What was my happiest movie moment of 2012?Well, this was a fortunate year, so I had a few of those. Easy examples: The Avengers went off with barely a hitch and gave us a few Fan-made Gems, and Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises brought that director's Batman trilogy to a problematic-but-still-satisfying conclusion.
Still, I couldn't quite predict that my anticipation for Looper would play out differently than I had expected, and yet still wind up a knock-out. A year before it came out, I'd heard about this pic, and waited for it - like a Christmas present. Actually, I'm nervous-excited for Dead Shadows and Bad Kids Go To Hell for similar reasons.
Looper wasn't everything I wanted it to be: the story builds this broad and amazing new world, one I want to see it flesh out - even if just to explain how the mob needs past-time murder. Taking only a few segments to revel in these possibilities, the story turns into something far more intimate, and small. Many questions about time-travel, why it's needed/used that way, the lead's driving narrative... these are just ditched.
These flaws left a co-worker of mine, Melissa, a bit disappointed. I noticed this sudden shift, too, but Melissa hadn't seen a Johnson film before, whereas I was in love from the moment I saw Brick. I was in a better position to put aside my expectations/hopes and just follow the story this artist wanted to tell. I sympathize, but I had ways to keep myself from feeling let down - like the Primer director's (Shane Carruth) involvement with the time-travel aspects, and a challenging new experience for JG-L...
If you think I was just optimistic, watch the trailer below. For me, it sustained more or less this level of excitement and interest (without having plots play out on zero logic) for the entire running time:
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