels of dreams is this one guy in? And if it isn't a dream (which is what I suspect), then why didn't Michael Caine's character take Cobb's kids to meet him in France? Although that wouldn't have been as awesome a movie. Maybe an awesome book series though. 

There was one character I forgot about after the suspense started building: they just let that poor bastard get tortured to death! That poor guy, played by Lukas Haas who's quite handsome for such a thin fellow. 

Favorite Lines:

Eames: [Shows up while Arthur is in a gunfight] You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. 
[Pulls out a grenade launcher] 

Yusuf: [after surviving a roll with the van] Did you see that? 
[realizes that everyone else in the van is asleep] 

Silly owl.
Cobb: You create the world of the dream. We bring the subject into that dream and fill it with their subconscious. 
Ariadne: How could I ever acquire enough detail to make them think that it's reality? 
Cobb: Well, dreams, they feel real while we're in them right? Its only when we wake up then we realize that something was actually strange. 

Arthur: It would have to be a 747. 
Cobb: Why is that? 
Arthur: Because in a 747, the pilot's up top, and the first class cabin's in the nose, so no one would walk through. But you'd have to buy out the entire cabin. And the first class flight attendant... 
Saito: I bought the airline. 
[Everybody turns and stares at him. Saito just shrugs] 
Saito: It seemed neater. 

Cobb: [notices that he's being followed] That price on my head, was that dead or alive? 
Eames: Not sure. See if he starts shooting.

Arthur: What about his security? It's gonna get worse as we go deeper. 
Cobb: I think we run with Mr. Charles. 
Arthur: No. 
Eames: Who's Mr. Charles? 
Arthur: Bad idea. 
Cobb: The second we get in that hotel with Fischer, his security is gonna be all over us. We run with Mr. Charles like we did on the Stein job. 
Eames: So you've done it before? 
Arthur: Yeah, and it didn't work. The subject realized he was dreaming and his subconscious tore us to pieces. 
Eames: Excellent. But you learned a lot, right?


"The Dark Knight Rises" Movie Review


"The Dark Knight Rises" movie poster.
REVISED: Even after all of the blogs I've read that question every detail of the movie, I'm going to stick to my guns for my rating and my review. I know a lot of people were disappointed in the movie because it got some details from the comic book series wrong or were completely disregarded, but I'm rating it just as a movie. I know that there are some logical mistakes involved with that too, but I think the movie would be an hour longer if Mr. Nolan tried to fix all of them. I know some people want perfection, I just want to be entertained. If I want to learn something or get something that is close to the original, I won't be watching a Batman movie for it. All in all, this series is still one of the best around and beats all of the other Batman movies that have been made.

Read the script here: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/NerdyGeek/news/?a=65006.

"Despite his tarnished reputation after the events of The Dark Knight, in which he took the rap for Harvey Dent's crimes, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) feels compelled to intervene to assist the city and its police force which is struggling to cope with Bane's (Tom Hardy) plans to destroy the city." Written by WellardRockard (Link below.)

Christian Bale (L) and
Anne Hathaway.
The last installment of Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" trilogy is out! Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Gary Oldman, andChristian Bale return for the conclusive movie. There are also new faces for this film finale:Anne Hathaway as Catwoman/Selina Kyle, Tom Hardy as Bane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Officer John Blake, and Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate (I had no idea she was in this movie!). Even Liam Neeson makes an appearance.

Tom Hardy as Bane.
Everyone did a fantastic job. The special effects were very good. The costumes were amazing. Contrary to some people's loud, I thought Ms. Hathaway was very sexy and alluring as Catwoman. Sometimes I couldn't understand what Bane was saying, but you get the general gist of what he is trying to say.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as
Officer John Blake.
Favorite Lines:

Ra's al Ghul: If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal... you become something else entirely. A legend, Mr. Wayne, a legend! 

Jim Gordon: [lying in a hospital bed] We were in this together, and then you were gone. Now this evil... rises. The Batman has to come back. 
Bruce Wayne: What if he doesn't exist any more? 
Jim Gordon: He must... he must... 

Christian Bale (L)
and Michael Caine.
CIA Agent: Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel? 
[No answer, gun is shot away from the prisoner's head] 
CIA Agent: He didn't fly so good! 
[Pulls guy back in to plane] 
CIA Agent: Who wants to try next? 
[with another prisoner] 
CIA Agent: Tell me about Bane! Why does he wear the mask? A lot of loyalty for a hired gun! 
Bane: [still with black hood on] Or perhaps he's wondering why someone would shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane? 

CIA Agent: At least you can talk! Who are you? 
Bane: It doesn't matter who we are... what matters is our plan. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask. 
CIA Agent: [Pulls hood off to reveal Bane] If I pull that off, will you die? 
Bane: It would be extremely painful... 
CIA Agent: You're a big guy. 
Bane: ...for you. 

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.
Bane: When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die. 

Doctor: I've seen worse cartilage in knees. 
Bruce Wayne: It's good. 
Doctor: No, that's because there is no cartilage in your knee. Scar tissue on your kidneys. Concussive damage to your brain tissue. I can not recommend that you go heliskiing. 

Batman: No guns, no killing. 
Catwoman: Where's the fun in that? 

Crowd: [chanting] Deh-Shay, Deh-Shay, Bah Sah Rah. Bah Sah Rah. 
Bruce Wayne: What does that mean? 
Prisoner: "Rise."

In light of the shooting in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, Warner Brothers Studio has kept promotion on the film at a minimum and has not released the box office numbers for how well the film is or is not doing. I feel this shows tact and politeness on the part of the movie studio, because this horrible situation wasn't their fault. I am not sure what else to say about this situation because it is so far beyond my conception of what can happen at a movie theater that I am speechless. However, I would like to say that I wish all of the survivors well and that my heart goes out to the people who lost friends and family.