“Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.” Jim Bishop.
Hello, glad to be back again in time.
They say time travel movies have become in this day and age what the zombie movies were back in the early 2000s. Whether this is true or not time travel movies have always been popular and let us fantasize a little while at the same time make us question about our own lives.
Here are 5 movies (and one bonus) for you let your imagination run wild and reflect about your own life as well:
5.Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
“That is the last time I'm dying for you...”
Tree, a young woman college student must live again and again the very same day of her death in order to find a killer with the mask of a baby.
Other students build a reactor that open a different dimension in which Tree has the chance to meet again with her mother, who is dead in real life but in this new dimension is alive. Tree decides to stay living in this new dimension and things go nice for a while, until something happens and Tree will have to face the painful events that led to her death and return to real life, even if that means never seeing her mother again.
Still of Happy Death Day 2U
I have to admit that I wasn’t crazy about watching this one when it premiered last year on TV; but I said to myself: “It’s Saturday night, you don’t have anything to do, you haven’t seen a movie like this in a while”, so I gave it a chance and it was worthy. By the way, this is the first movie I have seen people eating churros, can you name another one?
A science fiction black comedy slasher sequel film, yeah all of that together, written and directed by Christopher Landon. It has some Hollywood clichés: The blond British villain, the beta male Asian genius and a little of French bashing. But in overall it’s worth of your time and it doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen the first part that came in 2017, it’s one of those strange cases where the sequel is better than its predecessor.
A surprisingly good movie.
Check the trailer here:
Happy Death Day 2U Trailer #1 (2019)
Fun fact: director Christopher Landon announced plans for a third film as soon as production wrapped.
4.Cashback (2006)
“Once upon a time, I wanted to know what love was. Love is there if you want it to be. You just have to see that it's wrapped in beauty and hidden away in between the seconds of your life. If you don't stop for a minute, you might miss it”.
What if you could not turn back time but could actually stretch time? This is the premise of this 2006 British film about an art student who after painful break up with his girlfriend starts suffering insomnia and believing he can stretch time.
To deal with his insomnia, the art student Ben will apply for a night shift job at a local supermarket. While working there he will start using his imagination to stop the world around him, stretch time, improve his art, undress female clients, and play with his surroundings. There he will find out his coworkers also have their own way to deal with the burden of an eight hours night shift, especially doing pranks to each other. Ben will then meet and start dating Sharon, a quiet blonde employee who may have the final cure for Ben’s insomnia.
A still of Cashback
After a practical joke from his coworkers and recovering from his insomnia, Ben must decide if he wants to continue living like the average Joe or pursuing his dream of becoming an artist.
It’s kind of weird and a little slow sometimes, but as the story progresses it gains its mojo back; the ending will fix all of those defects. British director Sean Elli based this movie on a short film also directed by himself.
Check the trailer here:
CASHBACK Trailer
Fun fact: The book Ben can be seen reading after realizing that he is suffering from insomnia is 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee.
3.About Time (2013)
“We're all traveling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride”.
At the age of 21, Tim, a young man from Cornwall, is informed by his father that he can travel in time. He decides to use this power to get the woman of his dreams, but the thing will not be as easy as he thinks.
There is also a catch to the time travels: he can only travel to past events within his own life; he cannot go to the future and cannot change the course of history. Tim lives an ideal, almost utopian life, with his kind of weird family in Cornwall until he has to move to London to train as a lawyer and make a life of his own. Years pass until one day he meets the manic pixie girl of his dreams, an American woman named Mary. Tim will use all his time travel powers to get her to be his girlfriend, but will have to face some serious obstacles on the way. After winning her heart, things go nice for a while for Tim until a terrible news will make Tim decide to continue with his life as a time traveler but that could mean he will never see his father again.
Tim walks Mary home in About Time
Starring Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson, American Made (2017) and Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017), and Canadian Rachel McAdams, a frequent protagonist of time travel movies where she actually don’t travel at all, and directed by Richard Curtis, Love Actually (2003); you will also see Vanessa Kirby, better known as The White Window in Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Margot Robbie in the same year of her big break in The Wolf of Wall Street. This movie will let you questioning the events of your own life, why you cannot make someone love you, why you have to embrace the good and also the bad and your relationship with your family. The landscapes of Cornwall are lovely, the wedding scene is just spectacular: a beautiful bride dressed in red enters the church while some Italian guy sings Il Mondo, together with a very nice soundtrack (it’s notable the use of Arvo Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel), it’s a fantasy romantic comedy will touch your heart; if you are a man, it will make you think about your own relationship with your father.
You don’t want to miss this one.
Check the trailer here:
About Time Official Trailer #1 (2013)
Fun fact: This film grossed $87.1 million against a $12 million budget.
2.Midnight in Paris (2011)
“We all fear death and question our place in the universe. The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence”.
A screenwriter and aspiring novelist travels to Paris with his fiancée and her wealthy family, there he will find himself travelling in time to the Paris of the 1920s and questioning where his real life is going.
After Gil Pender, a disillusioned screenwriter, arrives in Paris with his fiancée, Inez, and her rich family he finds the city amazing and just exactly what he needs to het the inspiration to finish his first novel. But Inez doesn’t share Gil’s enthusiasm with the city. When Inez goes off dancing with her friends, Gil takes a walk just at midnight, when the bells tolls, a yellow 1928 Peugot 184 stops in fornt of him; some people get out of the car and invite Gil to get in… and suddenly Gil finds himself in the Paris of the 1920s. He rubs elbows with the likes of Ernst Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Man Ray, Djuna Barnes, Josephine Baker, Cole Porter, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dali and literary critic Gertrude Stein and discovers what could be the ultimate source of inspiration for writing.
Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard in Midnight in Paris
During the days the family spends their time sightseeing and eating out at restaurants, Gil tags along reluctantly and becomes a sort of killjoy. He cannot wait for the day turn into night to go partying in the Paris of his time travels. He visits a flea market, buys a copy of a Cole Porter album and makes conversation a quiet antique dealer we will later discover her name is Gabrielle. In his travels at night he will start a relationship with Adriana, a mysterious and alluring Parisian woman who also happens to be one of Pablo Picasso’s mistresses. Meanwhile, in real life Gil’s fiancée Inez will start a secret affair of her own with the smug, pseudo-intellectual, Paul.
In his last travel in time Gil and Adriana will find themselves not in the Paris of the 1920s but in the Paris of the late 19th century, the times of La Belle Epoque. Adriana wants to stay there but Gil wants to return to the 1920s so he leaves a restaurant where Adriana meets Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gaugin and Edgar Degas. After the fantasy is over, Gil will have to face his own real life, question his relationship with the woman he is about to marry and decide for once and for all if he wants to stay in Paris or not.
The prolific American-Jewish director Woody Allen is no stranger to fantasy stories, Zelig (1983) and The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Midnight in Paris granted him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and it’s his most successful in the box office film so far. The film opens with some of the most beautiful shots of Paris ever put on screen. Owen Wilson plays a perfect Allen’s alter ego in the role of the writer Gil Pender. Rachel McAdams in the role of Gil’s fiancée, Inez, is here in her second movie where she doesn’t travel in time at all; she plays a very aloud and bitchy daughter of wealthy parents. Katy Bates as Gertrude Stein was an excellent choice. Tom Hiddleston plays F. Scott Ftzgerald in his youth as an American expat in Paris. Marion Cotillard is the capricious mistress of Pablo Picasso and who later will become Gil’s lover in his time travels. And the Beautiful Léa Seydoux plays the quiet antique dealer in a Paris’ flea market.
This film deals with the erroneous idea we get sometimes that other people’s lives are better than our own. Together with the beautiful Paris sights, this movie is a jewel in Woody Allen’s career. A classic of the 21st century you don’t want to miss.
Check the trailer here:
Midnight in Paris | Official Trailer HD (2011)
Fun fact: Due to Woody Allen's habit of only giving actors the script pages concerning their characters, Tom Hiddleston was unaware of the film's time travel storyline until he met Owen Wilson on-set and asked him why he wasn't wearing period-accurate clothing like the rest of the cast.
1.Groundhog Day (1993)
“Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today”.
Suddenly a man finds himself living the same day over and over again.
A movie that has gained cult status and popularity over the years and it’s considered one of the best fantasy comedies of all times and one of the best movies of the 1990s. What day of your life would you want to live over and over for the rest of your life? What if it was a day you wouldn’t want to remember? It may be fun for a while but when this happens to weatherman Phil Connors when he is sent reluctantly to cover an event in Pennsylvania called The Groundhog Day. After the event is covered and when Phil is on his way out of town, is caught in a giant blizzard, which he failed to predict, and finds himself stuck again in the small-town. He wakes up the next day and suddenly discovers he’s trapped in time, living in the same day over and over again.
Bill Murray and a groundhog
Phil has a blast doing all kinds of mean things to people and getting in all kinds of trouble without ever stopping to think of the consequences. When the time travel is not fun anymore he commits suicide several times in the most creative ways possible, he most deal with the fact that this is his new normal life and find a way to make it something out of it. His life will take a new meaning when he uses his time travels to his advantage, conquer his fears, win the heart of the relentlessly cheerful TV producer Rita Hanson and accomplish all the things he ever wanted to do in his real life.
Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell in Groughog Day.
Directed by the late Harold Ramis, better known for his role as Egon Spengler in in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and starring the great Bill Murray in the role of Phil and Andie MacDowell as Rita Hanson, this movie won a BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, it has been praised as Bill Murray's best movie ever and was included in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress in 2006.
Do yourself a favor and don’t miss this one.
Check the trailer here:
Groundhog Day (1993) Trailer #1
Fun fact: This film marked the end of Harold Ramis and Bill Murray's long collaborative partnership that had produced films like Caddyshack (1980) and Ghostbusters (1984). The pair did not speak after filming until shortly before Ramis' death in 2014.
Bonus time travel movie:
Donnie Darko (2001)
“I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to”.
An awkward teenager from a small town in Virginia keeps receiving visits from a strange man dressed in a rabbit costume who is waiting like him for the end of the world.
Donnie Darko has been experiencing bouts of sleepwalking and wakes up on a road before cycling home. Later that night, led by a mysterious voice, he sleepwalks out of his home. Once outside, he meets a figure in a monstrous rabbit costume who Donnie comes to refer to as Frank who tells Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. Donnie wakes up the next morning on a local golf course and returns home to discover a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom. His older sister Elizabeth tells him the FAA investigators do not know its origin.
Life goes quietly but Donnie continues receiving the visits of the strange rabbit who tells him messages he cannot comprehend.
Another visit from the strange rabbit.
I don’t want to get too much into this one, it’s better you watch yourself and get to your own conclusions. This movie really blew my mind the first time I saw it. It was a complete fiasco when it came out in 2001, and I have to admit I’ve never heard or knew anything about it until years later when I kept seeing it including in lists of the best science-fiction movies ever. Everybody has an opinion about it, actor Jake Gyllenhaal has even stated he doesn’t know what the movie is about.
Too bad director Richard Kelly never made another movie as good as this one what led him to be labeled as a one hit wonder director. Well, at least he gave us this masterpiece!
Check the trailer here:
Donnie Darko Re-Release Trailer (2017)
Fun fact: Patrick Swayze wore his own clothes from the 1980s for this film.
So, what do you think? Have you seen any of this movies? Which one would you like to see first? Any other time travel movie you would like to recommend? Don’t be shy and let us know in the comment section.
This is my third movie related post, check the other ones here:
@thereadingman/12-cool-classic-movies-you
@thereadingman/10-of-my-favorite-science
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Until next time.
Take care.
The reading man.