Looper Movie Review

Looper is a 2012 film directed by Rian Johnson. It is a time-travel, sci-fi movie that takes place in the year of 2044, 30 years before time travel is invented. Our main character is Joe (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt from Inception and The Dark Knight Rises), who is a Looper. A Looper is someone who kills criminals in a remote area, who are sent back to him from 30 years in the future. It is impossible to get away with murder in the future so criminals sneak whoever they want to murder into the past where their bodies can't be found. Everything is going great for Joe until his future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back to him to kill.
This is one of those movies where if you miss a second you will be lost during the rest of the movie. Fortunately, it's a very engaging movie and will keep your attention throughout. It's really exciting and has really cool action scenes. The pacing is really steady to where you don't miss any important details and can keep up with the rules of Johnson's time travel universe.
If you're someone who's nit-picky and likes to dive into the meta-physics of time travel, you're either going to give yourself a headache or enjoy picking this movie apart. It's definitely a film I would recommend to sci-fi fans.
As I said, the story is engaging, and all of the characters are amazingly developed where they are believably realistic. The actors all dive into their roles, especially one young actor named Pierce Gagnon who plays Cid. He plays one of those child characters that has an old soul quality about him. Sometimes kid characters like this in movies are played off as just smarter than the adult characters and don't act like real kids. Gagnon on the other hand is still impressionable and emotionally vulnerable, but still has a presence that suggests he isn't an ordinary kid. 
The elements that really stand out is the pacing, the action, the awesome characters, and the entertaining story. If you love sci-fi, action, and well written screenplays, go check it out and let me know in the comments what you think and how it compares to your favorite sci-fi movie! I give this movie 9/10

"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson

The first novel in the Millennium Series is as bad-ass as the hype makes it out to be. It's a psychological thriller with everything a reader could ever ask for. Great suspense, characters that feel like real people, and a plot that is very satisfying. I won't talk too much about it because I don't want to spoil anything.
For those of you that don't know, the book is about a Swedish financial journalist named Mikael Blomkvist who takes on a forty year old case of the disappearance of Harriet Vanger. He hires Lisbeth Salander to help him with the case and the plot takes off from there.
The story is mostly through Blomkvist's point of view. He provides a practical perspective of all the events and twists and turns of the plot. He's basically the every guy we're supposed to relate to. The rest of the story is through Salander's perspective. Salander is a very strong character who is cold, calculating, brilliant, ruthless, and mysterious. She makes this novel and pretty much steals the story.
The writing style of the book shows that the late author Stieg Larsson was a perfectionist and took this story seriously. The tone is direct, yet sophisticated. It treats the subject matter with a professional, yet graphic manner that makes the audience take it seriously, while still have an emotional connection with it.
A caution for some of you readers; yes, there is a rape scene. The interesting thing is when Larsson was a teenager he witnessed a rape and felt guilty for years that he couldn't do anything to help the victim. Lisbeth is based on that victim. The original title, according to Wikipedia, "Män som hatar kvinnor" literally means "Men Who Hate Women". Rape is a motif in the novel. It deals with the horror of rape and the degree people with power go to just to abuse people who are weaker than themselves. If you're squimish about that stuff, then this book isn't for you.
I would recommend this book to all fans of crime stories, psychological thrillers, modern Swedish culture, and anyone who enjoys a perfectly written novel. Of course this is an adult book so I would recommend it to anyone who is 18 or older.
I give this book a 10/10. It is that awesome!