Spinnin' the DVDs: Looper / Ace in the Hole

No football this weekend gave Tom and me a chance to watch a couple of flicks, both worth watching if you haven't seen them.

Movie description:
HUNTED BY YOUR FUTURE, HAUNTED BY YOUR PAST. In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past where a looper, a hired gun, like Joe is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good until the day the mob decides to close the loop, sending back Joe's future self for assassination.

My take: 5 stars
An interesting time travel concept that avoided going in the ways I expected it to. I am loathe to say too much about it beyond the basic description because I don't want to ruin it. It is about much bigger themes than one would think and the way those are connected leave one with much food for thought. This is definitely one that opens up when it is talked about and so, I imagine, would lend itself to repeat viewings.

Movie description
One of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker. Kirk Douglas gives the fiercest performance of his career as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter caught in dead-end Albuquerque who happens upon the story of a lifetime and will do anything to ensure he gets the scoop.

My take: 3-1/2 stars
I can't say I liked this movie but I didn't dislike it. We watched it because Tom's been intensely curious about it ever since reading a bio of Billy Wilder and learning that he thought this one of his best films ... and we'd never heard of it. It is completely effective as a scathing indictment of the American media circus that arises under the guise of "caring," whenever disaster strikes somewhere. As we all know, this is a trend that has not changed in the slightest today, so the story is very modern. Kirk Douglas does a fantastic job as the sleazy, self-serving media hound who corrupts almost everyone near him in order to be the sole mouthpiece for the story of a man caught in a cave. I imagine this probably also hasn't changed much these days, if only we knew the entire story.