I’ve warned you. Put this post down! Don’t you dare read it before seeing the movie!
Please don’t read this post until you’ve already seen Rian Johnson’s excellent film, Looper. I’m about to spoil the heck out of it. There are some lingering questions about this movie (most of them crazy theories) that I want to discuss with someone, so I’m asking you, the Internet, to discuss it with me. If you click to read more, I’m going to assume you’ve seen it. Click below to reveal spoilers. Continue reading “Click to Reveal Spoilers: Questions About What Happened in Rian Johnson’s “Looper””
Looper, the ingenious new sci-fi drama from writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick), has one hell of a setup. The year is 2044, and time travel hasn’t been invented yet — but it will be. And when it is, it immediately becomes illegal. But in the bombed-out dystopian American future of Johnson’s imagining, time travel’s illegality just means powerful crime syndicates are the only ones with access to it. Due to implanted tracking devices, disposing of bodies in the future is impossible. So the mobsters dispatch their targets back to 2044, bound and hooded, where they are immediately shot and killed by assassins known as “loopers,” who then incinerate the remains. But a new crime boss known as The Rainmaker has risen to power, and he is determined to “close the loops” by finding the future versions of the assassins from 2044, sending them back in time and having them killed — by the younger versions of themselves. Got that? The loopers are understandably perturbed by this, and a moment’s hesitation can lead to the older version of themselves escaping and creating quite a time-space conundrum. Such is the case with Joe, played in 2044 by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and in the future by Bruce Willis.
I think we can all agree that this is a weird week. Heavy on legends, but plenty of places where you can experiment, sonically. Please, have fun with it!
Guitar god Nels Cline, as photographed by Emily Anderson.
When The Whole Love was released late last year, I believe that anyone that heard it knew that it was a record that was screaming for a tour. Of course, when it came out, instead of doing a big road show, they opted to play midsize theaters, locking out only the folks with the fastest internet connections or the pockets deep enough to purchase from a scalper. It took almost a year for these guys to finally book a full fledged tour, playing these songs the way they should be played- outdoors, in front of thousands of people. I guess they needed to really get to know these songs before playing them on the big stages. The wait paid off.
End of Watch is unlike any cop movie we’ve seen before. Its distinguishing traits range from its texture — the film is shot and edited to resemble a pulse-poundingly visceral “found footage” documentary — to its thoroughly realized characterizations of LAPD officers Brian (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike (Michael Peña), thrill-chasing partners and best friends who have a tendency to run toward the action while others run away from it. The film plays out like a feature-length episode of COPS as written by Aaron Sorkin or David Mamet; its substance comes from the palpable bond between Brian and Mike, which plays out in a series of remarkably authentic-feeling conversations we watch them have as they drive around on patrol, waiting for that next call, never knowing if they’ll be getting a cat out of a tree or walking into gunfire. This naturalistic and wholly believable quality comes both from the direction and script of David Ayer (Harsh Times) and the committed performances of Gyllenhaal and Peña, with whom Ayer rehearsed for several months before shooting the film to get their chemistry just right. Anna Kendrick and Natalie Martinez are heartfelt and dynamic as the officers’ better halves.
“I’m not going to the Folsom Street Fair, but my footwear is!”
Officially, this is the last weekend of Summer. Which means, of course, a lot of weird festivals. Including a 90’s rock festival, a leather fest, and an amazing multiband gig full of wonderful jangle pop!
A reminder of a time when hands went in the air without phones in them. (All photos by Mark Portillo for SF Station.)
The biggest rock band in Japan played in San Francisco last night, and you may have missed it. While the band is a household name in the Japanese community, the jingoistic American music fans are likely to be at a loss about them. And that’s too bad, because you missed a killer show by a tight live band, with a surprise in store that made it even more special. Continue reading “Show Review: The B’z at The Warfield, 9/17/2012”
