"Finally someone who speaks English!"

I see Pepper having Banner's cellphone on speed dial so she can call him and hand the phone to Tony when Tony starts babbling. And Tony making sure Banner has a nearly Hulk-proof phone.

Question re: Hulk. How much control does he really have? Does it depend on whether he chooses to change or if things get overwhelming and force the change?

Question re: Hulk. How much control does he really have? Does it depend on whether he chooses to change or if things get overwhelming and force the change?

The movie seemed to indicate that when he chooses to change, he has more control. I don't understand the logic behind him Hulking out, so I'm going to just go with the handwavium.

It was definitely a case of "If you haven't seen the other movies, just try to keep up because we're not going to give you a reason to really care about anyone here."

Eh, I'd only seen Iron Man 2 of the leadups and I frigging loved the hell out of Avengers.

Honestly have only minimal desire to see the Captain America and Thor movies despite the praises from here and from meatspace. But I'll see another Joss Avengers movie at midnight preview again.

Captain America was pretty good. I mean, I liked Thor, but Cap's story has a lot of heart.

Man, I cried. Thor was a whatever action movie. Iron Man was a fun and exciting movie, and Captain America was sweet and exciting. Chris knocked it out of the park with a character I theoretically don't give a fuck about.

I liked the part where Thor got Loki out of the jet. "Afraid of a little lightning?" "I'm afraid of what comes after."

So Looper was really good, but I think I set my expectations way too high, and it wasn't entirely what I expected, so I feel weird about it. It's very stylish, the cast is great, and it's funny and action-packed. I love that they threw in telekinesis, but I kind of wanted the movie to be more about the relationship between Joe and Old Joe. That diner scene was great. More of that! So when it switched to the farm and became about the scary telekinetic kid, that was also cool, but not exactly what I wanted. Also, you know, standard complaint about female characters in sci-fi movies. I wonder whether Rian Johnson has some fetish for Asian women who don't talk.

I dug the movie, but I was expecting to be blown away after all the hype.

Does anyone have an opinion on ETX? Is it worth $3 extra?

I think I liked Looper more than P-C did. I thought the movie was much better than I expected and despite knowing the premise, the movie still surprised me. I see P-C's point about a certain character, but since that character (and other events around the character) were largely symbolic - at least that's how I read it - it didn't bother me too much.

There was one set of scenes in the movie, where Bruce Willis got to be Bruce Willis that literally made me clap my hands in the theater.

Beau did not like the very end of the movie, asking me on the ride home: "did he fuck his mama?" Can you really ask that question delicately? I think that was a bit of fucked up direction to let that question linger. I think the answer to that question is "no" but damn.

Who was Beau asking about? I mean, I think the answer is no, no one did that, but who could you imagine had done that? How did that even come up?

I think the premise it rests on is fragile as all hell, and the director said his goal was for the time travel mechanics to stand up well enough that you don't find gaping holes until after the credits--I will give him that.

I found some large chunks unpredictable--there are two shifts (one didn't pan out like I started to worry--I thought it might have become a Bruce Willis movie with no more JGL for a long time --whew!) that made getting the whole of the plot impossible for me, but with the big flashing sign pointing to the TK (literally), and the general mass market narrative rule that you can't kill innocent children and get a hero's reward (no need to inundate me with exceptions--general only) I knew that someone would have meaningful amounts of TK and that old Joe wouldn't live to the end or get his future back. Since young Joe's major flaw was his possessiveness of his life, the idea that he'd sacrifice it seemed to be the logical progression for his arc.

I feel it suffered from Joe catching the idiot ball and running with it for a good long while-- how could he not work out earlier that Cid was the Rainmaker? From the moment he was told Cid saw his mother die--he knows, like, two facts about this Rainmaker, and that's one of them-- why would that possibly take so long, other than to allow certain events to happen and stretch out the tension? I'd honestly thought he'd figured it out and it was a memory problem, but couldn't work out why a memory like that wouldn't be clarion clear, I was that confused. Also, the random coincidence of the hooker's kid fitting the requirements pretty much for a minor bump in tension (since *we* at least already know who the Rainmaker is, even if Joe is extra slow still) and to provide a plausible reason for Blue to find old Joe while still being a moron.

Both of those were in-movie distracting weak sauce.

I've decided to stop thinking about the mechanics of the time travel since it's only going to make me like it less, and it was enjoyable during the experience except for those two bits--the acting was good, the makeup didn't distract me as much as I worried it would, the worldbuilding seemed generally careful, and the set design interesting enough to keep the eye happy with a feeling of future, but not truly alien.