94% Looper

All Critics (218) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (204) | Rotten (14)

The reasoning behind all this may not reward prolonged inspection, but Johnson is smart enough to press onward with his plot, leaving us with neither the time nor the desire to linger over the logic ...

Writer-director Rian Johnson establishes himself as an original talent who clearly believes storytelling must prevail.

A mind-bending ride that is not afraid to slow down now and again, to explore themes of regret and redemption, solitude and sacrifice, love and loss. It's a movie worth seeing and, perhaps, going back to see again.

Looper has more heart than Brick and the 2008 con-man flick The Brothers Bloom. Both fine achievements, they could also be described as viscerally cerebral.

I'm a sucker for time-travel movies.

Looper felt to me like a maddening near-miss ...

Doesn't quite reach the heights of the lofty ideals that it so ardently seeks to expound, but makes up for this with the sheer thrill of the journey Rian Johnson takes us on.

Ingenious with a fine performance by Emily Blunt, but far too much cold-blooded violence.

Engaging, exciting, and successfully cross-breeding elements of Terminator and even Pet Sematary, Looper is a solid work of palatable science-fiction.

Looper's super. An action-thriller that bothers to have a brain.

Looper may not take us back to the future as satisfyingly as Robert Zemeckis' Marty McFly trilogy or James Cameron's Terminator franchise, but writer-director Rian Johnson does enough right to all but guarantee that he has a future cult film on the books.

The best time travel films play on emotion rather than logic, and once Looper realises this and drops all the tail-chasing about how time travel works it settles into the engrossing action/drama about destiny it should have been from the get go.

Has more depth, smarts, and heart than the usual sci-fi bluster.

A just about brilliant sci-fi crime-drama-thriller mostly set in the years 2044 and 2074. Rian Johnson is a rare director who creates entertainment with depth.

The key to enjoying the gruesome violence mixed with a healthy potion of emotional depth rarely found in this genre is to not dwell on the fiction in the science.

Sometimes time travel is just used a cheap device in movies to make them seem different; this is not one of those films. It's genuinely unique and fresh.

Very entertaining on many, many levels.

The best kind of light entertainment that expects you to be just as intelligent as it is.

It's complex enough that sci-fi fans can dig deeper over multiple viewings, but thrilling enough that casual viewers can take it all in with one watch.

...an above-average sci-fi tale.

Rian Johnson makes a loud, dark, highly stylized film that looks good but whose ideas do not really bear close examination.

Time travel makes sense in Looper because writer-director Rian Johnson keeps it on a short leash, not requiring enough manufactured logic to trip over later.

I don't know where you guys found that kid... Was it the same lab where they grew the Fannings?

Besides a challenging time-travel premise, a dark sense of humor, and some thrilling action scenes, Looper has the kind emotional weight that you wouldn't expect.

... Writer-director Rian Johnson never stops working, using the science-fiction setup and trappings to delve into the characters and give us a story with some real meat.

You don't need time-travel to spot a future cult classic.

More Critic Reviews

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/looper/

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FIVE MINUTES: South Africa

MADONSELA INVESTIGATING ?NKANDLAGATE?

The Public Protector is investigating the use of public funds to renovate President Jacob Zuma?s private home, City Press newspaper reported. Thuli Madonsela confirmed she had already received an official complaint, before the DA?s parliamentary leader, Lindiwe Mazibuko, requested an investigation into the R203-million price tag last week in the scandal now dubbed ?Nkandlagate?. The newspaper also reported that the public works department had budgeted for a R28.2 million security upgrade to Nelson Mandela?s Qunu home while R3.5 million was spent on former president Thabo Mbeki?s home. Neither Mbeki nor Mandela used billions in state funds to develop their home villages, as Zuma plans to do in planning the billion rand development known as ?Zumaville?.

GAUTENG NOMINATES MOTLANTHE FOR ANC LEADER

The Gauteng ANC has nominated Deputy President?Kgalema Motlanthe?as its candidate to lead the ANC. Provincial leader?Paul Mashatile?said Gauteng?s Provincial Executive Council (PEC) had been calling for the ?renewal? of the ANC through a change in leadership. "We have been doing this guided by the objective reality that today [Sunday] our movement finds itself operating in a very modernising world and therefore we are required to modernise the ANC," Mashatile said in his address. The PEC nominated Febe Potgieter as deputy secretary general, and Mashatile himself as treasurer, but remains split on the rest of the top six. Mashatile said the list would ensure "generational transitional mix". ?

TRANSNET PREPARES FOR STRIKE

Transnet is preparing for a one-day strike by port and rail workers who are supporting the 20,000-strong truck strike now entering its third week. State-owned Transnet said on Sunday it had been served with a notice of a walkout "in a week's time" by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) that is behind the two-week trucker stoppage, but did not say when it might occur. ?We are considering the notice and will activate our contingency measures to ensure minimal disruptions should the action materialise,? Transnet said in a statement. Satawu spokesman Vincent Masoga said wage talks between freight bosses and unions were scheduled to restart on Tuesday after breaking down acrimoniously at the end of last week, but the union was still gearing up for action.

AMPLATS WORKERS RALLY TO REVOKE DISMISSALS

Striking workers from Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) are pressing the global mining company to revoke its decision to fire them. Amplats on Friday dismissed 12,000 workers taking part in a wildcat strike. Hundreds of strikers, watched by police in armoured vehicles and a helicopter, held a two-hour rally in a soccer stadium near Rustenburg on Saturday, and were urged to fight for their jobs. Workers said the termination notice, delivered to many by SMS, caught them by surprise, despite repeated threats from Amplats that it planned to discipline strikers. The firing of the workers saw the rand drop to a three-year low. In a related move, Atlatsa Resources has sacked some of the 2,500 workers who went on a wildcat strike this week at its Bokoni platinum mine, a joint venture with Anglo American Platinum. Workers have two days to appeal the decision.

NUM BRANCH LEADER SHOT DEAD

NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka has confirmed a branch leader of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was shot dead on Friday near a mine run by platinum producer Lonmin.? Seshoka told Reuters the union leader had been killed "execution style" in the evening hours but gave no further details. Seshoka said the ?assassination? followed the death of the NUM brand chairman last weekend, and another attack on a branch leader who escaped, but whose wife was killed. Seshoga said another five members of the union, two of them shop stewards, were killed during the Lonmin violence in August.

MBEKI WARNS OF ?ARAB SPRING? UPRISINGS IN AFRICA

Africa is ripe for ?Arab Spring? type uprisings as long as leaders continue to enrich themselves to the detriment of the people they serve, former president Thabo Mbeki said. In an interview with the Sunday Independent, Mbeki said the patience of the youth and of ordinary Africans was ?waning?. Mbeki said if the African population ?continues to experience similar conditions as happened in Tunisia and Egypt, similar conditions of standards of living not improving, facing crises all the time, and a small elite which lives well and eats better every day, and flaunts its wealth? in the end these ordinary African people, like the ordinary African people of Tunisia, surely will say enough is enough, I think it is imperative of all our governments to clearly focus on this matter.?

JO?BURG MAYOR TO REFER TENDER ALLEGATIONS TO PUBLIC PROTECTOR

The mayor of Johannesburg, Mpho Parks Tau, will refer allegations of ?tender impropriety to the Integrity Commissioner of the City of Johannesburg and the Public Protector?, he said in a statement. Tau?s wife Philisiwe Twala-Tau has been linked to a R10-million shareholding in an empowerment consortium, Coral Lagoon, that acquired shares in Capitec Bank in 2006 now worth about R1 billion. The consortium won a lucrative contract to manage the Johannesburg council's R2-billion liability redemption fund. Twala-Tau?s 1% stake is now worth R10 million. "I am confident of my innocence from impropriety. It is important that when such allegations arise, we should subject ourselves to scrutiny. My decision to refer this matter to public enquiry has been motivated by this approach," Tau said.

BODY OF ABDUCTED IFP MAN FOUND IN SUGAR CANE FIELD

KwaZulu-Natal police have confirmed that the body of an Inkatha Freedom Party councillor who was abducted last week has been found in a sugar cane field on the outskirts of Durban. Colonel Jay Naicker said people gathering mushrooms found the body of Themba Xulu and called the police. Xulu had been shot several times, Naicker said. Five men allegedly posing as policemen abducted Xulu from his home in KwaMashu?s A-Section on Friday. Tensions in the area have been high ever since Xulu was arrested and charged for the attempted murder of a National Freedom Party (NFP) member. DM

Photo: South Africa's President Jacob Zuma (R) pose with former president Thabo Mbeki during the lighting up ceremony of the centenary torch ahead of the upcoming African National Congress (ANC) centenary celebration in Bloemfontein January 8, 2012. In an interview with the Sunday Independent, Mbeki said the patience of the youth and of ordinary Africans was ?waning?.

Source: http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-10-08-five-minutes-south-africa

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Union: Border agents opened fire on each other

PHOENIX (AP) ? The U.S. Border Patrol agent killed last week in a shooting in southern Arizona apparently opened fire on two fellow agents thinking they were armed smugglers and was killed when they returned fire, the head of the Border Patrol agents' union said Sunday.

The two sets of agents approached an area where a sensor had been activated early Tuesday from different directions and encountered each other in an area of heavy brush, National Border Patrol Council president George McCubbin said.

Agent Nicholas Ivie apparently opened fire first and wounded one of the other agents but was killed in the return fire.

"I don't know what it was he saw or heard that triggered this whole event," McCubbin said. "Unfortunately it resulted in his death and another agent injured."

Acting Cochise County Sheriff Rod Rothrock confirmed the scenario but would not say if Ivie was the first to shoot, saying that was up to the federal agencies involved.

The new details add to a FBI statement Friday that the shooting appeared to be a friendly fire incident that involved no one but the agents.

Sensors are set up in different areas along the U.S.-Mexico border to detect smugglers or illegal immigrants, with Border Patrol agents responding when they're set off. The shooting occurred in a rugged hilly area about five miles north of the border near Bisbee, Ariz., an area known for illegal trafficking.

McCubbin and Rothrock both said the two sets of agents knew the others were heading to the area on foot but apparently didn't know they were so close. McCubbin said he'd been briefed by the agency, while Rothrock's agency has been involved with the investigation.

"It was dark, very, very rugged terrain, and what they could see of each other was further obscured by the fact that there was brush and cacti and stuff like that between them," Rothrock said. "I have no doubt that these agents were in as heightened a state of alert as you can get due to the proximity to the border and the history of trafficking in that area."

Rothrock said that when the agents spotted each other in the dark, "they apparently took defensive postures, which was probably interpreted as aggressive postures. Like readying your weapons, for example."

Ivie, 30, died at the scene, and one of the other agents was wounded but has since been released from the hospital.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Border Patrol and other federal and local agencies flooded the area with personnel looking for who they believed were assailants who had attacked the agents.

"That was the initial reports from the beginning," McCubbin said. "That was the reason for the saturation manhunt there. They even had permission to fly into Mexico. They were seeking people out. What this was based on, we'd have to assume it was based on the initial statements given by the agents on the scene."

Two people suspected of being involved in the shooting were arrested by the Mexican government but were apparently not involved at all.

"They had a couple of people in custody but other than being in the area, there was no evidence putting them there at the scene," McCubbin said. "They could have been guides, they could have been scouts, and those type of folks typically go back and forth all the time anyway."

Rothrock said he believed the agents' actions were "appropriate and in accordance with their training had they, in fact, been engaging people involved in illegal activities. Unfortunately, they weren't engaging people involved in illegal activities, they were engaging each other."

Rothrock said a death investigation report will be sent to the Cochise County Attorney's Office for review as a matter of routine, but he doubted any legal action will be taken against the surviving agents.

A visitation was to be held in Sierra Vista, Ariz., on Sunday night for Ivie, who is survived by his wife and two young daughters. His funeral is set for Monday morning.

"It's happened and it's a horrible tragedy for the agents involved and their families and the agency," McCubbin said. "We can come up with some reasons as to how this happened but that doesn't fix anything. All we can do is send prayers to the families and all the agents involved that somehow they can find some peace with this someday."

Ivie's death marked the first fatal shooting of an agent since a deadly 2010 firefight with Mexican gunmen that killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010 and spawned congressional probes of a botched government gun-smuggling investigation.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/union-border-agents-opened-fire-other-211048210.html

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Murphy Too? (talking-points-memo)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/253824841?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Taking time out to give will lead to riches - On Line Opinion - 8/10/2012

Her eyes had been closed, her mouth had been open and her motionless head slumped on the pillow for days . There was no indication that there was any mind left. Just before I went to bed, and for the last time that day, I put some water-soaked gauze on her lips and her mouth closed tightly on it. Earlier a visiting nurse suggested that as the sucking reflex was a new-born's first purposeful act, it is the last to go as dementia claimed the adult. That sucking on the gauze was the last motion by the good-looking woman I had married 50 years ago - as I woke the next morning to find her dead.

I ensured that I was upstairs when the men from the funeral parlour removed her. Later I stepped into her now empty room and stood by the bed with the indentation of her body still in the bedding. The sadness of such a situation is surreal. As you weep for another, deep down in the unconscious is a sense of satisfaction that you are now at your best - a rare time when you are totally disconnected from your own needs - totally disconnected from the ego.

There is something beautiful in every one of us, but luck plays its part in setting up the right circumstances for one's better self to emerge from where it is buried. However, you only see those opportunities that you want to see.

An opportunity that was not missed

Once stress enters a marriage it can become ingrained into its structure. After 21 years of hanging in 'for the kids' sake', I finally accepted the fact that it was time to go. We divorced in 1984 under the Family Law Act due to 'irreconcilable differences'. Then, as 1984 faded into the past, I came to realise that the intense love her two children had for her could be the true measure of her value as a human being - and my problems with her became irrelevant.

It must have been about five years ago that the first clues that she was developing dementia appeared. Her house was becoming more untidy, the garden overgrown and the dogs not washed. Finally she could no longer live alone and we agreed that she live in my home under my care.

Life for me became restricted, but this was no great burden. She was able to feed herself and sit on the toilet. So, I was able to leave the house for a few hours at a time after I showered and dressed her. I took her with me when I shopped. This continued for 10 months before she requested to move into a low-care section of a nursing home (which like to be referred to as aged-care facilities and the inmates referred to as guests). She said that life with me was too lonely. As she deteriorated in that facility she became high-care and very unhappy. It was then that the children and I decided to bring her back to my home.

The situation now was very different to what it was before. Now she had to be spoon-fed and was incontinent . The brain was dying and those neural networks which controlled mobility were shutting down. On several occasions during the day frightening hallucinations would cause her to shake and cry. A long-standing arthritis complicated the problem. After five and one half months she was gone and I was free to resume my normal life.

Upon reflection, how do I now feel?

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I have had one of the most enriching experiences of my life. Friends warned me against removing my ex-wife from the nursing home. They were right when they said that my lifestyle would be almost completely put on-hold. They were very wrong to see only the negatives. Death is part of life. One cannot have a complete life without sharing the time it takes for a fellow human being to finally succumb to the inevitable.

I now know that any person who has been a devoted parent deserves to be close to family as death draws closer. To move that person into a nursing home is to move in the opposite direction. The word "dump" is an accurate-enough description. The facility she resided in for 10 months had the d?cor of an up-market hotel. At first I felt good about this. It was later that I realised that this was simply to lesson the guilt the dumpers may have felt. The d?cor of 'God's waiting room' means little to a person deprived of what made them happy when well. As witness to those final frightful months of rapid deterioration at my place, her spending them with paid employees in a severely understaffed nursing home is too horrible to think about.

Most who have placed a parent or spouse in a nursing home have what appear to be good reasons for taking that action. But I am sure that there is a large minority who did not really try to avoid taking that path. Did they check if family members could be rostered to help with the caring? Could not long-service be taken from work? Intensive homecare need not to be ongoing for years. It is really only required in the last months of life when physical discomfort and fear become especially intense in the victim.

(However, there is one necessary ingredient in the mix. This is a dedicated GP who will drag overstretched government-provided homecare services into your problem. Homecare at the terminal stage involves catheters and morphine injections and bed sore monitoring. It would not be possible without that half-hour or more involvement by nurses each day. Making inquiries yourself without GP involvement will leave you on a waiting list which could be a year long.)

Nevertheless, each day when I looked into those sad and hopeless eyes as I struggled to move her immobile arthritic body to change her nappies, I would ask myself: "Why this? Why is there not a legal way for one to end one's own life with dignity?" Months earlier she said that she wanted to die. That would have been the time for her family to have been gathered around her to exchange farewells. She could have then pressed a key which initiated the plunger on a syringe to deliver Nembutal through a tube and into a vein.

It would have been a heart-breaking scene - but for those present who stepped outside of their comfort zone to look at life through a bigger window - a very satisfying and maturing one.

Brian Holden has been retired since 1988. He advises that if you can keep physically and mentally active, retirement can be the best time of your life.

Source: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14194

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Video: Panel examines impact of debate

A Second Take on Meeting the Press: From an up-close look at Rachel Maddow's sneakers to an in-depth look at Jon Krakauer's latest book ? it's all fair game in our "Meet the Press: Take Two" web extra. Log on Sundays to see David Gregory's post-show conversations with leading newsmakers, authors and roundtable guests. Videos are available on-demand by 12 p.m. ET on Sundays.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/49319666#49319666

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iPhone 5 Full Price Unlock In Canada?

Hey guys,

I planning to get the sexy new iPhone 5 and made a idiot move in August. I signed up a 3 year contract with them. Bull crap move right? Anyways, I'm looking to get it LOCKED on Virgin Mobile, because the Wirelesswave guys said that they are not selling the full priced unlocked. Here's my question: The guys at the wirelesswave booth said that they will be able to unlock it in the future but if i bought it now, it would not be unlocked, so, IF I BUY THE PHONE NOW LOCKED, WILL I BE ABLE TO SAY THAT I BOUGHT IT FULL PRICE AND I WANT IT UNLOCKED FOR FREE?

EDIT: I mean when they can unlock it in the future, will I be able to say, I got the phone full price, and want it unlocked?

Thanks!

Source: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1463737&goto=newpost

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