Movie Reviews: Looper & The Master

Let's talk movies! I'm going to jump right into these because I really want you to read my reviews and not my babble (although my reviews could be babble as well).
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♥ Looper

Some of you may or may not know this about me, but I am a big fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I've featured JGL on the Muse in movie reviews, a Men on Mags post, and in a video of him singing with Zooey Deschanel. So, I am a little biased because I was going to see Looper not only because of the concept, but because JGL is where it's at.

Anyhoo, Looper is a time travel movie. When bad guys in the future need to be taken out, they are sent back to the past where loopers do the dirty work. Don't ask me why that's the rule...just go with it. As you might have noticed by the prosthetics on his face, JGL plays a young Bruce Willis who is tasked with killing his future self, except he lets him get away and spends the movie trying to find him.

Bruce is mad at the future world and the new mob leader who runs it, so since he is now back in time, he embarks on a mission to find that leader as a young boy and kill him before he can grow up.

Emily Blunt gives a great performance in this film, playing up a country girl accent. Sidenote: 10% of the population has telekinesis (TK) and that angle fleshes itself out as two worlds meet and become the primary story line.

Without giving anything away, I can say that Looper will not disappoint. Scenes are done in very creative ways, humor is found in the unexpected, and the ending is worth the two-hour wait.

My rating: ♥♥♥

♥ The Master
Not everyone has heard of this movie, but if you have, then you might know it as the one about scientology. The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as the awkwardly intense Master (think of him as L. Ron Hubbard), Amy Adams as his straight-faced and prim wife, and Joaquin Phoenix as a wayward deviant (think of him as Tom Cruise on even more crack).

The best way to watch this movie is, in all honesty, via the extended preview online. Everything that's good about it can be summed up in the two-minute trailer, and that includes the perverse nature of Phoenix's character, who is taken in by The Master. They both find out things about each other that threaten to unravel their inevitable demise...or so you are led to believe because the movie doesn't quite come to a conclusion.

I loved the creative ways Phoenix's character found to make alcoholic beverages and all the scientology nuances that would make John Travolta cringe. But I couldn't get over how slow it was and the inessential scenes of sexual gratuity. And now, you probably want this review to end...just like I wanted the movie to end after the 100-minute mark, but it just kept going.

My rating: ♥♥

Have you seen either of these movies?

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