[Movies] 50/50 (2011)

I've come to respect Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an actor more and more in recent years. From his relatively humble beginnings in shows like 3rd Rock From the Sun, he has become quite the formidable leading man. But he also continues to become involved in projects that help him grow as an artist and not just rake in the big bucks.

I wasn't 100% certain what I was expecting from this movie. I knew it was sort of a comedy dealing with cancer, which in itself is never a particularly funny topic. So I knew it was going to be somewhat heavy, especially given my own personal history with family members who had to deal with cancer.

But they still managed to present a pretty decent movie - one that nicely captured a lot of the stress of cancer treatment and all the different ways that people respond to it. And no, it's not all flowers and sunshine, and recognizing that while trying to retain the ability to laugh at one's self did make for a nice slant for this movie.

[Movies] Looper (2012)

I think Doctor Who articulated it best when the titular character described time travel as being, "it's more like a big bowl of wibbly wobbly timey wimey... stuff." And those terms probably remain more accurate and precise than some of the other ways that folks have tried to examine time travel.

Time travel is one of those core science fiction plot devices commonly used to explore various concepts and ideas. It's certainly not ground that is meant to be taken lightly since it can have a lot of implications from a quantum physics perspective. Let's face it, nobody likes it when you play around with the realm of cause and effect and how that can snowball out of control to mean any number of things.

Looper turned out to be a very interesting take on this concept set against a rather unique story of its own. Like all other time travel movies, it has its own set of rules that defines how things operate and once you understand them, you'll pretty much get how things should go from there. It doens't make the movie predictable at all nor does it present itself as being overly complicated.

I wouldn't say that this is a dumbed down version of other movies like Inception, but it's certainly not as complicated. At the same time, it's also not as easy to grasp and over thinking some of the various plot threads and how the pan out can be very confusing indeed.

[Movies] The Lookout (2007)

If you try to plot the film career of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I think you'll find yourself feeling the same sense of surprise that I did in terms of how much he's grown over the year. We often joke about how child actors tend to bomb out and end up with lousy acting careers as adults or on the flip side get stuck in typecast niches that they never get to escape from. But he didn't suffer that fate through a combination of good offers and clearly a conscious choice to pick better roles for himself.

And he's certainly been rewarded for his efforts in serious dramatic pieces like Brick given his recent appearances in recent blockbuster films like (500) Days of Summer and Inception. And in both cases he performed remarkably well in two very different movie genres. Thus his range as an actor clearly continues to grow and will hopefully continue to open new doors for this young actor.

Ironically enough though, I only got into watching this movie because of another actors I enjoy following despite his lack of great roles, Matthew Goode. I had first encountered him in Imagine Me & You and only saw him again in Watchmen, where he wasn't all that great. So far it seems that it's really his abilities as a charming romantic lead that I tend to enjoy more than his gritty serious stuff, although this movie wasn't too bad for him.

[Movies] Brick (2005)

When I first watched the 1996 Romeo + Juliet movie (yes the one with Leo and Claire), I was pretty surprised by how much I enjoyed. I think what really got to me was how surreal yet enjoyable it was to have all these actors in a modern setting spewing out Shakespeare as if it was as normal as the sun rising in the east. At first it seemed a tad unusual but as the movie progressed, I became more and more in tune with the slight dichotomy of word and action. And I liked it. I've yet to see many movies like that one ever since. Heck, I can't even think of one right now, but maybe I'm just too tired from work or something.

The juxtopositioning of the old and the new is never a radically new concept, but it's always enjoyable to experience provided it's done well. And it doesn't always have to be about stories from the Shakespearian era - history is teeming with so many different writing styles and storytelling methodologies that there's no running out of possible ideas and designs. And I'm not talking about revivals of old stories - this is about new stories using old voices, in a manner of speaking.

But it always comes back to heightening this contrast by also employing younger talent, it seems. New stories with old voices as presented by young actors. And thus you have these old lines strangely coming out of the lips of more youthful stars to great effect, or in some cases horrendous results. It all really depends on the strength of the actors, the vision of the director and the ability of everyone involved to combine all the elements together into something more.

[Movies] Inception (2010)

Dreams tend to be depicted in movies in a particular way. When we talk of dream sequences, we can expect the edges of the screen to fudge out a bit or the camera does a soft focus on the central figure in the dream. Some dreams have clouds generated by fog machines. Others have the shimmer of stars around the actors as a clear signal that THIS IS A DREAM.

In Hollywood, dream sequences have become synonymous with fantastical elements. This means being able to fly under your own power or channeling M.C. Escher in how the shots are organized. It can mean people mutating into monsters or your deepest, darkest sexual desires being realized. It normally means the excessive use of color to make the world seem almost alien and of course the classic tropes like your inability to read given the use of a different side of the brain while dreaming.

So when Chris Nolan, a skilled writer-director decided to take on dreams, I'm sure Hollywood executives were expecting a lot of the aforementioned patterns and other predictable sequences. I doubt anyone could have truly predicted what he would finally come up with in the form of this magnificent movie.

[Movies] Latter Days (2003)

I've watched a fair number of LGBT movies in my time and yet I never consistently got around to writing reviews for them. As much as I'm enjoying my more editorial-style writings under the Technnicolor Musings banner of entries, I still want to get back to posting more LGBT movies reviews, if only to continue to support the industry and generate more awareness for some of the great films made.

Of course even I have to admit that a lot of LGBT movies play out like corner store romance paperbacks with very little intellectual substance and a more than liberal interpretation of nudity as an art form. You have to forgive us for such indulgences - the combined feelings of pride in just talking about gay relationships plus the glee of shocking conservative audiences never gets old. Still, there also those LGBT movies out there with a serious message to convey and a striking way of doing so.

One of the first higher quality LGBT movies that I've seen has to be this one involving none other than the infamous Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints. Yeah, now you know what I'm talking about, right?

[Movies] (500) Days of Summer (2009)

Over the years, I've grown to be quite the sucker for the art film and those films which try to emulate the style of an art film. You know what I mean - the movies that seem pretty common in terms of appeal but tweak their stories so they can get into film festivals around the world, thus somehow earning that artsy kind of label. I know, it's not a precise way of classifying these movies, but given the modern context, that's generally how these movies have turned out to be.

You can name major indie hits like Juno or sleeper drama hits like Crash and The Constant Gardener - whatever it is, by now you should have a decent enough idea of what kind of movies I'm talking about. I guess it's more because of their focus on the value of the story itself and the need for skilled storytelling as opposed to big name actors or amazing special effects. The movies don't even need to have to discuss a major news event or something of that kind - it just has to tell the story well.

Oh, and it needs an awesome soundtrack, too.