Relatively Media recently released stills for "Don Jon". Joseph Gordon-Levitt(The Dark Knight Returns, Inception) direct and stars in the film.It also boasts a good supporting cast that includes Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore and Tony Danza. "Don Jon hits theaters on 9/27.

For more information on this film, you can visit the film's official Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/DonJonMovie

Plot Synopsis:

Jon Martello (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a strong, handsome, good old fashioned guy. His buddies call him Don Jon due to his ability to "pull" a different woman every weekend, but even the finest fling doesn't compare to the bliss he finds alone in front of the computer watching pornography. Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) is a bright, beautiful, good old fashioned girl. Raised on romantic Hollywood movies, she's determined to find her Prince Charming and ride off into the sunset. Wrestling with good old fashioned expectations of the opposite sex, Jon and Barbara struggle against a media culture full of false fantasies to try and find true intimacy in this unexpected comedy written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

“Looper” is one of those films that you’re not sure that you’re going to like, because of the film’s complex nature. Still, I decided to see it anyway considering that it has Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in it.

The film is takes place in the future, where time travel has been invented and has also been outlawed. The only way that the mob can get rid of someone is to send them to the past, where the looper kills them. For Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), he is getting rich by getting killing his targets from the future. Life has been going good for him, until the mob decides to close his loop. They send Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) for assassination. But Joe’s future self has other plans, as he escapes from his past self to change his future. Now, Joe must find his future self before either he or the mob kills him first.

Film Review:

One of the reasons that the film works so well was Rian Johnson’s direction. He does a very good job keeping the tone of the film very dark and on edge. That’s what helped make the film entertaining. Johnson is able to do that, by directing the action sequences and making sure that the twists keep you guessing to see how the film ends. It really helped make this a very dark and entertaining sci-fi film. The acting here was very good. He focuses on getting his performances to fit with the film’s tone. It helped make the action interesting and keeps you interested.
Speaking of the performances in the film, I thought the performances made the film even better. Joseph Gordon-Levitt really does a very good job, as the film’s lead. I remember seeing his other most recent release “Premium Rush” before this film and thinking that I was going to have mixed feeling about his performance in “Looper”. My thoughts proved to be wrong, as he is much better in this film than in “Premium Rush”. He performs the character better and he also make the character more interesting and engaging. The supporting performances were also good, as I truly liked Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt here. Having them there also helped make the performance aspects work so well.

The screenplay written by Rian Johnson was also very good. He doesn’t make many things complicated, as this could’ve been a film where you could’ve gotten lost with all the time travel stuff. You don’t have that here, as everything feels simplified and you’re not wondering or feeling confused. The other thing that I also liked about the screenplay was the character development. Johnson did a very good job making his character very dark with his out of control lifestyle in the beginning of the film then completely change the character as the film goes on. It allows the main character to be more than a one-dimension character and makes the character interesting. If this was a one-dimensional character, then a lot of things would have went wrong with the story. Thankfully that didn’t happen, as I liked the main character here.

Blu-Ray Extras:

The extras start off with the film’s commentary track with writer/director Rian Johnson and two of the film’s stars Joseph Gordon-Levvit and Emily Blunt. I enjoyed this commentary track a lot. I liked, the way that they go into the film’s production. They provide very interesting stories from the set to how some of the film’s scenes were filmed. It’s worth a listen, if you’re a fan of this film.

After the commentary track, it’s the disc’s making of featurette “The Future from the Beginning”. Not a bad start to the featurettes. The cast and crew talk about the film, its characters and the film’s production.

The next featurette is “Scoring Looper”. This featurette is divided into three chapters; Field Recordings, Percussion and Melodic Instruments. It was an interesting featurette, where the film’s composer Nathan Johnson talked about the various things and instruments that he used when creating the film’s score. Overall, this was a very interesting featurette.

The featurettes wrap up with “The Science of Time Travel”. The featurette goes into the subject of time travel. It goes into some of the science and theories about it while talking about its use in the film.

The disc wraps up an animated trailer of the film and 22 deleted scenes with commentary.

Final Summary:

“Looper” is a very well executed sci-fi thriller that has a very good screenplay and very good performances from its main cast. This truly would’ve been on my best of 2012 list, if I saw it last year.

Film Review Rating: Five Stars
Blu-Ray Extras: Four Stars

Rian Johnson’s “Looper” is an ingenious movie which combines the genres of noir, science-fiction and western into a mind twister of a film that will have you enthralled throughout. It reminds you of all those time travels movies you grew up watching, and yet it feels very original when compared to them. It also proves that Johnson is a creative filmmaking force to reckon with, and it gives each cast member an opportunity to give their best performance in any film they made in 2012.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Joe Simmons, an assassin in the year 2044 who works for the mafia and kills agents sent from the year 2072. In this future time travel is possible and also illegal, and the mob takes advantage of it to get rid of their garbage. The movie’s title refers to the kind of assassin Joe is, a foot soldier who is paid on the condition that their targets never escape. They end up getting a shotgun called a Blunderbuss which doesn’t have much of a range but is powerful enough to kill a person up close. When “Looper” starts, Joe looks to have been doing this for a while and has been living the good life as a result.

Things change drastically though when the mob decides to “close the loop” by sending back the Loopers’ future versions of themselves to eliminate. Joe ends up seeing an older version of himself (played by Bruce Willis) appear before him, and he ends up getting away. From there the young Joe is on the run as he has searches for the old Joe in order to get the mob off his back and live to see another day (so to speak).

To say more will give away some of “Looper’s” most inventive moments as it is full of surprises you don’t see coming. The story looks to have been very well thought out, and its focus is more on the characters than anything else. And like the more recent sci-fi movies such as “Children of Men,” it creates a future that looks futuristic but at the same time is not far removed from our own. Some movies can alienate you with their overreliance on special effects like the needless remake of “Total Recall,” but “Looper” isn’t out to blow you away visually. Instead, it finds its most potent moments involving the insane situations Levitt and Willis among others find themselves in.

“Looper” isn’t the first movie where two actors play different versions of the same character, but I have a hard time remembering the last one which had that happen (maybe it was one of the “Austin Powers” sequels). Seeing Levitt and Willis face off in a diner gives us one of the most riveting scenes in any movie you will see in any movie this year. Considering how brutal they are to each other throughout the movie, I couldn’t help but think: “talk about being hard on yourself!”

Time travel as a concept has been done to death in movies, and Johnson is fully aware of how familiar movie audiences are of the rules surrounding it. I loved how he used that to his advantage here as it makes “Looper” easier to follow than it might seem at first. Johnson also succeeds in juggling different storylines to great effect as it could have burned out creatively speaking before the end credits came up. You go into “Looper” thinking it’s about time travel, but then it becomes about something else entirely. Like “The Master” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” this is a film that demands to be seen multiple times to take in all its meanings.

Levitt has had a fantastic year so far in 2012 with terrific performances in “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Premium Rush” and, unless he does better in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming “Lincoln,” “Looper” is the icing on the cake for him. As the young Joe Simmons, he gets his meatiest role to date as an assassin who’s a drug addict (what’s in those eye drops anyway?) but also still has a bit of conscience left. While the prosthetics on his face, which were used to make him look more Willis, are a bit awkward to take in at first, Levitt gives the role his all and looks thrilled to able to transform himself into a character like this.

So much has been said over the years about Bruce Willis as his role as John McClane from the “Die Hard” movies will forever be burned into our consciousness, but seeing him as Old Joe in “Looper” reminds us of what a great actor he can be. His Joe is driven to correct the past so that he can save the future he built up for himself, but it also forces him to do things that leave him morally conflicted. Seeing the pain cross Willis’ face makes us still root for him somewhat in “Looper” even as his character goes seriously astray with his deadly actions.

Then there’s Emily Blunt who plays hard bitten single mom Sara, and she is incredibly powerful in “Looper” regardless of whether or not she is wielding a heavy duty shotgun. Blunt has been a continually wonderful presence in each movie she’s in, and here she gets to be both bad-ass and very vulnerable. Her scenes with Pierce Gagnon, the 5-year old actor who is amazing as her son Cid, are as emotionally powerful as they are deeply suspenseful.

There are also other terrific performances to be found in “Looper” from actors like Paul Dano who plays neurotic assassin Seth, and Noah Segan who channels Billy the Kid into his role of a six shooter carrying killer named Kid Blue. And there’s no forgetting the great Jeff Daniels who brings both danger and humor to his role of mob boss Abe. Some are surprised to see Daniels in this kind of role given that he is typically cast as nice guys in movies, but keep in mind this is the same guy who played the most embittered of writers in “The Squid and The Whale.”

It’s a treat for moviegoers that a film as endlessly inventive as “Looper” got produced in a time where creativity is at a cinematic low. Everyone involved in this picture clearly came to it with tremendous enthusiasm, and it shows every single second in unfolds before us. It is not only one of the best movies of 2012, but also one of the best time travel movies ever made.

* * * * out of * * * *

David Koepp’s “Premium Rush” is the best cycling movie in some time… Heck, can anyone remember the last cycling movie that came out? I keep thinking it was Hal Needham’s “Rad,” but that came out in 1986. There’s also no topping the classic “Breaking Away,” the cycling movie many aspire to be like. Anyway it doesn’t matter because “Premium Rush” delivers the goods like any action film should, and it does so with terrific acting, sharp writing, and what looks like the real thing and not CGI as we watch these daredevil bike messengers throttle their way through the insanely busy streets of New York City.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Wilee who is seen as one of the very best bicycle messengers in New York as he gets things to where they need to be and right on schedule. Of course, this requires him to travel at breakneck speeds through busy traffic where car downs can open up at the most inconvenient time, and he also has to deal with various members of the NYPD who have it in for him and others in his line of work. Oh yeah, Wilee’s bike of choice has only one gear and he’s taken the breaks off of it so that nothing will slow him down (that’s how he rolls).

Looking at that description makes one wonder if Wilee has a death wish or if he’s just an adrenaline junkie. What we learn though is that he came close to becoming a lawyer, but the idea of sitting behind a desk in some office does not appeal to him in the slightest. Of course, it probably wouldn’t appeal to anyone who’s seen “Office Space.”

His ex-girlfriend Vanessa (Dania Ramirez), however, entertains thoughts of working in an office as she doesn’t want to be a bike messenger forever (she does say though that it beats waiting tables). There’s also Tito (Anthony Chisholm) who doesn’t let his advanced age make him any less useful in this line of work (nor should it), and Manny (Wolé Parks) who competes with Wilee not just on a bike but for Vanessa as well.

This one particular day has Wilee delivering a package that has caught the attention of NYPD cop Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon). Now Monday wants what Wilee has, but while Wilee is not always one to obey the rules of the road, he does follow the strict guidelines of his job which states that messengers will not hand over the package they’re delivering to anyone other than who it is meant for. As a result, Monday begins chasing Wilee down as we find out that this NYPD cop, like any other stupid gambling addict, has an unforgivably high debt to pay off.

David Koepp is best known as a screenwriter, having penned such screenplays like “Jurassic Park,” “Spider-Man,” and “Panic Room.” Along with co-writer John Kamps, Koepp has great fun telling the story of “Premium Rush” in a non-linear fashion. The movie goes back and forth in time as the actions of the characters are made more understandable and given more depth. This way of storytelling may alienate certain audience members, but I liked it as it plays around with our perceptions of what we believe to be true. Just when you think you know what’s going on in this somewhat formulaic story, something comes along which changes the way you see things.

As a director, Koepp has had varying degrees of success with movies like “The Trigger Effect,” “Stir of Echoes” and “Secret Window,” but here he manages to keep the action exciting and never for one second lets it drag. It also helps that the cycling done in  this movie appears to be for real, and it makes me wonder how it was choreographed and who these stunt people are who dared to pedal fast while cars come at them in all sorts of directions.

People may debate whether this movie might serve as a recruitment gig for bike messengers, but it also shows how painful it can be when you crash into something (and odds are you will). There’s also a scene during the end credits which shows Levitt’s arm all bloody after he hit the back window of a taxi cab, and that makes up for the lack of a disclaimer.

Levitt has had great success in the last few years with movies like “(500) Days of Summer,” “Inception” and this year’s “The Dark Knight Rises,” and he is fantastic here as a character named after that coyote who chased the Road Runner endlessly. This role could have been given to some actor who would have annoyed us with their overwhelming ego, but Levitt makes this character likable despite his insane bike-riding habits.

You also have ace character actor Michael Shannon on board here as an undeniably dirty. It doesn’t matter what movie he’s in because Shannon never disappoints in giving us a great performance, and as Bobby Monday he makes what could have been a mere one-dimensional villain all the more colorful. We’ve seen corrupt cops like this one in so many different movies, but Shannon makes him seem more intriguing than what originally appeared on the written page.

The rest of the cast from Dania Ramirez (whom you may remember as AJ’s girlfriend on “The Sopranos”) to the always entertaining Aasif Mandvi succeed in making this movie all the more entertaining to watch. The action is also given an exciting and propulsive score by David Sardy and a beautifully sunny look by cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen. Heck, watching this movie makes you almost as sweaty as the summer heat that’s been boiling us this past August.

“Premium Rush” is nothing spectacular, but it is fun to watch. It’s a shame that it’s not doing better at the box office, although I do have to say that Columbia Pictures kind of screwed up its release. Watching it reminds us who don’t ride bikes anymore how fun and very dangerous it can be. If nothing else, it does make wearing a helmet while riding a bike for more appealing than it ever has been before.

* * * out of * * * *