On first blush, casting Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a younger version of Bruce Willis seems like it belongs in the annals of bad movie choices. Especially when you consider that Looper is a time-travel movie, meaning that Gordon-Levitt and Willis will face off in several scenes, as older and younger versions of the same character.

But the makeup department has done just enough to Gordon-Levitt—blue contact lenses, a broadened nose, slightly filled out mouth—to make the resemblance plausible and JGL’s crafty performance—nothing over the top, just a raised eyebrow here, a subtle smirk there—totally seals the deal. (There’s also a clever moment at the beginning of the film where JGL looks in the mirror, checks his hairline, and scowls—a nod to his future baldness.)

The Gordon-Levitt-as-Willis thing is, of course, just one of the many tricks up Looper’s sleeve—and not even the best one. This is one of those films where you say to yourself: If they can just live up to the promise of the trailer, they’ll really be onto to something. I think Looper more than fulfills that promise—it exceeds it.

The film is set in the mid-21st century. Time travel hasn’t been invented yet but...

The surprise arthouse hit Sleepwalk With Me couldn’t have better indie bona fides. After all, it was produced by no less than This American Life’s Ira Glass, the unofficial Dean of Indie America. That being said, I’m a little bummed about the state of indie America.

I had actually heard comedian Mike Birbiglia—the writer, co-director, and star of Sleepwalk With Me—do his routine on "This American Life." His schtick is that he fears marriage; sees it as the end of the good stuff in life. As he says in his act (and in the movie), he’s never looked at a long-time married couple and said, “I gotta get me some of that.”

Okay, funny to an extent. And honest—I suppose. It’s just that when you see this philosophy in action, especially when his long suffering girlfriend is played by a luminous Lauren Ambrose of Six Feet Under fame—you have to ask yourself, “What’s your defect, dude?”

Birbiglia, essentially playing himself in the film—an aspiring comedian with a sleepwalking disorder—seems to know that his reluctance to commit to vocal instructor Abby after seven years, is a bit baffling.

“I just don’t want my girlfriend to be the best thing about me,” he says...

True confession: I’m not a big fan of chase scenes. If there was an expression that was the opposite of “cut to the chase” (“cut to the nuanced character development”?) it would be my motto.
What’s more, I’ve gotten a little jaded about car chases. I no longer ask myself, “Whoa. How’d they pull that off?” I just kind yawn and think: Closed set, stuntmen, CGI. . . Next!

Which is why it’s all the more surprising—and impressive—that the chase scenes in Premium Rush (dumb title, smart film) were my favorite parts of the movie.

Actually, not just the chase scenes—all the scenes involving our hero Wiley (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) on his trusty bicycle. As Wiley bobbed and weaved through traffic, narrowly avoiding collisions, I was mesmerized—and yes, numerous times I asked myself, “How’d they do that?”

Wiley, if you haven’t already guessed, is a bike messenger in Manhattan—in other words, he’s nuts. But even among the gonzos of the NYC bike messenger ranks, Wiley is the craziest. His bike is stripped bare, he tore off his brakes years ago. He has a need for speed, as a certain movie maverick once said—and he thinks braking is the most dangerous thing a bike messenger can do....

Based on the trailers, you probably think you already know what Hope Springs is going to be like: A glossy rom-com about an aging married couple who go to couple’s therapy in a quaint town and slowly—and hilariously—fall back in love.

That’s not completely inaccurate, but the film could also be described thusly: A Bergman-esque meditation on aging, death, and sexuality focusing on the giant chasm that has developed between a joyless married couple.
That second film seems like less of a good time at the ol' multiplex, huh?

Split the difference and you have Hope Springs, which ends up being much smarter and deeper than the trailers would suggest, while still being pretty darn entertaining.

I admit I was on high cliché alert at first: Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) have been married for 35 years—she’s sunny and nurturing; he’s the kind of grouch who is always complaining about being ripped off. They sleep in separate rooms and she wordlessly feeds him the same breakfast (fried egg and bacon) every morning and rouses him from his easy chair after he falls asleep in front of the Golf Channel at night.

Those little bits of character development...