Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Lincoln: A Movie Review

/ Casey Tingle / Leave a comment

As the second movie about Lincoln to come out this year, this movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, leans far from the myth of Lincoln being a vampire hunter and more toward the truth.

The plot of Lincoln shows how Lincoln secured the votes to pass the 13th Amendment. While it was interesting to see the back story of the event, which I feel isn’t covered as well in history classes as it should be, this could also be a fatal flaw in the movie. It is rare when people want to go to a movie to learn about history. They tend to go for more action or the fantastical, and although there was action in  this movie there wasn’t enough to steer it from the historical aspect. However, I could be very wrong about that since the 1 o’clock movie time I originally went to see it at was sold out.

Masterfully done, Lincoln is definitely one of the best movies that came out this year. The costumes and set design was authentic and the acting was so superb that it brought tears to my eyes, especially on the part of Daniel Day-Lewis who played Abraham Lincoln.

However, it still had its downsides. The beginning of the movie was slow and I felt that some of the characters weren’t introduced well enough, making some interactions confusing. But even these small bumps couldn’t stamp out the overwhelming and suspenseful ending (even though we know what happens) or the way Daniel Day-Lewis depicted Lincoln’s interactions with his family, making me believe that Lincoln was casted as himself.

Grade: A-

Looper: A Movie Review

/ Casey Tingle / Leave a comment

The year is 2044 and time traveling has not been invented. Yet. But it will be.

Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) works as a looper, who are a kind of hired assassin. When time travel is invented, it will be controlled by the mob bosses who send people they want killed back into the past and it’s the looper’s job to get rid of them. Looper’s are only finished being a looper when they are sent their future selves to kill. It’s called closing their loop.

When Joe’s future self (played by Bruce Willis) is sent to him, he hesitates in his surprise and lets him get away, which is a big no-no in the looper job description. Now Joe must hunt him down and kill him before his present self is apprehended by the leader of the operation. Tracking him down won’t be as hard as he thinks. His future self has a goal: to find and kill the child who will be the future Rain Man, a powerful entity who begins closing loops in the future. But which Joe will find the child first?

Looper was an interesting movie. I thought the concept was intriguing, which is what drove me to see it, but other than that the rest was just OK. There were some parts that I felt were forced, such as the people being telekinetic. It felt like that was just added in there as an excuse to why other things ended up happening. For me, personally, there weren’t any parts of the movie that “wowed” me. Not that everything was totally predictable. Just not surprising. I also didn’t have a connection with any of the characters. There was nothing in the movie that made me care what happened to the characters in the end. Overall, good movie, interesting concept, but not winning any Movie of the Year awards from me.

Grade: B

The Dark Knight Rises: A Movie Review

/ Casey Tingle / Leave a comment

So, pretty late with this review. I saw the film the second night it was out, but haven’t really had time (or motivation) to sit and write the review for it.

The Dark Knight Rises is the last installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale)has retired after killing Harvey Dent, remaining hidden from the world in his mansion. But when a new villain known as Bane (Tom Hardy) comes to Gotham with the intentions of giving the people back their city from the police force, while at the same time threatening them with a nuclear weapon, Batman returns to take back his city with the help of some old and new friends.

I have very little complaints about this movie. I even liked Anne Hathaway in the role of Catwoman, which really surprised me, not to mention Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Blake. The one thing that was difficult was understanding Tom Hardy. The accent I could’ve dealt with, but add in the Darth Vader type sound effects when he speaks and a lot of his words became garbled. That and his voice reminded me a lot of Sean Connery’s that I couldn’t help giggling at some points. But overall, Tom Hardy made the perfect choice for Bane.

I think the biggest problem I had with it is I just feel like Batman is a complete douche. I don’t know if it’s just the was Christian Bale portrays him (I haven’t really seen any other Batman movies in forever so I don’t really remember) or if I just don’t like Batman. I do LOVE the villains though. Probably my favorite group of villains out of every comic book series I’ve seen.

Grade: A-

 

The Dark Knight Rises