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Looper (2012)

  Looper (2012)   This is a Time-Travel film about Second Chances and the longing for Redemption, but ultimately it’s about how we’re not actually entitled to Second Chances, if you screw-up the first time around, you have to face Consequences. Critic Keith Staskiewicz, nicely expressed why this had to be a Time-Travel film, “If we can't fix our mistakes, can we at least make sure we don't repeat the same ones over and over again?"   It’s way over-plotted, but masterfully executed, a Chase-Movie where in the story, the lead Characters chase each other as others Chase them, but another chase that hangs over everything, can Writer/Director Rian Johnson get to the point (which is potent) before the accumulating illogics and contrivances bring the whole House of Cards down. It is up to audience to decide who wins that second race.   I suspect this script was written backwards, with Johnson knowing exactly how to end it, but then struggling with how to get the...
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Pi (as in π, 1998)

  Pi (as in π, 1998)   Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis): “Listen to me. The Ancient Japanese considered the Go board a microcosm of the universe. When it is empty it appears simple and ordered, but the possibilities of game play are endless. They say that no two Go games have ever been alike. Just like snowflakes. So, the Go board actually represents an extremely complex and chaotic universe. That is the truth of our world, Max. It can't be easily summed up with math. There is no simple pattern.” Maximillian "Max" Cohen (Sean Gullette): “But as a Go game progresses, the possibilities become smaller and smaller. The board does take on order. Soon, all moves are predictable.” Sol: “So?” Max: “So, maybe, even though we're not sophisticated enough to be aware of it, there is an underlying order... a pattern, beneath every Go game. Maybe that pattern is like the pattern in the market, in the Torah. The two-sixteen number.”   This zero-budget SF film is about Obsessio...
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Tron (1982)

  Tron (1982)   It is sometimes a strange experience re-watching a film decades later. You realize missed some vital point being made. I remembered “Tron” as being about a Video Game Designer who was angered that his Intellectual Property was stolen by a Corporate Baddie, and in his attempt to get his stolen work back, he accidentally gets trapped inside the Game he designed. That’s not entirely inaccurate, but I forgot several vital points. I’d argue that I missed the vital argument because the film mostly did also.   The film starts out boldly; the Filmmakers trusted the inventive spectacle would carry the Audience along and were not afraid to create disorientation for the first ten-minutes-or-so. Critic Roger Ebert observed, “‘Tron’ has been conceived and written with a knowledge of computers that it mercifully assumes the audience shares. That doesn’t mean we do share it, but that we’re bright enough to pick it up, and don’t have to sit through long, boring ex...
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Attack the Block (2011)

  Attack the Block (2011)   I didn’t expect to love this film as much as I did. Its central conceit promises something narrow and dumb: Aliens attack the Ghetto and it’s up to the Gangbangers to push them back. It appeared to be a one joke movie, and that joke was borrowed from another movie, “Cockneys vs Zombies” (2012), which was entertaining, but entirely forgettable.   Now, note the dates: “Attack the Block,” actually came out first, but I became aware of it second. Though this movie received surprisingly rave reviews, it failed in the box-office. Because of “Attack the Block’s” undeserved obscurity, I had thought it borrowed from “Cockneys vs Zombies” but it was actually the other way around. I’m not exactly sure how a low-budget, well-reviewed, comedic, Monster Movie with lots of action, fails to properly recoup, but this isn’t the first time it has happened (example: “Slither” (2006)).   One of the film’s greatest achievements was how it negotiated...
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