Movie: Looper

Although Looper is a movie about time travel, very little time is actually spent on the mechanics and the potential inconsistencies posed by time travel. It eventually boils down more to two love stories - a man and his wife and a mother and her child. Set in a near future, where cities are ruled by crime lords; the hero is a drugged up thug who works for one such crime lord, as an assassin. 

In a longer term future, time travel has been discovered, banned and effectively only used by crime lords to dispose of bodies to a past; where they are disposed off by asssassins known as Loopers. It is a novel plot on an old science fiction classic, and most of the time travel conundrums are addressed fairly well. 

While Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis are the main heroes (with Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing the younger Bruce Willis); the really great performance is delivered by the young Pierce Gagnon (Cid) who ties all the storylines together. 

It's a good sci-fi action movie, and certainly worthwhile watching.

Parker's New Year's Eve Show

After last year's successful New Year's Eve show, M and I decided it would be a great idea to do it again. This year, the club didn't seem to be packed; but Montecasino itself was fully stuffed. Like last year, the show included snacks (various finger food); and while the price was higher than last year - it wasn't a massive hike.

The show was hosted by Joe Parker, who seems to rehash his old jokes quite often. He does supplement it however by picking on various audience members; with the main target last night being the big table in the front centre of the stage.

The first act of the evening was also, I think the weakest - Martin Evans (introduced as "from Cape Town, via London"). A lot of his material comprised of the differences between Jo'burg and Cape Town; and frankly it didn't seem anything significantly newer than previous comedians' material in this regard. 

Introduced as the "token black guy", Nqoba Ngcobo, left no sacred cows in some of the darkest humour. Aside from John Vlismas, I haven't heard any other South African comedian push the boundary so far, so well. His set started rather softly and ended with a bit of a slapstick; but in between was pure comedic gold; with some of his material definitely unsafe anywhere other than a comedy club. And even if we discount the jokes that pushed the boundaries; there was also brilliance in his other material; with the standout being the a tale told almost completely with cricket jargon.

If Nqoba Ngcobo was the token black guy, Melt Sieberhagen was the token Afrikaner guy - minus the two tone khaki. He drew the biggest laughs; and his jokes were the most memorable of the night and even the ones that he recycled from last year's show fitted in perfectly.

One of the highlight's of last year's show, Schalk Bezuidenhout, performed a 10 minute, unscheduled set before the main act. I had heard most of the material before; but his treatise on why "7de Laan" is crap got some of the biggest laughs of the night.

The highlight of the evening was definitely Deep Fried Man; who has had an incredibly successful start to his comedy career. His set, comprising mostly of songs set to (mostly) pop music; was some what reminiscent of Wierd Al; but with significantly more meaningful lyrics. A lot of the material was on White Guilt and race relations (something missing for most of the evening, funilly enough), but told very elequently and a brilliant fit to music.

Unlike last year, we decided not to hangout inside the club, and got to the very crowded Montecasino Piazza which featured a very impressive fireworks show to bring in the new year. All in all, a good night.