Mr. Nobody by Jaco van Dormael, 2009 (R)

with Jared Leto, Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz), Diane Kruger (Les garçons et Guillaume, à table), Linh Dan Pham (Tout Ce Qui Brille - All That Glitters), Rhys Ifans (The Five-Year Engagement), Natasha Little, Toby Regbo, Juno Temple (Jack & Diane, The Dark Knight Rises, Kaboom), Clare Stone, Chiara Caselli, Daniel Brochu, Daniel Mays

The last mortal in a world of immortals, Nemo Nobody begins reviewing his life at the age of 120, trying to determine if he made the right decisions. Potential choices during a pivotal moment on a train platform lead to several possible lives.

This is a complicated one to review, mostly because the mix of genres makes it quite unclassifiable, which in a way reminds me of Cloud Atlas. It is an alien which you continue to watch pleasantly (perhaps sometimes a little too slowly), until it gets you somewhere. It is cute, somehow unpretentious, and for someone who isn't a fan of Diane Kruger, she quite amazed me (I gotta admit it took me the entire movie to figure out who she was).

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Looper by Rian Johnson, 2012 (R)

with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (50/50), Bruce Willis (Bandits, Surrogates, RED), Emily Blunt (The Adjustment Bureau, Wild Target, The Five-Year Engagement), Piper Perabo (Imagine Me and You), Paul Dano (Knight and Day, Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood), Garret Dillahunt (Winter's Bone), Jeff Daniels, Tracie Thoms, Pierce Gagnon

In this sci-fi mindbender, a mob hit man who kills people sent from the future finds himself in a curious predicament when he discovers that one of his targets is his future self, shipped back through time to be whacked.

I didn't have high expectation on this one, but the story is interesting, with an interesting conception of time travel, imagining new rules, a new world. Of course there is always a big bad guy, but at the same time, it is pretty interesting to see how he is portrayed, and the surprises we get along the scenario is entertaining and mind-oriented enough we don't fall into the usual blockbuster. The performance of Gordon-Levitt portraying a younger Bruce Willis is quite convincing, the kid is incredibly freaky, the idea of the close future and further future quite original in their own way of being quite realistic. The only character I really didn't get, since it was sort of overused and not put in context was the role played by Piper Perabo who had to appear at two different moments with no logic at all.

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Source Code by Duncan Jones, 2011

with Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Arden, Cas Anvar, Russell Peters, Brent Skagford, Craig Thomas

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a soldier recruited for a time-bending government investigation that places him in another man's mind and body to relive the same traumatic event repeatedly in an effort to identify the perpetrators of a terrorist bombing.

It is a great script. I am trying to remember... Ah yes, the movie has this thing that "Deja vu" had, about conviction that one can change the trajectory of time. I believe I love time travel. At the same time, it is very interesting because it has another dimension to it and somehow, ethics comes along. The acting is perfect, the story impeccable, the more we move forward, the more we get to understand the bigger picture, at the same rhythm as the flashbacks come.