Time-travel fun

Thrill ride: Looper is an action-packed and emotional suspension of disbelief

Time-travel movies are, and always will be, the ultimate in mind-bending entertainment. Whether it's something as frivolous as the Back to the Future trilogy, as action-packed as The Terminator series or as baffling as Donnie Darko, the time-travel plot device introduces paradoxes that are nearly impossible to wrap your head around, let alone concoct into a believable story.

Now entering that fray is Looper, which has a truly high-concept premise. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a so-called looper whose job it is to kill people sent to him from the future by groups like the Mob, who are unable to accomplish that task in their time. How he got involved in this pursuit and why he accepts it on what seems to be blind faith is never really addressed; it just is. But the tidy arrangement threatens to get blown to hell when the 30-years-older version of himself (Bruce Willis) is sent back for him to kill, only to escape when he hesitates just a moment too long.

The twists and turns in Looper deserve to be experienced with no further description, but suffice it to say that the cat-and-mouse game between young Joe and old Joe is both thrilling and emotional. It involves a present-day crime boss (Jeff Daniels) and his bumbling underlings; two beautiful women (Piper Perabo and Emily Blunt), whose interactions with both versions of Joe are key elements; and a young child whose future self sets into motion almost every event in the movie.

Writer/director Rian Johnson has been making a name for himself among serious moviegoers since 2005. His unique take on the private-eye genre with Brick (also starring Gordon-Levitt) was an audacious debut, and 2008’s The Brothers Bloom, while not quite as successful, found him inching a bit more toward the mainstream both in terms of the actors and the plot, which involved con men out to dupe an heiress.

Looper brings together the best of both worlds, putting out a voice that is distinctly Johnson’s while also making the story accessible enough to mainstream audiences that they can appreciate its nuances. The time-travel aspect is dealt with smartly, addressed just enough to make it integral to the film but not so much that it gets bogged down in details. Johnson even takes this head-on in a couple of scenes, having characters dismiss time-travel minutiae as unimportant.

And that’s what makes Looper so great. The central premise draws you in, but what keeps you watching is the way Johnson teases out various relationships, especially the one between new Joe and old Joe. Gordon-Levitt and Willis play off each other in fantastic ways, with Gordon-Levitt’s subtle facial prosthetics completely selling that he’s Willis’ younger self. The supporting cast acquit themselves well, especially Daniels and Blunt.

Looper is the type of movie I was waiting all summer for, one that exudes terrific action, intelligence and heart at the same time. If this is the signal for the start of fall movie season, we’re in for a great end to 2012.

Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records opens location in Garland

Josey Records

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

They chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."

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