Rian Johnson‘s Looper is a rare film for many reasons. The only thing rarer than Hollywood committing to a mid-budget sci-fi film is one featuring an original idea not based on an existing property. Even better though, the film is unafraid to go to some very dark places with some wholly unexpected events, and the result is a rewarding experience for film goers. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis star as young and old versions of the same character who come face to face in a fight for their separate but clearly connected lives. It’s smart, exciting and challenging in the way no big budget blockbuster could ever hope to be. Three of its key players sat down to record a commentary track for next week’s Blu-ray/DVD release, and we gave it a listen. Come along won’t you, and read what we heard…

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Looper. Several hours after seeing Rian Johnson’s Looper, I find the film still rattling in my head. Not because certain moments have resonated with me, nor because the möbius strip sci-fi structure has motivated any existential introspection. Instead, I felt surprisingly conflicted by Looper, perhaps more so than any other film this year. Looper is a film that consists of so many great parts, miles above what most studio genre fare has released this year, yet somehow even the success of these parts didn’t seem to cohere into a resonant whole on the drive home. What stands out the most about Looper is the emotional and thematic import of the film’s time travel plot device. In situating a young man confronting his aged (and changed) self, a middle-aged man attempting to change course in his life through any means possible, and several evident cycles of fate-determining actions shared between characters, Looper connects its investigation of predestination v. free will to a rumination on how our choices directly effect the lives of others in lasting ways. The logic of Looper lays out a vision of life that includes many potential options from which we choose or have chosen for us. Here there is no such thing as fate, only opened and closed opportunities, the implications of which we can’s possibly comprehend in the present moment.

Now that Looper is a decent hit — especially in China — we can anticipate that people will be discussing the movie around the web, the water cooler and wherever else we talk about movies these days. Much of the conversation will be devoted to the usual with the time travel subgenre: paradoxes, the workings of the time machine, plot holes, why wasn’t Hitler killed, etc. But with this particular story there’s one major point of discussion I’m interested in, and of course it involves spoilers. So, if you’ve seen the movie or are just one of those who don’t care about stuff being ruined, join me after the break as I ask…

It’s, in a word, perfect. Talk about Bobby and Peter Farrelly‘s sequel to their comedy classic Dumb and Dumber had just about reached Ghostbusters 3 proportions (a special new realm occupied by Kick-Ass 2 talk) back in June when Jim Carrey dropped out, but the pair seem bound and determined to make the film happen, and with both Carrey and Jeff Daniels back as Lloyd and Harry. Perhaps in a bid to get some real heat on the project, Bobby Farrelly fessed up to DigitalSpy some meaty details about the sequel, and they sound – this might sound crazy – actually completely spot-on. How often does that happen to a sequel? Straight out of the gate, Farrelly says that both Carrey and Daniels are set for this film, and gives fans the solemn vow that “we will make this movie.” Well, alrighty! But what’s it about?

Two nights ago, Aaron Sorkin’s heavily-anticipated and rather polarizing new show The Newsroom aired its debut on HBO. With the pilot’s central focus on the BP oilrig explosion, the premium cable network has established itself (alongside with their recent TV movies) as the primary venue for dramatizing recent political history. However, other contemporary television shows have addressed political issues well beyond the headlines of the past few years. In this election year, it seems that TV comedies and dramas from several networks have a surprising amount to say about the political process in a way that resonates with this uncertain, often frustrating moment. Here’s how The Newsroom stacks up against a triumvirate of other TV shows with overtly political themes…

Please read this article with caution as it does contain plot details that some may consider spoilers for the first episode of HBO’s The Newsroom. After screening the pilot episode (“We Just Decided To”) of Aaron Sorkin’s new show The Newsroom, the Los Angeles Film Festival audience was treated to a Q&A session which featured Sorkin himself along with executive producer Alan Poul, director Greg Mottola, and moderated by Madeleine Brand (The Madeleine Brand Show.) Anyone who has attended a Sorkin Q&A (or seen the man speak) knows that it is the equivalent of being shot out of a cannon. Sorkin’s signature fast-talk does not just live on the pages he writes, it is also how Sorkin speaks himself. It was clear that whatever Sorkin and Brand had spoken about prior to coming into the theater had left them both riled up. Brand (much like the Northwestern professor does to Jeff Daniels’ character, Will McAvoy, in the first scene of the premiere episode) refused to let Sorkin get away with non-answers or quips. Brand continuously pushed him until Sorkin, the man of a million words, let out an exasperated breath… and then jumped right back in.

After having to deal with those teasers-for-the-teaser annoyance, we now have the actual teaser trailer for writer/director Rian Johnson‘s Looper, his futuristic sci-fi thriller featuring a Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt face-off, both playing the same character. Right off the bat you can see Gordon-Levitt is channeling Willis’s well-known demeanor and style. But based on the impression this trailer gives, it’s an actual transformation, not an impersonation. Take a peek at Bruce Willis apologizing for Surrogates:

In 1985, John Fogerty was sued for plagiarizing himself. It was a bizarre courtroom situation that arose because Fogerty had forfeited the rights to his old Creedance Clearwater Revival hits to a former record label that went after him when a song he wrote on his new album “Centerfield” sounded too much like his own work. Copyright law is complicated. What can you do. In the last week, a script surfaced that’s purportedly the pilot to The Newsroom, the new HBO show from Aaron Sorkin, and it feels a bit like Fogerty all over again. Sorkin is cribbing off of Sorkin. Of course there are a million grains of salt to throw with this. The primary one being that random scripts on the old internet could be from anywhere. For some reason, writers believe they can fake leaked scripts in order to gain a name through the back door (like writers did on Studio 60 when they weren’t being heard in the room), but it’s actually the writing equivalent of suicide by cop (which a troubled man did on an episode of The West Wing). The internet can be an unforgiving place and pretending to be another writer automatically creates a comparison that no one can survive against. However, this particular script (which you can find if you search for it) seems legit. But there’s a funny thing there, when you’re reading a curious script that can be from anyone. In the back of your mind, you’re imagining that someone

The powers that be at Film School Rejects were wise enough to include Rian Johnson‘s sci-fi pic Looper as one of our Most Anticipated Films of 2012, and it’s certainly in my top 3 for the year as well. Sadly, the film is still far off and we’ve only gotten a few behind-the-scenes pics (via Looper‘s Twitter feed) and an official shot showcasing Bruce Willis doing what he does best. Now we have gotten another behind-the-scenes picture which may give you a better idea of what to expect. Johnson released this pretty damn cool shot of the film’s time travel machine, and it looks like a down and dirty time machine, a.k.a. it’s not shiny and all that stuff.

This is so much better than The Three Stooges. Having wrapped that “dream project,” it looks like Peter and Bobby Farrelly are interested in working on a film that, oh, I don’t know, people might actually want to see? Getting back to their glory days, the Farrellys have set a pair of writers to pen a Dumb and Dumber sequel. We will all gracefully bow our heads and tip our orange top hats forward to have a brief moment of silence for that other sequel, the abomination known as Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, 2003′s horrific prequel that starred Eric Christian Olsen and Derek Richardson as Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne in their high school years. Shia LaBeouf also starred as another student (fun trivia!). The entire film centered on a pervasive lie that Lloyd, Harry, the ol’ Beefster, and a bunch of other kids were actually mentally challenged. Hilarious, right? Everyone loves making fun of mentally challenged kids! Ugh. Forgetting that nightmare, Sean Anders and John Morris have been hired to pen the sequel. The hope is to bring back both Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, which answers the “but when will this potential sequel take place?” question quite handily. Nowish!

I recently read a figure somewhere that said 2011 would have more sequels, prequels, reboots, and remakes of pre-existing films than any other year in history. Even if that isn’t true, it certainly feels true, so it doesn’t come as a shock to me that when he was recently questioned about future plans, Jim Carrey said that he would probably be working on some sequels of past hits. In an upcoming interview with Coming Soon, Carrey said of his possible next projects, “We’re talking about maybe returning to some old characters that everyone has been asking about. There’s Bruce Almighty and we’re talking about maybe another Dumb and Dumber.” Okay, so it sounds like his next move is more likely to be a revisiting of his Godly character from Bruce Almighty, but I’m not going to focus on that because I can’t imagine there’s anybody out there who’s really clamoring for another go around on the Almighty train (though I’m certain if that person exists they’re going to find me in the comments section). What I believe would be more interesting to more people is the possibility of Carrey and Jeff Daniels getting back together to make another Dumb and Dumber. Seventeen years after that film’s release there is still one guy in every crowd who will yell out, “kick his ass, Sea Bass” every time it looks like a fight is going to break out. People remember that movie very fondly. Of course, there was already the prequel film

Like an antidote for all that stuffy Oscar nonsense, the Farrelly Brothers have let fly that they’re interested in revisiting the world of Dumb & Dumber. Maybe that will finally wake James Franco up. Fortunately, in an interview with Movie Hole, The Farrellys not only claimed that conversations had been put in motion to make the sequel a reality, they added that they’d only want to do it with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels back in the roles. Thus, the Farrelly Brothers joined a long line of filmmakers who had a terrible idea and a great idea at the same time. There’s no demand for this movie beyond a new-found love of outdated sequels floating around the studio system. However, if there’s a creative demand, and the Farrelly Brothers have a great story cooked up, why not support something like this? We’re nearly two decades away from the 1994 comedic triumph, it would be interesting to see the directors go back to their first film, and if they got the talent, it could be another strange trip into a world of idiots. Speaking of which, The Farrelly Brothers will begin shooting their Three Stooges flick in a few months, which means definitive casting will be announced sooner rather than later. Check back with us to have your day made/ruined. Any bets on whether Lauren Holly is available for this?

The recent cinema of Wes Anderson and his occasional creative collaborator Noah Baumbach have encountered an interesting play with the ever-blurry line that retains an audience’s empathy for an unlikeable protagonist. This week, the Culture Warrior puts those protagonists in focus.

‘Paper Man’ has a great cast headlined by Jeff Daniels, but it’s a tired retread of an age-old indie formula.

For some reason, they also show Ryan Reynolds with bleached out hair. Because that’s what Superheroes do.

Kevin Carr reviews this week’s new movies: State of Play, Crank: High Voltage and 17 Again.

A straightforward romantic comedy about bringing a know-it-all author to his knee’s, director John Hindman’s first film is surprisingly charming and incredibly well-written. As if we should have expected any less…

In addition to the announcement of the competition film slate for 2009, the Sundance Film Festival also provided us with a bunch of images from some of the films that will be featured. We begin our preview with some higher profile pics.

The 2009 competition lineup for the Sundance Film Festival has been announced, and among the entries are some big names and some small ones, all of which are intriguing nonetheless.

It looks as if Nancy Botwin will be dealing her “MILF Weed” to the beatnik brigade in the upcoming Allen Ginsberg biopic.