Movies (and occasionally face slaps) (Part 1)

Bill Burr is finally kicking in for me. Not sure I can go back in time on all his bits but I can definitely see the good he did. Very similar to Chappelle.

Not just the tropes, all sorts of stuff in the script was clever.

Otherwise agree, I loved his take on Star Wars, Brick was amazing, Looper is fantastic, Brothers Bloom is just fine but that’s my taste not his fault.

Looper is one of those movies that’s somehow much better than it should be.

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It’s got a bunch of stuff I wish had been explored a little more, but Johnson said he kept it tight and focused.

“I rewrote that movie more than I’ve ever rewritten anything in my life. I really tried to hone it down, and make something that was tight, and something that was going to conceptually work. I was thinking about, you know, [James] Cameron’s first ‘Terminator’ movie as kind of the example of something I wanna do. Or ‘Witness,’ Peter Weir’s ‘Witness.’ Something that has kind of the focused shape of very determined, thought out structure, and then just sees it through to its inevitable conclusion in almost a compassionately cruel type way.”

What made you feel like it shouldn’t have been as good as it was?

Am I the only one that did not recognize JGL in Looper for the first hour? He looks so different.

*Reddit says I’m a moron but I did not think it made him look any more like Bruce.

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I like his movies but didn’t really like his Star Wars movie, I just found it too jarring to go from the first movie in that trilogy with all it’s shameless fan service to his style. I think they should have stuck with the glossy finish Abrams style for the main trilogy, there’s plenty of space for “edgy” Star Wars takes in the Disney+ TV world.

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It seemed like the ceiling should have been ‘mediocre Bruce Willis sci-fi’. Johnson was relatively unknown and certainly not known for working in that genre. It was well into the part of Willis’ career where he said yes to any role, most of them forgettable. Gordon-Levitt was that actor guy who maybe looked familiar from that thing. The plot looked like some sort of stale, B-movie time travel trope. And it was so much more than all of that. It was great.

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I didn’t like finding out why the big bad was called the rainmaker

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I didn’t even finish the special I was so disappointed. I thought his earlier specials were very funny and some of the bits really resonated with me personally. I didn’t notice the drugs or makeup or anything in this one, I figured he had just gotten older. For me it was just the material, the anti-woke and anti-trans stuff was just very cringy and not funny at all. I figured he somehow became a foxnews comic when I wasn’t paying attention and I just turned it off.

That’s awesome. I see what you mean.

I think you might be somewhat misremembering (or have been unaware) of the prestige surrounding Looper before its release.

While you are correct that prior to 2010 both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rian Johnson had not yet been attached to big-budget commercial movies, they were both building as much cultural momentum as Maverick about to break mach (20)10.

Step back with me to the year 2010 (or at least my version of it). Rian Johnson has released two cult classic films–Brick and Brothers Bloom–but he’s known as a prestige director. No one is quite sure if a bigger budget will give him a wider audience. Unfortunately, not all indie directors turn out to be Christopher Nolan.

In March 2010, Rian Johnson announces he is directing what many to this day consider to be the greatest episode of Breaking Bad: “The Fly”

Not far behind him, Joseph Gordon-Levitt had been in a number of acclaimed cult classic projects after 3rd Rock From The Sun, most notably 500 Days of Summer (2009), but studios were just as curious about him as they were Rian Johnson. What would happen if they put money behind him?

Then it’s 2010 and JGL stars alongside Leo DiCaprio and a bunch of other people in Inception. Based at least a little bit on that little spinny top at the end, the movie does incredibly well.

At this point, Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are seen as stars who will finally have a chance to shine. People are diving back into Brick and Brothers Bloom and finding out this Johnson guy is a brilliant storyteller with chops for TV and movies.

And then RJ and JGL announce they are making a film called Looper together. The casting announcements go on to include Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels, and Paul ****ing Dano from There Will Be Blood (2007).

You are 100% correct about the dimming star of Bruce Willis, but the appeal was sort of the same as when Quentin Tarantino would cast someone like David Carradine. The promise was that this was an underappreciated actor who just needed the right story and director to remind you how amazing they can be.

After Kevin Smith’s Cop Out (2010) failed to do the job, Bruce Willis knew he had only one shot left.

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Hmm, interesting. I didn’t misremember most of that, I simply didn’t know about it. Thus, my surprise at Looper being really good.

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I watched Looper once but don’t remember a damn thing about it, maybe I’ll give another watch.

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To be fair, you probably have a life :stuck_out_tongue:

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I really don’t.

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oh jesus, I didn’t realize RJ made looper, seems pretty obvious in hindsight

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Just saw the Paramount + commercial for Top Gun: Maverick.

Them promoting it as some kind of heartstring tugging, emotional masterpiece is fucking lol.

Its a high intensity action flick and very very little else.

I thought the original Top Gun was soulless entertainment, ie a high intensity action flick and very very little else. I’ve seen it a couple of times but can never bring myself to really care.

But the sequel pays off emotional arcs I didn’t even realize were in the OG. Like the stuff with Mav and Ice and seeing how their intense rivalry evolved over the decades–as well as how their different approaches ultimately took them down such different paths.

If you’re not crying at the end when that P-51 Mustang takes a hard right turn into the horizon…

Pinocchio and Puss in Boots were both absolutely fantastic movies. The former is a must watch IMO

Watched Glass Onion tonight. Loads of fun.

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Glass Onion was fun all the way through except I didn’t feel like it stuck the ending.

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