Sitting through the interminable credits of a special-effects laden comic-book superhero movie is not my idea of fun, but after reading Drew McWeeny’s HitFix post on Joseph Gordon-Levitt donning the Batsuit, I’m starting my glute exercises early in preparation for Warner Bros. and DC Comics June 2013 release of Man of Steel . The blogger explores persistent rumors that, as The Dark Knight Rises hinted, Gordon-Levitt will inherit the cowl from Christian Bale and that Warner may introduce him in Zack Snyder’s reboot of the Superman franchise, Man of Steel , as a way of teasing JG-L’s eventual appearance in the Justice League movie, set for 2015. The idea makes plenty of sense, especially since TDKR mastermind Christopher Nolan is credited as a producer and a writer on Man of Steel . McWeeny even envisions a smart scene in which the two caped crusaders could be introduced: “How crazy do you think fans would go if Superman were to take to the skies at the end of Man Of Steel , finally ready to fully accept his role as mankind’s most powerful protector, only to have the closing credits interrupted when something catches his attention and he swoops down out of that sky, landing on a rooftop where Jim Gordon stands next to the Bat-Signal, interrupting just as the new Batman arrives for a chat about Gotham’s latest problem?” Or maybe Supes and Bats could just grab some shawarma. [ HitFix ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Missing mothers, lost wives, abusive and indifferent father substitutes — Looper may be a movie powered by time travel, but its emotional fuel is abandonment. The new film from Brick director Rian Johnson is a clever, clever contraption about trading in your future to feed your present, and the lost boys and regretful men who willingly embrace such a bargain already believe they have nothing to live for or look forward to. Thirty years of kicking around with a lot of cash in your pocket looks like a pretty good bargain when you’re gazing down at it from in front of all that time, but when those last few days are running out, you might not be so ready to go. Looper may not have the bell-ringing resonance of Chris Marker’s La Jetée , one of its touchstones, but it’s a jaunty match-up of genre and character drama that’s far smarter and more finely wrought than almost anything else in the multiplexes. The film’s set a few decades in the future, where technology’s a little better and life in general is worse, at least in the Kansas metropolis in which Joe ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ) lives. Looper ‘s setting of a midlevel Midwestern city and the ragged, lived-in feeling of its 2044 are a pleasingly off-kilter approach to its sci-fi premise. We don’t know what the government’s like in this year, or what the larger world’s become because it’s not so important to Joe, a young man who’s building up cash reserves and easing his off-hours with drugs until he’s free to move to France. Joe’s a looper, a job he explains with a matter-of-fact lack of curiosity: when time travel is invented a few years from his present, it’s instantly outlawed and used only by organized crime for assassinations. Murders will have become so hard to hide that it’s easier to send targets back to Joe’s era, where they can be neatly offed and disposed of by eager young men like our hero, guys who have accepted their own disposability. Joe’s self-interest is central to both the film’s premise and the way it avoids most of the tougher theoretical questions about time travel, paradoxes, how the technology works and whether people are using it for more ambitious purposes. He doesn’t care. He started out on the streets, and looping has provided him with a nice apartment and enough money to get high and to buy time with his favorite working girl Suzie (Piper Perabo). Like the town in which he lives, Joe’s nowhere near the top of the food chain, and has no interest in climbing. He’s just waiting on his big payout that will come once he closes his loop by killing off his future self — part of the devil’s bargain that all loopers make. Looper is built around our buying Bruce Willis as Joe’s future self, a feat that rests more on a wry impersonation by a prosthetics-aided (and very good) Gordon-Levitt than on the older actor. When the tougher and more world-weary Old Joe is sent back in time to die, he arrives with a mission in mind, but his younger self has no desire to hear it. The scenes in which the two Joes confront each other at a diner are among the film’s best. Youth and experience are unable to relate — even though they’re technically the same person — because their priorities are completely different. It’s an amusing and dishearteningly well-articulated take on how useless it would be to be able to offer your younger self advice when your younger self isn’t ready to hear it. While it’s no looper contract, we do trade in our future for present enjoyment in small ways all the time (by, for instance, taking up smoking or by spending money instead of saving it). Looper offers an even-handed look at both perspectives, even as it sends Old Joe off to make a terrible exchange on behalf of the future and follows younger Joe as he goes on the run and ends up taking shelter on a farm on which a woman named Sara (Emily Blunt) lives with her young son Cid (Pierce Gagnon). After a stylishly noir first half that’s simultaneously futuristic and retro — “20th-century affectation,” Joe’s boss Abe (Jeff Daniels) sneers at his employee’s preference for ties — Looper becomes more thoughtful and a little more jumbled in its second section, as it slows down for Joe to find some human connection for the first time in his adult life. With touches of The Terminator , the aforementioned Marker film and the inspired-by-it 12 Monkeys , a classic episode of The Twilight Zone and more, Looper is aware of its sci-fi legacy, but manages plenty of unique touches all its own. The depiction of Kansas is one, combining future tech and a farming lifestyle unchanged by the advance in time. A sequence in which Joe’s colleague Seth (Paul Dano) meets an unfortunate fate is innovative in its horror. But despite the fleet-footed flash of its storytelling, what’s most impressive about Johnson’s movie is its dark-edged faith in people being able to change despite the path on which they’ve been set. If all we’ll ever be is a product of the circumstances in which we grew up, then time travel’s almost unnecessary — the future’s predetermined. It’s choosing something new that may be as clear a sign as we ever get of a soul. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The indomitable bike messenger played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Premium Rush is named Wilee, as in Wile E. Coyote, the less successful half of Looney Tunes’ eternal desert chase duo. A few minutes into the movie, however, it becomes clear he’s more like the Road Runner: Wiry and whippet thin, Wilee darts through Manhattan traffic on his fixed gear bike — chain lock wrapped around his waist — thumbing his nose at the NYPD and evading the dogged pursuit of corrupt detective Bobby Monday ( Michael Shannon ). No Chamois Ass is he. Though Wilee is introduced via a spectacular slow-motion crash set to the sunny opening strains of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” he carries himself through most of the film with a cartoonish sense of imperviousness that could be interpreted as a death wish even before he gets entangled with dirty cops and Chinese gangsters. A favorite trick of the film — directed by David Koepp ( Secret Window , Stir of Echoes ) from a screenplay he wrote with John Kamps— has Wilee mentally projecting different paths through tight situations until he susses out the one that doesn’t leave him smeared on the sidewalk. It’s a device that underscores the character’s precarious vulnerability as he jockeys with all of the heavy metal vehicles careening through the streets of New York. This fuels the chase sequences with excitement and a looming sense of consequence. It’s a good thing too, since the bulk of the film consists of one kind of heart-pounding pursuit or another. Premium Rush is a half-entertaining, half-exasperating movie — one that sells you on the notion of New York bike messengers as great fodder for cinema but then doesn’t know how to build a feature around them. It barely has enough forward motion to make it through its 91-minute run time and spins its wheels — pun totally intended — with sequences (like one in an impound lot) that feel like blatant filler. Premium Rush bobs and weaves stylistically using backward jumps in time to fill in plot details and cuts to a Google Maps-style city grid that establishes the locations of the characters — but ultimately there’s only so much you can do on a bike. The movie tends to get muddled and laggy when the characters hop off their two-wheelers to actually talk, because they’re not good at talking. This is the kind of film in which you constantly find yourself thinking that a particular bit of trouble could have been avoided by characters either coming clean about their problems or yelling for help when the bad guys roll their way. Wilee turns out to be a Columbia Law School grad who chooses to ride all day rather than take the bar exam because, he explains in voiceover, “I can’t work in an office.” (The crushing student loans he has to be shouldering apparently aren’t burdening his free spirit.) He’s got a fellow messenger girlfriend named Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) and a professional and romantic rival in the muscular Manny (Wolé Parks), who dares to have gears on his bike. The main action in Premium Rush takes place from around 5pm to 7pm, as Wilee heads uptown to his alma mater to pick up a package from Vanessa’s roommate Nima (Jamie Chung) that Bobby is very anxious to intercept. What’s in the package isn’t worth going into — it’s a means for the film to travel to a number of distinctly New York locations. Premium Rush depicts the city as vibrant and lived-in, from the dive bar where bike messengers gather (to watch an extremely intimate live show by the band Sleigh Bells) to a plant-lined street in the flower district, to the back-room Chinatown gambling den where wry bookies and hoods watch the impulsive Bobby dig himself a deep hole playing pai gow. Shannon has a great time chewing the scenery as the off-the-rails detective, and Gordon-Levitt continues to prove that he’s an intriguingly unconventional action hero, albeit one who comes across as a little smug in this movie. That said, he brings a sweaty substantiality to the scenes of Wilee diving through traffic against a light or hitching a ride on a cab. Like seasoned Manhattan cyclists, Gordon-Levitt rides as if his bike is an extension of his body. While the film’s pop psychologizing about Wilee’s choice of wheels would make even the most devoted of fixie fanatics roll their eyes — he doesn’t want to stop, and he can’t, because he doesn’t believe in brakes — there’s definite romance to be found here in the whirling of spokes, the communing of man and machine, and the crazy freedom of cutting through a dense urban landscape like sleek fish easily navigating the currents of a stream. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The stars of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises descended upon NYC — the O.G. Gotham City — to premiere the Batman trilogy finale Monday night, with some surprise guest celebs hitting the red carpet alongside Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Wonder how red carpet guest Donald Trump enjoyed the flick, which sees the hulking villain Bane encourage the 99% to rise up and topple the system into ruin? Or if Hathaway shared the secrets of her Catwoman costume with feminist icon Gloria Steinem ? Those snaps and more in Movieline’s TDKR premiere gallery … Click the happiness below for more images . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
School principal Judd Nelson sees his bratty charges as he wants to see them… in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. Because they’re all cliches in the Breakfast Club genre-spoof Bad Kids Go to Hell , an indie film adaptation of Matthew Spradlin’s comic book/graphic novel. Watch the trailer for the horror comedy, which debuts at Comic-Con, after the jump, and decide if this kind of fast-talking self-awareness still seems fresh in a post- Detention world. That’s the biggest obstacle facing Bad Kids Go To Hell , if you ask me: Joseph Kahn has already traversed this ground, and with an unapologetically hopped-up, take no prisoners visual style and razor wit, in spring’s indie horror satire Detention . Like that film (which starred The Hunger Games ‘ Josh Hutcherson ), Bad Kids Go To Hell seems to take ’80s teen movies like The Breakfast Club and spins its tropes around in various post-modern ways, dropping pop culture references galore. Unlike Detention , however, Bad Kids seems pedestrian in comparison – but then almost any iteration of a teen movie spoof would seem that way, juxtaposed with Kahn’s ADD speed freak-out of a genre romp. Behold, the Bad Kids synopsis: Six private school high school kids find themselves stuck in detention on a frightfully dark and stormy Saturday afternoon. During their 8 hour incarceration, each of the six kids falls victim to a horrible “accident” until only one of them remains. And as each of these spoiled rich kids bites the dust, the story takes on a series of humorous and frantic twists and turns. Is one of the kids secretly evening the school’s social playing field? Or have the ghosts of prestigious Crestview Academy finally come to punish the school’s worst (and seemingly untouchable) brats? One thing is for sure…Daddy’s money can’t save them now. Bad Kids Go To Hell will have its North American premiere at Comic-Con this Friday, July 13th.
Also in Monday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, Drafthouse Films picks up a lauded film festival circuit doc for U.S. release. James Franco has tapped an Outfest filmmaker to make a ‘Homo-Sex-Art-Film.’ And rounding things out, casting news for a pair of projects. Drafthouse Films Picks Up The Ambassador The dark comic documentary that exposes the corrupt business of selling diplomatic titles to exploit lucrative and limited resources of war-torn third world countries has been picked up by Drafthouse Films, the film distribution label of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. The film by Mad Brugger ( Red Chapel ) was financed by filmmaker Lars von Trier’s production company Zentropa. Around the ‘net… Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh Put on Show for N. Korean Leader Disney did not approve the characters that appeared in a concert attended by North Korea’s new 20-something leader Kim Jong-un at an official event last week. Mickey, Minnie, Pooh and Tigger made appearances and footage from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Dumbo played in the background. Western references in any North Korean event has been unheard of until now and had been strictly forbidden, ABC News reports . Wolverine Sets Japanese Cast Fox’s 2013 summer tentpole starring Hugh Jackman has set additional cast. The studio won’t discuss details but Japanese actors Hiroyiki Sanada ( The Last Samurai ), Hal Yamanouchi ( Sinbad of the Seas 0 and two newcomers Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima are set to star in the film. The story is based in Japan, Comingsoon.net reports . James Franco to Collaborate on a “Homo-Sex-Art-Film” The 127 Hours star is joining filmmaker Travis Mathews on a new project. He wrote on his website that that he received an email from Franco’s agent about possibly working together on a ‘homo-sex-art-film’ and that they soon got on the phone and a week later they were in pre-production. The filmmaker’s indie I Want Your Love played Outfest, Vulture reports . Keri Russell to Star in Thriller Dark Skies She will play the lead in the supernatural thriller, written and directed by Scott Stewart. The film has comparatively a modest budget than producers Blumhouse’s earlier Insidious and Paranormal Activity , Deadline reports . Brie Larson Boards Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon’s Addiction The 21 Jump Street and Rampart star has joined the project which will be Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut. He will star as a porn-addict trying to be a better person after meeting a widowed older woman, played by Julianne Moore.. Larson will play his sister, Variety reports .
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is looking to bring Little Shop of Horrors to the screen and a distributor nabs U.S. rights to Robert Pattinson’s thriller Cosmopolis . Those are among the stories in Thursday afternoon’s Biz Break. Also in the mix are highlights from upcoming festivals in Brooklyn and Austin, casting news and soundtrack details for Moonrise Kingdom . Sleepwalk with Me and Rock ‘n’ Roll Exposed Bookend BAMcinemaFest 20 New York premieres and one North American premiere will screen at the event taking place June 20th – July 1st in Brooklyn. Benh Zeitlin’s Sundance winner Beasts of the Southern Wild will screen as a Spotlight. Highlights include Jonathan Caouette’s Walk Away Renée , Jonathan Lisecki’s Gayby , Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson’s Radio Unnameable , Keith Miller’s Welcome to Pine Hill , Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act and Tim Sutton’s Pavilion . Austin Film Festival Unveils Panelists for October Event The Austin Film Festival announced initial panelist details for its 19th annual event this October. Dozens of writers, filmmakers, agents and managers are on the list of featured participants at the festival, which places a focus on screenwriting. Among those attending are John August ( Frankenweenie ), Alec Berg ( The Dictator ), Scott Z. Burns ( Contagion ), Etan Cahoon ( Men in Black III ), Evan Daugherty ( Snow White and the Huntsman ) and Hilary Winston ( Happy Endings ). More panelists will be added. For a complete list with bios, visit their website . Some Curious Facts from The Avengers ‘ Facebook Page The Avengers fanatics are out full tilt on the movie’s Facebook with over 5 million playing the new Marvel’s The Avengers game via the social networking site. And the cha-ching is looking very promising following hordes of fans overseas . 41% say they plan to see the movie more than twice. And which of the superheroes would most like to be? 37% said they’d like to be Robert Downey Jr’s character Iron Man. Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow brought up the rear with only 13%. Oh, come on, fanboys! From around the ‘net… Joseph Gordon-Levitt Developing Little Shop of Horrors The actor is developing the project, in which he will possibly star. Broadway’s Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa will pen the script, while Marc Platt ( Wicked ) will produce. THR reports . EOne Takes Cosmopolis Rights US and UK rights to the Cannes-bound thriller Cosmopolis have been nabbed by Entertainment One. Directed by David Cronenberg, the film stars Robert Pattinson , Juliette Binoche and Paul Giamatti, Deadline reports . Demian Bichir Circles Two Projects Oscar-nominated actor Demian Bichir ( A Better Life ) is in talks to board Robert Rodriguez’s Machete Kills and will star in William Friedkin’s indie thriller Trapped ,” Variety reports . Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom Soundtrack Revealed The bulk of the Moonrise hit list includes new compositions from Alexandre Desplat, classical pieces, country classics and French pop. Previous Anderson films like Rushmore , Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic were scored by DEVO member Mark Mothersbaugh, HitFix reports . Julie Pacino Take Rights to Mary Pickford Biopic Julie Pacino and Jennifer DeLia’s Poverty Row Entertainment and producer Said Zahraoui are developing the untitled feature from a script by Josh Fagin, which DeLia will direct, Deadline reports .
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is looking to bring Little Shop of Horrors to the screen and a distributor nabs U.S. rights to Robert Pattinson’s thriller Cosmopolis . Those are among the stories in Thursday afternoon’s Biz Break. Also in the mix are highlights from upcoming festivals in Brooklyn and Austin, casting news and soundtrack details for Moonrise Kingdom . Sleepwalk with Me and Rock ‘n’ Roll Exposed Bookend BAMcinemaFest 20 New York premieres and one North American premiere will screen at the event taking place June 20th – July 1st in Brooklyn. Benh Zeitlin’s Sundance winner Beasts of the Southern Wild will screen as a Spotlight. Highlights include Jonathan Caouette’s Walk Away Renée , Jonathan Lisecki’s Gayby , Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson’s Radio Unnameable , Keith Miller’s Welcome to Pine Hill , Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act and Tim Sutton’s Pavilion . Austin Film Festival Unveils Panelists for October Event The Austin Film Festival announced initial panelist details for its 19th annual event this October. Dozens of writers, filmmakers, agents and managers are on the list of featured participants at the festival, which places a focus on screenwriting. Among those attending are John August ( Frankenweenie ), Alec Berg ( The Dictator ), Scott Z. Burns ( Contagion ), Etan Cahoon ( Men in Black III ), Evan Daugherty ( Snow White and the Huntsman ) and Hilary Winston ( Happy Endings ). More panelists will be added. For a complete list with bios, visit their website . Some Curious Facts from The Avengers ‘ Facebook Page The Avengers fanatics are out full tilt on the movie’s Facebook with over 5 million playing the new Marvel’s The Avengers game via the social networking site. And the cha-ching is looking very promising following hordes of fans overseas . 41% say they plan to see the movie more than twice. And which of the superheroes would most like to be? 37% said they’d like to be Robert Downey Jr’s character Iron Man. Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow brought up the rear with only 13%. Oh, come on, fanboys! From around the ‘net… Joseph Gordon-Levitt Developing Little Shop of Horrors The actor is developing the project, in which he will possibly star. Broadway’s Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa will pen the script, while Marc Platt ( Wicked ) will produce. THR reports . EOne Takes Cosmopolis Rights US and UK rights to the Cannes-bound thriller Cosmopolis have been nabbed by Entertainment One. Directed by David Cronenberg, the film stars Robert Pattinson , Juliette Binoche and Paul Giamatti, Deadline reports . Demian Bichir Circles Two Projects Oscar-nominated actor Demian Bichir ( A Better Life ) is in talks to board Robert Rodriguez’s Machete Kills and will star in William Friedkin’s indie thriller Trapped ,” Variety reports . Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom Soundtrack Revealed The bulk of the Moonrise hit list includes new compositions from Alexandre Desplat, classical pieces, country classics and French pop. Previous Anderson films like Rushmore , Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic were scored by DEVO member Mark Mothersbaugh, HitFix reports . Julie Pacino Take Rights to Mary Pickford Biopic Julie Pacino and Jennifer DeLia’s Poverty Row Entertainment and producer Said Zahraoui are developing the untitled feature from a script by Josh Fagin, which DeLia will direct, Deadline reports .
Quentin Tarantino’s next film Django Unchained has a cast that — so far — includes Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Samuel L. Jackson, and Kurt Russell, but the director is rumored to be squeezing in an extra star: Sacha Baron Cohen. Borat ‘s guerrilla buffoon is reportedly up for the role of Scotty Harmony, a slave owner who buys Broomhilda (Washington) as a “female companion.” I expect an HBO spinoff series about this kooky slave ownership called Da Simon Legree Show . [ Variety ]
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a conundrum: He’s an immensely likable actor, though he’s also very self-serious. He’s hammy, yet pretentious. He’s always rousing crowds with spirited acoustic covers, yet he’s always pimping that website of his. Bottom line: He’s an interesting mix, and because he gave an amazing performance in Mysterious Skin , I grant him extra leeway — and a tribute to his best moments as a viral singing sensation! Yesterday we watched him strum the bejesus out of R. Kelly’s “Ignition (Remix)” and today let’s tally up all his fun covers, sort out our favorites, and declare one favorite.
