Looper (2012) rating: 6/10

Oh, what a disappointment! This movie has been somewhat hyped, but I had problems.

* Spoilers *

Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks terrible here with his 3 hour/day makeup. Does he look more like Bruce Willis?  Not particularly.

Why does a Looper have to kill his older self? Why not have some other looper unknowingly do it?

Did the Loopers negotiate the 30 year no more killing life after killing oneself? Seems rather stupid. Why kill oneself at all? You'd think they'd get some union together and say, no killing ourselves, else no killing at all.

The ending, while seemingly a little brave and principled is rather stupid from a self-serving perspective.  As a selfless act, well, it's still stupid.  Maybe shooting one's own arm off makes sense.  Maybe he could run up to shoot his older self or something.

Lawless (2012) rating: 7/10

An action flick about moon shiners during prohibition. Well, for some reason I did like Shia LaBeouf in this movie. He has great skin. Perhaps it's the makeup. I maybe even envy his beautiful skin in this. But he is also a reasonably good actor here. At least he seems natural.

Ted (2012) rating: 7/10

A story about a teddy bear come to life as a friendless kid's BFF based on a wish upon a shooting star.

My wild theory about this movie is it is Seth MacFarlane's secret ode to Mark Wahlberg. Ok, maybe not, but still it's possible.


Have you not seen the movie?  You may want to skip this review

-- Spoiler alert --    


Boiled down, the basic story is that Ted the bear becomes for John Bennett (Wahlberg's character), a platonic best friend who truly loves the grown up boy who never actually grew up. But life intervenes in the form of long time girlfriend Lori, played by Mila Kunis, who never previously tried to stop the boy and the bear's friendship. But John has to now make a choice, and decides to keep his girlfriend; which clearly upsets Ted, but he is willing to do this for his friend. Ted appears to get back at John and Lori by arriving at a double date with a super hot co-worker from his supermarket. Ted actually dies later, despite John's attempt to save him. But Mila's character brings Ted back to life by wishing again upon a shooting star. So in the end, the three characters live together. I found that an interesting ending, and that is what led me to my conclusion that Seth has the hots for Mark Wahlberg.

Also, in this movie Ryan Reynolds plays a gay boyfriend to one of John's  co-workers. Seth's casting shows his good taste in men.

Okay, it's a bit of a crazy theory, but anyway there it is.

Shame (2011) Rating 7/10

Being a little generous here with the rating.  Fassbender walks around naked through this film with aplomb and perhaps deservedly so considering his endowment.  Sex addicts probably do exist.

Fassbender's character is so dopamine starved without sex that while clearly heterosexual, he has to go to a gay sex club to get .. serviced .. in a desperate moment.

To be that desperate for sex all the time defies belief a little.  But still I guess it could happen to people especially since it might be evolutionarily beneficial.

The Rebound (2009) Rating: 6/10

From the cover, I had the vague idea that the actor in this movie, Justin Bartha, is cute.  It turns out he isn't bad looking here.  And in fact, my gaydar was set off pretty heavily while watching this movie.  This despite the fact he plays a nominally straight unlucky-in-love guy who gets picked up by the quite a bit older Catherine Zeta-Jones.  His character is just way too passive in a way that younger gay men can sometimes be when pursued.  He is pursued by Zeta-Jones in a way that might seem familiar to gay guys, if her character was male.  Maybe the script came from a gay guy, and Bartha's just an amazing actor.  (But if so, why would he try to act like a gay guy...)

I did a little online search and found that Bartha is currently cast as one-half of a gay couple in an NBC sitcom "The New Normal" which premiers in September.

Oh yeah, the movie review.  It's not very good.

Mirror, Mirror (2012) rating: 7/10

Another movie by Tarsem Singh who also directed Immortals and The Fall.  The story is better written in this case, and there are lots of moments of hilarity as well as his usual serving of male skin.  Armie Hammer mostly fits that bill playing the handsome prince who gets robbed of most of his clothing as he enters the evil queen's kingdom.

Mostly lightweight and sometimes self-aware, the film is easily watchable.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Rating 9/10

I usually don't see movies in the theaters except blockbusters. In this case, I had pre-ordered tickets before bad things happened on opening night in Colorado here in the US.  Because they were pre-ordered, I ended up going despite some apprehension about security.  Probably I wouldn't have gone on the first weekend otherwise.

It turned out to be a very good movie, exceeding my expectations, which admittedly had lowered somewhat after reviews stating it fell significantly short of the 2nd movie in the series.  Some thought has gone into the plot which is quite involving, and while not flawless, holds together reasonably well.  I've read criticism of the villain that he is not as well formed as in other Batman films.  While that may be true, it doesn't detract greatly from the film, I don't think.

Seeing the film in IMAX is a wonder. Projection and sound are very good.  Crucially the sound didn't seem overbearing.  The many action scenes are mesmerizing and even the dramatic scenes are well acted and shot and some quite moving in fact.

And I did like the attractive Joseph Gordon-Levitt quite a lot here playing the cop who seems to find out/know more than he should.

Albert Nobbs (2011) Rating: 7/10

I learned recently from a natural history museum that human males have a more prominent brow than females. I think this is one of the subconscious cues which caused me to never seriously consider Glenn Close as a male despite all the movies attempts to make this plausible.  While this lack of believability detracted from the movie, I did still very much enjoy the drama of the story.  As well, I applauded the prominence of the lesbian aspect of the story.