Primer

2004 time travel movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Two guys accidentally invent a time machine and use it.

What?

The Mirror

1975 time travel movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A guy who may or may not be married to his own mother has his life flash before his eyes while he lies on his deathbed.

I should start off by confessing that I have no business writing about this movie. A lot of people who have stumbled upon my little blog probably wonder if I have business writing about any movie. The Mirror is a tough one to write about because it's in a different language. I'm not talking linguistically here although this is in Russian and I did have difficult reading the subtitles because I didn't really want to force my eyes away from doing their job of soaking in everything on the screen. Words were almost distracting in The Mirror. But I'm talking about the language of film. This is almost otherworldly in its storytelling, shifting from the past to the earlier past to the present in ways that make it difficult on the soul. You have to allow yourself to drift, admire the shots that seem like they're borrowed from paintings, and appreciate Tarkovsky's ability to make you feel--even if you don't completely understand--through visuals. There are all these perfectly little orchestrated shot sequences, awe-inspiring. And Tarkovsky is one of those rare directors who can make the wind blow and make birds land on top of kids' heads. It's like he's making magic instead of making a movie. There was some narrated poetry which was tough for me because I wasn't smart enough to understand it, and at times this thing seemed so personal to its creator that I had a little trouble connecting, at least on a superficial level. But then there were shots I couldn't get out of my head as I went to sleep after watching this, and I realized that this is the type of movie that you understand in ways you don't understand. One of those is a shot of Margarita Terekhova--the actress who plays both the mother and the wife in this, a choice Tarkovsky made because, I assume, he wanted to confuse me even more--after she kills a chicken. She stares a haunting stare at the viewer from another time. Time, time, time. That's what this movie is about. Past, movie present, the future when the audience is watching the movie. The final five or ten minutes of this thing has at least two of those coming together so effortlessly and so gorgeously. It's poetry on the screen.

Looper

2012 time travel movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: There's time travel in 2074, but it's only used by the mob. They send people who need to be disposed of back 40 years so that the titular assassins can take them out and incinerate the bodies. Apparently, it's impossible to get rid of a body in 2074. The loopers are paid handsomely, especially when they have to kill their own older selves. Joe faces a problem when his older self doesn't really want to be killed and instead wants to run around 2034 looking for some kid who's going to turn out to be an evil warlord or something.

I might give this movie a higher rating if somebody can convince me that it makes any sense. Time travel movies are tricky anyway, and they require you to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy the things. The makers of Looper seem to realize that and just assume that you're going to let things slide and not think too much because it's all very entertaining. "Shut up and let us entertain you!" the movie seems to say. But I'm not sure this makes any sense, and the more I think about it, the more the apparent paradoxes annoy me. It's kind of a cool premise. But does the premise even make sense? Why couldn't they kill a person in 2074 and just send back a dead person to be incinerated? And why pull guns on people--especially the ex-loopers--in the future if the victims know they would prefer not to use the guns? This all builds to the exact climax I predicted as soon as Bruce Willis darted off in 2034 even though writer Rian Johnson tried to use a little postmodern trick to throw me off. The whole thing just gave me a headache even though there were things I liked about it. Gorden-Levitt is pretty good even though I do think he's a little too pretty and reminds me of plastic for some reason. But I like how you can see the Bruce Willis in him. Some of that's special effects, I guess, but he also nails the mannerisms and the voice. The whole thing where Bruce Willis--the future Joe--is angry at his younger self seems authentic. I mean, who doesn't look back at his younger self and get a little pissed off? The plot really toys with your emotions, making you wonder just who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. You struggle with which Joe to root for which makes sense, I guess, since they're actually the same person. I liked Jeff Daniels as Abe, and a scene where a guy is losing fingers, a nose, and eventually limbs is very well done. That's the kind of imaginative stuff that works in time travel movies. Unfortunately, this breaks apart when you dive in brain first and can't survive its paradoxical storytelling. And it morphs into a big dumb action movie by the end. I was happy to know that there are still hobos in the future though.

Another question: Why did they have the loopers kill themselves? Couldn't that create all sorts of problems? Wouldn't it be easier to have another looper take care of business? See, I keep thinking of these sorts of questions.

Much better time travel movies: Timecrimes and Time after Time.

Safety Not Guaranteed

2012 romantic time-travel comedy

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 15/20)

Plot: A magazine investigates a weirdo who places a classified ad looking for a time-traveling companion.

I am still laughing at a scene with an ear, probably my favorite ear scene in any movie ever. I thought this was a very cute and offbeat little romantic comedy. There's some ambivalence that will befuddle some, but I really liked it. Aubrey Plaza from Parks and Recreation and Mark Duplass from various things Mark Duplass has done are not your typical leading people for a romantic comedy, and for whatever reason, I think that makes it work better. Karan Soni nearly steals the show as nerdy Indian guy Arnau. The film works well as a clumsy metaphor for love although the more you think about that, the more it falls to pieces. Worth checking out if you normally like comedies that I normally like. Inspired by a real 1997 classified advertisement that turned out to not be real at all.

Best line: "Was there something wrong with Einstein or David Bowie?"

Midnight in Paris

2011 romantic comedy

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 13/20)

Plot: A screenwriter-turned-struggling-novelist and his fiance travel to the titular capital with her parents. Gil falls in love with and is inspired by the city, but isn't as thrilled with all the time they're spending with Inez's pretentious friends. He stays at the hotel one night while she goes out partying, and during a late-night stroll, he magically stumbles into the 1920s and meets up with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Stein, and other literary heroes and artistic luminaries who, along with a mysterious little hottie, inspire him creatively.

It's Woody Allen making a romantic comedy with elements of fantasy, so what's not to like? This one's got the time travel which is cool, and it's fun watching out for all these people I'm going to pretend I've actually heard of. The comedy's more cute than it is funny, and although I almost like Owen Wilson has a goofy Everyman, I was really questioning whether or not he was working here. Ultimately, I decided that I liked the dopiness and naivete that Wilson brought to the character. It helps the viewer experience his story with the same big eyes he's got throughout the movie, and the performance takes any cynical edge this could have had. Like he did with New York City previously, Woody captures Paris on the screen beautifully and in a way that makes it just the type of place where a modern fairy tale like this can happen. I think he's having a lot of fun with all the literature, art, and music allusions, too. I'm not sure Dali had Adrien Brody's nose, however, and I'd like my dad to see this to tell me how good Corey Stoll's Hemingway is or isn't. In other news, I might have a thing for Marion Cotillard. Don't tell my wife!

Urine Couch Sans Couch A.M. Movie Club: Twelve Monkeys

1995 simian treat

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Bruce Willis's head is sent back in time on a dare to see how many monkeys he can fit in his trousers. Or pants. Or whatever. Somehow, an Elvis impersonator and a pixie are involved, and some French guy gets shot at a train station. The pixie's got her hand down the front of Elvis's trousers AND pants (natch) and Brad Pitt can't stop giggling. They retire to something called a cold room. Bring on the dystopian funk!

All I know is that I show up to the hotel job and the urine couch is gone. No warning, no nothing. There are a pair of chairs in its place, but they just don't suffice because Gene likes to cuddle. The chairs just aren't the same, but I can get paid to do nothing while sitting on any piece of furniture and don't care all that much.

La Jetee's probably better although it doesn't have wacky Brad Pitt. Heady sci-fi with maestro Gilliam turning all his funhouse mirrors upside down. Bruce Willis's butt is in there somewhere, Mom, and I'm pretty sure during this stage of his career, that was in his contract. Honestly, I need to see this again again because I had trouble keeping my eyes open in the new chair. I'm having a tough time keeping my eyes open right now, too.

OK, this is now the next night. I believe I fell asleep soon after typing that sentence about not being able to keep my eyes open. It's either that or a criminal from 2030 or whenever traveled back in time and erased my post.

OK, it's the next night again. I think I might have African Sleeping Sickness. It's really getting in the way of me meeting my number one goal: meeting all of my goals.

I think I'm going to have a Terry Gilliam movie marathon some time and watch all of his movies back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back, even the bad ones. I'm also going to make a spreadsheet and keep track of all of the nouns that end up in his script and see what statistical data I can come up with.

I'm really bummed about the couch. Somebody mentioned during the funeral that the guy from corporate did not approve. Good bye, couch. May you rest eternally in a urine-soaked heaven. Maybe some day I'll see you again if people and couches are allowed to interact in heaven.

Eric Clapton needs to write a song about that!

The Visitors

1993 time travel comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A knight and his squire are transported by a senile wizard 800 years into the future. They have to simultaneously figure out life in the 20th Century while trying to return home.

This is a very amusing take on the stranger-in-a-strange land premise. leaning on slapstick and ironic situations to get more than a few laughs. It's very nearly whimsical! This film's shot well, and I really like an actor like Jean Reno in the lead role, a guy who is going to play it all so straight that it somehow makes it all even more hilarious. Narratively, this might get a little tiresome by the end, but it's a fun comic adventure and you know I'm a sucker for time travel movies that don't involve Kevin Costner. I wonder how much punnage and other word play I missed by having to read English subtitles for this one. You don't want to dig for depth with this one; it's more like a ninety minute joke peppered with punchlines, some intelligent and some dumb but most pretty funny.

Hot Tub Time Machine

2010 time travel comedy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: A couple high school buddies take one of their nephews and another high school buddy who may or may not have attempted suicide to an old haunt to have a killer weekend. Things are depressing until they get the hot tub working. When an import energy drink is spilled on the hot tub controls, it sends the quartet back to the 1980s--the worst decade ever--and they are forced to relieve a vacation from the past in order to not screw up their futures.

Is it just me or does John Cusack look really really depressed. He's features are droopy, and he just looks like all the energy has been sapped from him. I'm worried about him. If working with Crispin Hellion Glover doesn't cheer you up, I don't see what will. Glover, by the way, is the only thing this movie has going for it. In fact, the only reason I finished the movie was because I knew Crispin Glover--America's finest actor--had more scenes. The first and sadly only laugh this movie got out of me was during a scene where Crispin Glover's character is unloading suitcases from a cart. The rest of the cast (other than the terminally-dejected Cusack) is enthusiastic enough, but they've got a script that was apparently written by teenage boys of below-average intelligence to work with. Chevy Chase takes away any bonus points Crispin Glover gets this movie. Craig Robinson from The Office is fine, and I suppose most fans of this movie will argue that Rob Corddry's idiocy is the funniest part of the movie. But the story is derivative (lots of Back to the Future parallels), the allusions are too contemporary to give this movie any legs, and it depends far too much on raunchiness. If any of it was funny at all, I could excuse all that. Unfortunately, this isn't even as funny as Somewhere in Time.

And seriously, somebody needs to help John Cusack before it's too late.

Timecrimes

2007 Spanish time travel movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Hector, a really dumb middle-aged gentleman, doesn't seem to do much. He makes a mess in his driveway, tries to take a nap, and lounges in a lawn chair in his backyard. It's while engaging in the latter that he spots a woman stripping in the woods. After his wife takes off, he decides to investigate further. When he finds her, a man with pink bandages attacks him with a pair of scissors and he flees, eventually arriving at some kind of research laboratory and getting in a time machine. Things get confusing.

This, an enjoyable if flawed puzzling mindbender here, one of those time travel yarns where the story loops on itself a few times, will likely be the best movie I see all year directed by a guy named Nacho. The main flaw is with our protagonist Hector. Very few decisions he makes in this story make sense. The movie sets up this paradox, fiddling with the old noggin, and is entertaining even when you know what's going to happen. There just has to be plot holes, but I don't want to think about it that closely. It's a concise and dense little psychological thriller, working almost as a modern sci-fi parable, but it doesn't have a lot of depth and has a maleficent punchline. Despite playing a dumb character, I thought Karra Elejalde did a good job with an at-times physical role, and I really like Barbara Goenaga as "La Chica en el Bosque" and wouldn't mind seeing her breasts in more movies. Nacho himself plays El Joven, but he probably should have found somebody else to take the part. I imagine somebody could watch this and pick it to pieces, but if you like time travel movies and don't mind turning your brain off for an hour and a half while watching one with an especially stupid title, you might like this.

It appears that there will be an American remake of this, probably because people in America don't like to read.

Time after Time

1979 time travel movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper, a former friend, to late-70s San Francisco after the latter steals his time machine. He meets Mary Steenburgen, later typecast as a love interest in time travel movies. She helps him acclimate. He tries to keep her safe from the Ripper. They meet Cyndi Lauper who immortalizes their love story in a pop song.

I'm not going to think too deeply about this one because I'm fairly confident thinking about it too deeply would be just like spinning it around really fast while giant chunks of plot fly off and get all over the walls. Not to focus on the negative, but this has the look of a television movie, and the special effects are likely to be the worst I see all year. What's the best way to show that a time machine is actually working and not just sitting there? Sparkly things! It's 1950s Disney special effects, and it's kind of embarrassing. This also has one of my movie pet peeves--bad chess. And there was an unfortunate scene in a discotheque. However, this definitely has more goods than bads. I always like Malcolm McDowell, and here, he's a very good H.G. Wells, not necessarily a historically accurate version of H.G. Wells but a character named H.G. Wells with a very similar biography. I enjoyed hearing him talk about things like vaporizing equalizers, and I really liked how the man-out-of-his-elements motif was used. Watching McDowell confused by escalators, taxis, and toothbrushes was humorous, and I nearly laughed every time he said the word "motor car" or whenever he used a telephone. But I also like what this movie says about modern society, the futile dream of utopia, and about violence ("The first man to raise a fist is the man who's run out of ideas.". This movie has a dark humor (when the detectives walk into a hotel room where a murder has taken place and there's a severed hand on the floor, that is supposed to be funny, right?) and a fun, although predictable, story.

Recommended by Cory.

Time Bandits

1981 little people extravaganza

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Kevin, an imaginative youngster living in a house where imagination doesn't seem to be allowed, makes a giant mess with his toys. Then, in a stunning twist ending, he kills his parents.

If Terry Gilliam made this now, it would likely be one of the greatest children movies of all time. You get the sense he's still learning the craft, hinting at the greatness to come in Munchausen and Brazil, both movies which I like better than this one. At times, there's an 80's kid fantasy flick vibe (see: The Neverending Story), but there's the playfulness, the imagination, the terrific character acting (with a few big names), and the grabass jamboree of historical and folkloric references make this more timeless and, well, fun. Some moments threaten to cross into kid-unfriendly territories, but I probably should have forced the children to watch this one with me. It's definitely the type of movie that will swoop right over the heads of a lot of children (and adults probably), but there's enough zaniness and action sequences to keep them interested. The humor and allusions are directed toward the adults. The rambling plot, always threatening to become incoherent at any second, and a climactic goofy fight scene that goes on far too long could be a turn off for a lot of people, but I really think it'd be mostly people who don't like to enjoy themselves who would really hate Time Bandits. Of course, for me, it's the stampede of little people who are nearly on screen the entire time that makes this a near-masterpiece. I suppose I'm a lot like the Napoleon character in this when he says, "Little things hitting each other. That's what I like!" You're not going to find a movie this side of Even Dwarfs Started Small or Big Terror in Tiny Town with more little-people-per-square-foot-of-screen. That should be a statistic.

Jubilee

1978 punk rock unpleasantry

Rating: 5/20

Plot: Thanks to a mystic mime with a shimmering crotch, Queen Elizabeth I, an advisor, and a midget are able to travel to 20th Century England. They find that it's a pretty trashy place. Living in that modern England are several filthy punk rockers. Like most punk rockers, they're funny looking. Scantilly-clad Crabs, spiky-haired Mad, the shirtless Amyl Nitrate, Chaos, Angel, Sphynx, and Viv, bored out of their minds, talk a whole lot and then run out and do what punk rockers do best--act punky. They vandalize, murder, pillage, and expose themselves. This likely upsets the midget. Then they play Monopoly. But, since they're punk rockers, they don't follow the rules! Hell yeah!

Made with his non-actor punk rocker friends on a budget of apparently sixty-five dollars and seventy-three cents, Derek Jarman's Jubilee looks exactly like you'd expect it to look. It looks like trash. Now I understand that Mr. Jarman was probably intentionally making a trashy film and that's generally something that I can appreciate, but this was not entertaining or insightful at all. I believe the non-relatable characters rambling long and philosophical, the shocking images of late-70's counterculture, Hitler allusions, and the bad hair were supposed to make me feel something, but that's the biggest problem with this movie--I didn't feel anything at all. Jubilee is a poorly written and even more poorly acted, and with the possible exceptions of pretty boy Adam Ant and oft-nude Crabs (my brother's favorite part of the movie, it seems), there's very little here worth seeing. This is gross, languid, and stupid when it needed to be full of energy and dangerous. It's not shockingly memorable enough to be as "good" as a John Waters' movie, it's not satirical or smart enough to be A Clockwork Orange, and it's not original enough to be truly avant-garde. It's nothing more than an embarrassing pop culture artifact that nearly made me wish I was watching a movie about deviant disco dancers instead.

Sort of recommended by my brother.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters

2007 animated comedy based on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim stoner nincompoopery

Rating: 8/20

Plot: French Fry Man, Mister Shake, and Meathead have to combine their talents to stop a destructive piece of exercise equipment threatening the very existence of our world. Along the way, there is are aliens, rap music, more aliens, a sinister guy with bad hair, attempts to woo, roller coaster rides, time travel, and Satan.

Ok, I'm not the audience for this one. For the first 15 minutes, I laughed, especially digging the fake theater public service announcement at the beginning featuring cartoon food both wholesome and hard core. The lyric "Did you bring your baby here? Throw your seed outside!" made me laugh. I also laughed later when one character shot another and said, "Now you're going to hell. Feel the sweet embrace of Satan's hoof across your face." But when I nudged my friends watching the movie with me, I found nobody to nudge. I was completely alone, in a darkened room, an artificial hand down the front of my pants. It was a bitter experience. I injected Diet Mr. Pibb into my jugular, and after feeling no effect whatsoever, injected some between each of my toes. I felt more alone, wept bitterly, put the scissors away. I turned to Bronson Pinchot beside me (sitting a little too closely beside me, but who's complaining) and said, "Feel the sweet embrace of Satan's hoof across your face, Balki Bartokomous!" Alas, only a hallucination! Perhaps the Diet Mr. Pibb was having an effect after all. I paused and leaked and ate everything in the house. The neighbors knocked on the side of my house and yelled, "What's going on in there?" There was a penis joke, and I almost laughed but was too sad to laugh. At least audibly. Despair. Ennui. I drank the rest of the Diet Mr. Pibb and belched loudly. And audibly.

I sort of like the television show, a show which I have never actually seen because I do not have cable television. The spurts of dadaist humor blended with cheaply animated potty jokes works well for ten minutes. The main problem with this is it's nine times as long as the television show. I was entertained for that ten or fifteen minutes. Then, boredom. How about that movie poster though? That's a good one.

Here I am, probably right before I got bored:

Meet the Robinsons

Animated, Family, Children
Rating: 11/20 (bonus point for handlebar mustache)
Plot: An orphaned kid inventor travels to the future and tries to save the world from the misguided deeds of a man with a handlebar mustache and a talking bowler.

Meet the Robinsons is a colorful film that is fun for the eyes, and these computer people are getting better at making cartoon people look more like real people. The movie is burbling with creativity, and there are all kinds of nifty structures and gadgets to see in the Dr. Seussian future--tubal and bubbly transportation, singing frogs, trampolines built into the ground, sausage cannons, etc. There's enough going on visually to maybe require multiple viewings and definitely keep a child entertained. And I'm sort of a sucker for handlebar mustaches and will always support the use of evil hats in movies.

But you see all those characters up there in the picture? Yeah, there are a lot of them. The main one (Chester or Wally or something) is in the middle with the spiked hair and the glasses. I can't remember the other characters' names either. Even though this was a computer-animated, and therefore more 3D-ish cartoonary, the characters were frustratingly two-dimensional. This, like the Dreamworks movies, tried so hard to out-Pixar Pixar, and end up with something that just looks like the product of people who have tried too hard. There's no heart and soul here. The story is really predictable and tidy and full of holes. The characters don't become real, and there's no reason to care about any of them--even Chester or Wally or something. We find out just as much about the octopus (he's a butler) as we do the guy in the back with a pizza (he delivers pizzas) and, sadly, almost as much as we do about the main character. And although there's an attempt to tie everything in thematically, and even a link to a quote from Walt Disney, it just seems forced. I can picture the writers in a room saying, "Well, Finding Nemo and Toy Story had clear morals...we better squeeze some kind of lesson into this!" The quirk machine was turned up to 11 which leaves a finished product that feels more like a rough draft, a series of gags and slapstick that never really adds up to something coherent. Weirdness was substituted for humor and good storytelling, and I just couldn't latch on.

Wife's rating: 13/20; ; Dylan's rating: 11/20; Emma's rating: 15/20; Abbey's rating: 18/20

Here's the top half of my head enjoying Meet the Robinsons: