The Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons

Though the "Willisizing" make-up of Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a bit uneven, it's mighty impressive they bothered to try at all!

Well, following a somewhat inconsistent dropoff this summer after THE AVENGERS, including at least one major disappointment (I'm looking at you, PROMETHEUS ), from out of almost nowhere comes two outstanding genre movies in the past week. Before I move on to over-selling Rian Johnson's brilliant tour-de-force, LOOPER, let me give a shout out to something I was totally not expecting.

That's right kiddos, DREDD not only exceeds expectations, but does it by a long shot. Even though all the heaps of praise laid on by the critics still seem to point out that the "characterizations" are weak, it doesn't matter to them because the visuals are so superior. Well, I don't know what movie they were watching because the characters were all just fine and a big reason why the rest of the story came together so nicely. Karl Urban exudes a thousand times more personality using only the bottom half of his face than Sylvester Stallone has ever done in anything since ROCKY, let alone the awful first attempt at adapting this character. I've heard many comparisons to THE RAID:REDEMPTION (which I pretty much hated), but a fairer comparison would be ROBOCOP, although this stands alone as a fine piece of entertainment regardless.

I went out of my way to see this in 3D because it was filmed that way, but even though you can't spell DREDD without three D's, the experience was still not enhanced. Until everyone else learns something that only Martin Scorsese apparently knows about how to use 3D to it's full potential, the best I can ever say about 3D most of the time is that it's not distracting, and it isn't here. It appears to be well on it's way to being a major flop, which would make it a good candidate for next Spring's "overlooked and recent" slot in the SciFi Marathon, but regardless it is a must for a future marathon. As is the movie I saw yesterday...

LOOPER has everything you want in a movie. Richly compelling characters, a taut, brilliantly executed script, universally excellent performances, stunning visuals, mind-blowing special effects, guns, explosions, and, of course, boobs. At the risk of over-selling it (too late): go see this movie. In what is unusual in today's market, the trailers actually do NOT spoil much of what this film has in store for the viewer, especially the bevy of surprises in the third act. We'll have to see if history is kind to it, but as of right now, I have no problem declaring it one of the best Time Travel movies ever made.

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Aliens? Us?
Is this one of your Earth "jokes?"

LOOPER is a good solid time-travel film. It's not great, but flows along well, has decent performances and enough twists to keep interest from beginning to end. Emily Blunt is fine as usual.

The Time Travel element has a bit of a convulted set-up, and one can certainly question the hows, whys and whens of how it's used. Bruce Willis is fine - although his inclusion seems to necessitate a big action shoot-out that seems more a 'contractual obligation' than a plot necessity. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is good, but the makeup job involving his 'looping' looks more like a genetic mutation than the wages of 'time' that it's supposed to be.

Much of what one thinks of the movie will depend on the final act twists and turns. Suffice it to say what begins as a TERMINATOR riff, somehow morphs into a combination of DePalma's duo of THE FURY and CARRIE.

LOOPER would make a perfectly suitable 'dinner break' movie at the marathon. Meaning, it would be good prime material, but, if you had seen it and want a meal break without missing something you hadn't seen - LOOPER would be the time. (I've never understood why so many Marathoners would rather go to their dinner break "on time" and miss something they really want to see, than wait for something they don't care as much about missing)

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Long Live the Orson Welles Cinemas

I just watched Looper last night for the first time and although I enjoyed it and I feel it would make a good movie for the Marathon I feel I have to mention the "Time Travel" elements of the movie are worse than Back to the Future III.





But that being said it was still a fun movie and I would watch it again. I do agree with IamJacksUserID that DREDD was very cool and was way better than the box offie numbers would suggest.

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Jaws3dfan®
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