Paul Dano

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

Cowboys & Aliens: A Movie Review

/ Casey Tingle / Leave a comment

When this movie originally came out I was so skeptical. Cowboys & Aliens just sounded… well… dumb. But I have to admit, after watching it, that it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

When a man (Daniel Craig) wakes up in Arizona not knowing who he is or where he came from, he goes on a search to find out. However, he only finds out he’s a wanted man for robbing Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). Before he can be taken off to jail, the town is attacked by aliens who run off with many of their people. Coming together, the cowboys and Native Americans fight for their home and to get their people back safe.

Although the movie was good, I felt that some parts were a little too silly for what I felt was a serious movie. But, then again, how serious can a movie be that’s about cowboys and aliens? I would highly recommend this to people who enjoy westerns (as long as you can take on the modern twist) and those who love action films.

Grade: B+

Being Flynn: A Movie Review

/ Casey Tingle / 1 Comment

Based off the memoir of the same title, Being Flynn tells the story of Nick Flynn (Paul Dano) and his efforts to reconnect with his father after years of neglect.

Jonathon Flynn (Robert De Niro) is a self proclaimed poet and con-artist who leaves his wife and son, Nick, when he was young. With the death of his mother, Nick heads to Boston to find his place there. What he ends up finding, instead, is his father, who is being kicked out of his apartment.

Unable to make it as a writer, Nick ends up working at a homeless shelter where his father ends up staying. As his father’s alcoholism takes hold of him, Nick fights his feelings on whether to help his father or not while also fighting his own alcohol and drug addiction.

I saw a preview of Being Flynn when I went to see The Descendants and immediately knew I had to see it. Of course I did, because it was about a writer. Unfortunately, I forgot about it and had to wait until it was on DVD. The movie is inspiring and shows that striving to live as an artist isn’t always glamorous. It shows the struggles that can and do happen every day. It also shows that no matter how tough a relationship is, the struggles can be overcome.

Grade: A

being flynn

Ruby Sparks: A Movie Review

/ Casey Tingle / Leave a comment

Another artsy film, Ruby Sparks was a limited release only showing in New York and Washington DC (in my area, that is) for the first few weeks before being released into the more artsy theaters, such as the Ritz.

Starring Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine), Ruby Sparks tells of a famous author, Calvin, who is at a major writing block in his career. Having his first novel published at the age of 19, it became a hit, but other than several short stories, no other full length pieces came to mind. Until his therapist made him write a scene about his dog and a person who loved the dog, even though he drooled and peed like a girl. That’s how Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) was born.

Calvin became obsessed with writing about Ruby until it was all he could do. He realized he was falling in love and automatically realized how insane that was. How could he be in love? She wasn’t real! Until the day he wakes up to find her in his kitchen eating cereal. As his first girlfriend after a bad breakup, Ruby is exactly what Calvin is looking for. However, when she becomes unhappy, Calvin tries his best to fix it the only way he knows how: through words.

My main interest in seeing this movie was because of Paul Dano. I loved him in Little Miss Sunshine and had missed the last movie of his that was in theaters, Being Flynn, so I kept my eyes on the movie theaters until it showed it. I absolutely love this movie. Being a writer, I had an easy time connecting with the main character, especially since I have also fallen in love with one of my characters before. The ending was a bit strange, and I wasn’t really sure if it was supposed to be a little funny, so I felt a bit bad chuckling. But I couldn’t help it! This is definitely a movie for writers and lovers of independent films.

Grade: A+