When am I writing this review? Is it now (3/1/2009 9:02 PM Central - whatever that means), was it when I had the idea for it; what about the time difference between first draft and eventual post? Does this review even exist if no one is reading it? Does it get created and destroyed with every page view?
Ah, the slippery nature of time. What got me thinking about all this time stuff was the movie Primer. Which is a low -budget (in the monetary not quality sense), independent film about two engineers who essentially discover time travel while tooling around in their garage. There are no Morlocks but some interesting questions are raised nonetheless.
The film itself keeps shifting timelines, and I don't claim to understand everything that happened in the movie. I will need to watch it again but I thought perhaps it better if I didn't immediately rewatch it. Some movies, books, people are supposed to f**k with your head and it is actually better if you don't try to untangle them. Like those 3-D pictures you have to step back and view it holistically.
That said, I do think Primer would stand up to scrutiny and it seemed to have pretty good continuity. But in the past I've picked movies to death and they've been diminished. For example, I read about one possible flaw in Memento, which is another head-tripper, and have never been motivated to see it again. Despite having loved it walking out of the theater. But Primer is going back into the Netflix queue.
Bottom line: Well-crafted & head-trippy Primer gets 4 TKs out of 5.
Favorite quote: Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon.
Update: I'm a movie genius - Roger Ebert agrees with me: From the Wikipedia about Memento: After watching Memento twice, he [Ebert] concluded that "Greater understanding helped on the plot level, but didn't enrich the viewing experience. Confusion is the state we are intended to be in."
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