Cloud Atlas

I gave this my best shot.  I really wanted to enjoy this film, a multiple time frame adventure that dealt with life, death, love, hate, and all the other things it was supposed to deal with.  “Cloud Atlas” is lifeless and uninteresting.  The actors appear to be lost in the epic experience of making this movie.  It looks like they were told a line to say, and then they said it, and that was it.  The acting is uninvolved.  The dialog is overwritten and obvious.  There is no subtext.  The makeup is distracting.  Everything looks and feels fake.  When there is a lull in the story, a character is brutally murdered.  I haven’t read the novel.  I’m sure it was better than the film.

Sleepwalk With Me

Written and Directed by Mike Birbiglia

90 minutes, 2012

Was this a vanity project memoir, or a prolonged stand up comedy routine, or a precursor of great things to come?  I don’t know.  It was thoroughly enjoyable at the time of watching and completely forgettable an hour later.  On a second viewing days later, it was irritating.  Not the whole film, just the character of Matt.   Abby was terrific and the only fully developed character.  She had a vibrant presence and Matt was… I don’t what Matt was.

“I’m not saying I want to get married tomorrow, but I think it’s very weird that I spend all my time with someone who can’t even imagine the possibility,” says Abby.

Catalyst:  Matt and Abby move in together.

Turning point: Matt gets first job at some college.

Act II consists pretty much of Matt on the road, developing his career.

He meets a sage, the older comedian who gives him advice that changes his life.  Abbey develops into an object of Matt’s disdain and unhappiness.

Turning point:  Matt sleeps with waitress, realizes he shouldn’t get married but doesn’t tell Abbey.

Matt’s parents are one-dimensional.  Father is always angry.  Mother is always nutty.  They never change.  Matt never changes. Matt’s parents are one-dimensional characters and are the brunt of jokes.  Everyone in Matt’s life turns into punch lines for Matt.

Conclusion:  Matt jumps out of a window in a sleepwalking event and decides he better get some help or something.

Resolution:  “I don’t think we should get married”, says Matt.

                     “You’re right,” says Abby.

                     “How long have you felt like that?”, says Matt.   Abby doesn’t answer.

Fade out, the end.

Looper

Looper

Written and Directed by Rain Johnson

118 minutes, 2012

If you saw “Looper” ask yourself what do you remember about it?  Honestly, what is the singular lasting image in your memory from this film? 

One thing I look for in a good movie is narrative quality.   Are story events presented in some kind of organic and coherent fashion?  Or does the story patched together or held captive to some other agenda?

The only thing that seemed to matter to writer/director Rain Johnson was that he was making a drama set in a near future dystopia that featured as many people as possible being shot to death.  The body count by graphic person-to-person, gunshot was enormous, gross, and unnecessary.  The narrative was held hostage by a desire to show as many people being shot to death as possible justified by time travel.  There were no moral or narrative consequences to killing anyone.  Like they really weren’t dying because they were still alive in the future, or the past, or something like that.

The story was patched together by extensive voice over and on-screen titles.  Even these cheap, dumb-down tricks could not overcome the confusing and plodding storyline.  

Why do so many people like to watch people killing each other with a gun on a movie screen but then get upset when they see on TV news that someone went to work and shot five co-workers?  Or sadly, do those people who like watching gun violence on the movie screen give a shit that their neighbor, or a stranger, was shot to death by a handgun or an assault rifle?

The possibility of death creates drama.  Graphic murder, killing people for the sake of killing people with no dramatic purpose demonstrates an intellectual and artistic failure.  For the people who enjoy watching it, it represents a failure of thoughtful analysis and succumbing to a primitive need to witness violence.  You’re being played by the film industry and you don’t even know it.

Perhaps during development and making of the movie Rain Johnson and the producers realized it was truly a weak story that wouldn’t sustain interest or make any money, so they added as much killing as possible.  I think a better explanation is that they wanted to do this from the beginning and just couched it in science fiction, time travel terms.  Either way, “Looper” is a failure. 

There is a place for death and violence in story telling.  We should all think twice however about supporting and accepting films that demean and devalue human life in such overwhelming terms as the case is for “Looper”. 

If you went to this movie, ask yourself what do you remember about it?  What are the lasting images in your memory from this film?  You will probably answer ‘people being shot to death'.