The film In Time has a simple premise. Everyone has a counter on their arm that tells them exactly how long they have to live. It is accurate to the second and when it goes to zero the person dies immediately. In this world of the future they discover the secret of immortality. Everyone gets to stay 25 and live forever.
The catch is that it costs to extend your time. The rich can afford to keep living, while the poor live one day at a time. All this would be fascinating, but then it adds another wrinkle: Time is literally money. People spend time from their clock and earn time when they work. For example, it costs five minutes for a cup of coffee, but they earn two hours working in a sweatshop all day. This leads to some gut-wrenching decisions like deciding whether to eat or take the bus.
Andrew Niccol, a former commercial TV director, wrote and directed this fascinating analogy of poverty and desperation. I prefer his film Gattaca to this film. Both had a sociological theme behind it, but this one came off a little heavy-handed.
Timberlake plays Will Salas, a man living in a slum. He lives with his mother, Rachel Salas, played by Olivia Wilde. At first Olivia Wilde's performance as his mother is kind of jarring. Seeing a woman younger that Justin holding and kissing him is weird. Like a modern retelling of Oedipus. After a few moments though, her phenomenal acting shines through and her motherly attitude quickly won me over.
Since Will works at a factory where he makes the very machines that dispense time, I figured the story would be about him stealing one of the time dispensers. Instead, he goes to a bar where a guy Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), is spending time like water on drinks. The glowing green counter on his arm shows a century. In a place where people live minute to minute, this is an unheard of amount of time.
He saves the man from a bunch of male models who steal time and the man gives him a gift. Turns out he's over a hundred and tired of living forever so he gives Will all his time committing suicide.
The story follows Timberlake on the run from "Time Keeper" police man Cillian Murphy for the perceived murder of Hamilton and his attempts to join high society on his borrowed time.
The film makes an amazing, although preachy, statement on class society in our world. A world where the divide between the rich and poor grows every day. Unfortunately, while the film itself is good, Justin's acting is wooden and we slowly get bored when people aren't running and jumping. This happens a lot. Not enough to save the film.
I give it three stars.
Would you watch the film? If you saw the film what did you think? If you could buy time how much would you buy and what would you do with it?
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
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for less than $25.49 (that’s 61% off the list price of $64.98). Its Tuesday, which means I let you know the latest DVD and Blu Ray deals. This is CyberMonday Deals Week at Amazon which means some crazy deals.Today's Gold Deal is the seven (or ten on DVD) disc set of the Ultimate Matrix collection.
that can bring the TARDIS into your home and life.
- This is, I think, the ultimate TARDIS toy. It's a model TARDIS that makes noises based on how you move it. If you pick it up, it plays the dematerialize sound. Put it down, makes the re-materialize noise. Shake it, spin it, it makes more sounds. Also lights up. And you can open the doors and see a contoured image of the TARDIS' interior.
- This toy will get attention from people, even if they have no idea who Doctor Who is. It features a TARDIS suspended in a magnetic field, so it floats in mid-air. With the right twist, you can even get it to spin. Definitely a conversation piece.
- When you're craving sweets and feel like some Doctor Who fun, this jar fits the bill. It plays the TARDIS materialization sounds when you open it, and also lights up. Satisfy your sweet tooth and your love of the Doctor at the same time.
- So you've got a lot of USB devices to connect and also like Doctor Who? You can solve both problems with this USB hub. It's a 4-slot USB hub shaped like the TARDIS. Pretty self-explanatory, but useful.
- Thanks to Doctor Who, we know the truth about the Moon landing, and you can share it with others. Get this T-shirt showing the Moon landing with the TARDIS in the background, and you'll spread the word, and look good doing it.
is a great show with a great problem. As a time-traveling alien, the Doctor finds himself in a limitless variety of situations. The problem is how he can possibly handle all of them, given the technological and cultural differences in different time periods. It's one thing for the Doctor to be in ancient Rome, dealing with Roman soldiers and aqueducts. Quite another when he's in London in 1999, where he has to deal with computers and the CIA. As a result, the show has equipped the Doctor with a wide variety of gadgets based on alien technology. Three of them alone give the Doctor the ability to do pretty much anything. Let's review...
- The sonic screwdriver is a small metal wand with a glowing tip that the Doctor carries everywhere. It emits some sort of energy or sound (never really explained what) that have a wide variety of effects. It can cut things open. It can seal things together. It can repair or destroy machines as simple as barbed wire or as complex as spaceships. It can give him information on anything or anyone. It can perform surgery. Basically, it does whatever the Doctor needs to do at any given time. All he has to do is wave it at or over the object, and the job's done.
was released in theaters. Set in a dystopian world where everyone is judged by their genetic profile, one man buys someone else's genetic identity to become an astronaut. Starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law, the movie has become a cult hit and a milestone in science-fiction film. You may have seen the movie, but here are a few things you probably didn't know.
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is considered by NASA the most implausible scifi movie ever made.
