An Adventure in Space and Time

This made-for-TV BBC movie dramatizes the William Hartnell era of Doctor Who, from the creation of the series through his departure, primarily from the point of view of Verity Lambert, the show's original producer, and from the good Doctor himself.  I found the series surprisingly well done; they went to good effort to recreate the early sets, costumes, and looks, now cheesingly-shot in glorious HD.  If anything distracted me, it was the appearance of Matt Smith in one scene, which was simultaneously an anachronism for the 1960s and dating what would otherwise be a "timeless" story to the 2010s.  Obviously it's not interesting unless you're a fan of early Doctor Who, but if you are and want more meta in the stories, grab one of the many repeats and enjoy it.

An Adventure in Space and Time
2013, 90 minutes, directed by Terry McDonough

Plus One

Just one year out of high school, Jill is diving into college life while her boyfriend David stayed behind. A stupid kiss is the impetus to tear them apart, and David thinks he has just one night - at the ultimate Spring party - to win her back. Thanks to extraterrestrial interference, though he may have more chances than he expects.

Meanwhile, Teddy is simply looking for the time of his life, and gets more than he bargains for. This is a story of understanding, of decisions, of consequences, of what it means to be you. All of which is set in the midst of young nudity and debauchery and a good bit of science fiction.

Plus One
2013, 95 minutes, directed by Dennis Iliadis

Looper

I skipped this during Fantastic Fest, preferring the world premiere of Bring Me the Head of Machine Gun Woman over what was billed as an action shooter.  For the rest of the week everyone was telling me how wrong I was (or rather, how misguided the advertisements were) because Looper was a true sci fi film.

So what makes a film sci fi instead of action or horror?  Just because there's a piece of undeveloped technology that enables the plot doesn't make something a science fiction film.  True sci fi has on-the-horizon or pie-in-the-sky technology, sure, but it's not used to enable a shoot-em-up or some sort of slasher film.  Instead, sci fi uses the technology to poke and prod at the human condition, to see how human interaction and feelings react to new stimuli.  It's all about the people.

In these ways, Looper truly is sci fi.  Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is an executioner, killing those sent back from the future who need to disappear.  When it's time for him to "close his loop" - killing his future self (Bruce Willis) - he hesitates and things go awry.  Much of what follows is action chase, sure, as Joe tries to fix his mistake while his older self hunts the future mob boss who sent him back for his death.  That the boss is a young boy is troubling, sure, but is this fate fixed or is there another way?  In the end, Joe just can't be sure, and has to take what can only be a leap of faith.  It is right here that the film cements itself as the best of 2012 sci fi.

Looper
2012, 119 minutes, directed by Rian Johnson

Safety Not Guaranteed

I'm old enough to be sentimental about things. In the film they say "It's not about a girl, it's about a time and a place." But it's not. It's really more about finding who you want to be right here and right now.

Darius (Aubrey Plaza) and two coworkers follow a classified ad:
"WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. 'Safety Not Guaranteed.' I have only done this once before."

Safety Not Guaranteed
2012, 85 minutes, directed by Colin Treverrow

The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations

In this direct-to-DVD installment of the Butterfly franchise, Sam is a psychic detective for Detroit PD, who has a time travel ability vaguely similar to that of Evan from the first film.  This time, though, he has a knowing sister and friend/professor who help him with his jumps, so long as he sticks to the code and never affects his own past.  But when the sister of his murdered first girlfriend needs his help to prove the innocence of the man sitting on death row for the crime, his jumps starts to unravel his life.  Each time the death count grows, and the police think he's the murderer.

Unfortunately the true criminal is apparent half an hour into the film, what with the no-so-subtle repeated dialog about his past choices.  Unlike in the first film with Evan, though, this time Sam has a solution that can put everything right...

The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations
2009, 89 minutes, directed by Seth Grossman

The Butterfly Effect

My review of this is mostly spoilers.  Sorry.

I prefer films with happy endings.  Shallow, I know, but I don't watch a movie so I can make some haughty film critic pronunciation on its worthiness in the cinematic arts.  I want to lose myself in another world for a little while, to have an opportunity to see what it's like to be someone else.  Such sessions end better if they end well.

So why am I not satisfied with this one?  Ostensibly it ends as well as it could.  Everyone's happy.  Sort of.  Maybe the guy who gets the girl in the last scene shouldn't be an extra?

I watched the director's cut.  I would have enjoyed another hour of film if they could have kept the roller coaster going long enough for him to find a better solution.

The Butterfly Effect
2004, 120 minutes (director's cut), directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber

Deja Vu

This film starring Denzel Washington starts as a straight-forward police procedural, investigating a terrorist attack that destroys a New Orleans ferry carrying returning sailors and their families.

Then the time viewing/interference starts and it gets weird.  Couple that with an ending of imperfect knowledge and I hesitate to like it as much as I think I should.

Deja Vu
2006, 126 minutes, directed by Tony Scott

Chonmage purin (A Boy and His Samurai)

A 19th-century samurai appears in modern Tokyo, befriends a woman and her young son, and takes up work as a master pastry chef.  Yes, that's right, pastry.  From the director of the amazing Fish Story, the film is one part Japanese, two parts dessert, topped with Yoshihiro Nakamura magic.

Chonmage purin (A Boy and His Samurai)2010, 109 minutes, directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura

From the introduction, the film is:
"...gonna make you laugh.
...gonna make you cry.
...gonna make you pretty fucking hungry."

There weren't any guests for this film. I took the these while waiting for my next screening.

Fans eagerly await their tickets for the day's awesome.

Chronoscrimines (Timecrimes)

All the way back in 2007, Timecrimes was the second film I reviewed.  The darling of Fantastic Fest that year, I consider it the best time travel movie I've ever seen.  It's just so tight.

I didn't expect to get it in my Netflix queue.  They have some sort of problem with the second disc of season three Dexter, and so rather than continue with that I jumped way down on the list to bring me a repeat favorite.  Fortunately I convinced my wife to watch so I could share in the enjoyment of something new through her mind.

I missed some awesome films.  It's just hard to tell what will shine.  But I'm proud to say I was at the world premiere of Nacho Vigalondo's first feature film, and it was truly amazing.  Rent this when you can.  (As always I recommend subtitles and the native Spanish, to pick up the intended nuance of speech.)

Chronoscrimines (Timecrimes)
2007, 88 minutes, directed by Nacho Vigalondo

Retroactive

I tend to enjoy time travel films.  There are many possibilities for mechanics, scenario, and cast, so almost every film offers something different.  This film portrays time travel as of the mind, not the body (except for video tape), so those sent back have knowledge of future events but little time to act, given that it only works for 20 minutes or so.

Karen, the hero of the film, is the primary traveler, as she attempts to prevent villain Frank from killing (at various times) his wife, her lover, the cop, the store clerk, and the happy family.  As a psychologist with the Chicago police, she's perfectly suited to manipulate time and Frank to achieve the desired goal.

Except the script just ruins it.  James Belushi as Frank, the Texas redneck with a trigger temper, a degrading opinion of every minority group (especially women and Hispanics), and a gun in his belt, is so over the top as the be unbelievable.  But the biggest problem is Karen.  She's supposed to be a native Texan returning home after losing some hostages in a standoff.  As the story progresses, she loses her midwest stride and devolves more and more into a Texas redneck herself.  It's totally inappropriate for the character, and really distracts from the story.

Let's see if I can find a better time travel film to watch next.

Retroactive
1997, 91 minutes, directed by Louis Morneau

Dark Floors

"Everything's falling apart."

I've never heard of Lordi, and I don't know about their 12-movie story arc. But this film was very well crafted, with a very unexpected but surprisingly sufficient ending. A group of staff and patients at a hospital are caught in an elevator during a power short. When power returns and the doors open, something has changed. Floor by floor, as they make their way down, it just gets worse...

This isn't the usual meaning for the tag "descent into madness", but I have to reuse it here for the literal truth.

Dark Floors
2008, 87 minutes, directed by Pete Riski

This is in English, clearly intended for a wide audience.

TimeQuest

Reviewing films is definitely helping my memory of them. With the time to work out and set my thoughts, I'm able to recall more and discuss more about the movies I've seen. At the same time, knowing that I have to write a review has made me far more critical of the quality of the film itself. Today's DVD special, TimeQuest, seems like the kind of film I would have loved - or at least tolerated - not that long ago. But today I couldn't stomach it.

Where is the plot? It just starts out as a discordant series of events with no sense at all. Finally after 30 minutes some sense of story appears out of the murky depths of cheese and sap. It's not just that the plot is overly-fascinated by the Kennedy mystique; it's that the plot is barely recognizable, the pacing is atrocious, and the acting downright awful. Only the Traveler, played by Ralph Waite, seemed to be interested in his job.

Of course I did make it to the end, and the plot seems more focused as the awful way the story was told fades away. Maybe there's hope for this one, yet.

TimeQuest
2002, 95 minutes, directed by Robert Dyke

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

When Arnold Schwarzenegger entered politics, with his blustering grandstands and naivety, I chose to stop patronizing his films. I haven't seen one on more than ten years. It seems, though, that as his political ambition can rise no further, and as he's seen what it really takes to get things done - compromise - that he's evolved into something more humble. With that in mind, I took the opportunity to watch something I'd missed.

With the Terminator series created over two decades, it lacks the plot rails of a typical trilogy. Instead, each movie stands on those before it, but builds on its own. I found little to dislike in the third installment. The action picks up immediately, and the story takes little time to reflect on the past. Yet again John Conner fights back against the rise of the machines, and yet again only one unit is sent back to kill him, and conveniently one older model returns to save him. With his mother Sarah dead, John is instead joined with a forceful yet reluctant Kate, who is destined to share a fate similar to John's.

The action sequences are good, if rushed from start to finish. I only saw a few places were the special effects had aged beyond appreciation. I'm satisfied that the trilogy is complete. (Please, Arnold, don't pull a Stallone and make another one next decade.)

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
2003, 109 minutes, directed by Jonathan Mostow

Southland Tales

This was the first of the Ain't It Cool News "special screenings" at Fantastic Fest. Us unwashed masses have no idea what the film will be until moments before the projector starts. This time, what we got was Southland Tales, a sprawling film of untold proportions. Seriously - I've seen the film and large portions remain untold.

It's weird - no question - far weirder than Weirdsville could ever be. But it's not weird because they hired the first family of weird actors to play stereotypical roles. No, it's weird because you can sit there, watch it, and shake your head in wonder at the notion that someone paid good money to film this and put it on the screen.

In the Q&A after the film, the director said that he wanted to draw the cast entirely from those with a comedic background or from the pop culture. For the most part he did so, with all of the comedic roles portrayed by comedians, and the pop culture roles played by pop culture icons. Some of the people barely have speaking roles, but at least they show up on camera. He also wanted to try role reversals, with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson playing a schizophrenic and Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn star. Maybe it would have been fresh in 2005, but by now I've seen the Rock in nonstandard roles, and I haven't seen enough SMG in the past few years to be shocked by this "break from tradition".

The film just didn't work for me. I picked up a copy of the three backstory graphic novels, which they were giving away after the film. If I ever get around to reading them, I'll edit this post to explain if they help the film make sense.

Southland Tales
2007, about 120 minutes unless they chop more out before release, directed by Richard Kelly

Girl Who Leapt Through Time

The stereotypical look and feel of anime turns off many people, often including me. There's too much slapstick, and too much time spent with unrealistically-large mouths open for crying or gasping in disbelief. And yet, if you look past that, there are truly fantastic stories being told through the genre. Girl Who Leapt Through Time, seen on September 22, tells a story of choice and consequent. It beautifully balances comedy, tragedy, and introspective. If you can see past the anime to see the story, I highly recommend this one.

Girl Who Leapt Through Time
2007, 98 minutes, directed by Mamoru Hosoda

Cronoscrimines (Timecrimes)

I'm a sucker for sci fi, and time travel is a big sub-genre. Time travel movies can be divided into two camps - those where you can change history, and those where you can't. The latter category is much harder to pull off, because the same scene shot multiple times can look cheesy with continuity flaws. This movie falls into the "cannot change history" category, but I have to say that the entire film just feels "tight". Nothing obvious jumped out that distracted me from the strange but intriguing story.

"How do you change things if you can't change anything?" That was the question director Nacho Vigalondo posed during the Q&A after this world premiere. I think he answered that question well, and I'd recommend this movie to anyone who likes the genre. As this was the first showing of the first movie from this director, I certainly expect to see more good things from him.

Cronoscrimines (Timecrimes)
2007, 88 minutes, directed by Nacho Vigalondo