Looper - It will throw you for a loop!

Finally, a sci-fi thriller set in the Mid-West.  This is thinking people.  This is creative!  This is kinda boring.  Well, it is Missouri (Missouri is in the mid-west, right?).  Looper, staring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, and the adorable albeit psychotic, Pierce Gargon is this unconventional sci-fi/thriller set in Kansas City.

Basically, time travel is illegal and controlled by the mob.  The mob has set up a system where Loopers assassinate people purposely sent to the past.  Once your time as a Looper is up, the mobsters sends back your future you to be killed by you then you get paid handsomely to live out the next 30 years before your assigned death.  Why would anyone sign up for this job?  Clearly, not a well thought out plot, but let's continue.  One Looper sent back to die (Willis) decides he can change the future by killing the person responsible for sending him back, The Rainmaker.  He sets out to kill The Rainmaker (Gargon) while being chased by the Kansas City mob.  His younger self is also being hunted by the mob for not killing his older self and finds his way onto a farm which may or may not be the home of The much younger Rainmaker.  Are you confused yet?  It makes much more since when you watch it.

I'll be honest.  The movie is slow and very unrealistic even for a futuristic sci-fi movie, but it is gripping.  Plus there's nothing like seeing a bad-arse Bruce Willis with a gun shooting folks.  The star of the show, I must say, is Pierce Gargon who plays Sid.  He's cute, intelligent, and bad arse all in the same scene.  I think this would be better as a tv movie on the Sci-fi channel or TNT, or a three-day mini series.  There's just a lot to do and say in a two-hour movie which oddly made it move at a snail's pace, however, I did enjoy it.  And, I think most of you will too.

Dredd - Oh I'm judging

Why do I do this to myself?  Why would anyone do this to themselves?  Sit in yet another remake or yet another movie that didn't need to be remade.  I didn't have high expectations for this one, with good reason.  I don't remember much about the 1995 Judge Dredd movie or the comic strip, but I'm hoping it was much better than this 2012 version.  I mean, really why was this movie necessary?

I'm all for blood, guts, violence, explosions, ect., but I also like good acting and a plausible storyline.  Plausible story lines in action movies these days are few and far between.  Dredd was no exception.  Let's see if I can sum it up for you:  In yet another post-apocolyptic future, what's left of the major east coast cities have been combined to make a mega-city governed by judges.  These judges are police, lawyers, judge, jury, and executioner all in one.  Judge Dredd takes a psychic rookie under his belt to test her and see if she's cut out to be a judge.  They go to a 200 story high-rise building taken over by a psychotic ex-hooker turned drug lord (MaMa) after reports of a triple homicide to do their thing.  The judges after lots of gratuitous violence finds the murder of the 3 and henchman to MaMa, and ends up being locked up inside of this building with no way of getting out.  MaMa is after them to keep the henchman from telling about her enterprises.  For the next hour, the two judges run around this building with bullets managing to hit everyone BUT them.  I won't tell you any more.  You'll just have to suffer through it to learn the rest.  Let's just say through all the gruesomeness, there is a happy ending.

I'll do you this one favor.  Don't go see it.  Don't waste your life.  It's not necessary.  The movie is just a  whole lot of bullets and blood and not enough substance.  Wait until it comes on USA or TNT or better yet ABC or NBC.

House at the End of the Street - A classic tale...NOT!

We know this story.  We've heard it before.  Mom and teenage daughter move to a new town after a divorce.  Daughter meets next door neighbor who is a simple college boy.  Mom disapproves of daughter dating this boy.  They fight.  She lies and dates him any way.  Boy's sister is a killer locked up in the attic.  Some one breaks a leg; someone is shot, stabbed, murdered...BLAH BLAH BLAH!  A classic tale, right?  NO!

House at the End of the Street begins as this seemingly classic story that we've all heard an seen, but it's not.  It's a little more sinister than you can imagine.  There is a plot twist that I didn't quite see coming.  I kept expecting someone else.  I was wrong.  I'm not very often wrong.  I like a movie that has twist and turns that make sense.  This one did.  I'm not saying it's a great movie, but it is a suspenseful somewhat shocking thriller.  I wouldn't say it was a horror.  There was nothing scary about it, although I did jump once.  (They got me.  I know...I couldn't believe it either.)

Jennifer Lawrence is fast becoming the new Kristen Stewart meaning she's staring in a movie series based off of a very popular book series, and she's getting roles in B-list movies that would make better tv movies.  Lawrence, however, has two more facial expressions than Stewart and is a much better actress.  She's pretty bad arse in this one; I'll give her that.  Very Katness Everdeen-esque (google it).  Is it a great movie?  No.  Would I watch it again?  If it was on TNT, USA, Lifetime, and nothing else was on tv, yes.  You've seen this one before (sorta), and you'll see it again (probably).  No need to rush out to go see it.  There's probably even better drama going on in the house at the end of your street (or maybe not).