The big story this week is how much money TriStar is throwing at writer/director Rian Johnson‘s new mind-bending sci-fi time-travel film “Looper.” To put it simply, this movie delivers. And it does so in a sub-genre that is filled with pitfalls.

Time-travel movies usually do one of two things: They collapse under the weight of their own ambition and the confusing timelines and “laws of time travel,” or they simplify these rules to the point where the stories aren’t compelling or exciting anymore.

What Johnson does in “Looper” is simple. First, he lays down the laws of the time-travel concept. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a hitman who assassinates people who are sent to the past from the future by the Mafia. (He does this just outside a cornfield in Kansas on a plastic trash bag, by the way.)

When his older self, played by a typically grizzled Bruce Willis, comes through the time loop, he escapes and begins to wreak havoc in Gordon-Levitt’s past. To go any further into the plot would do the viewer a disservice because after Johnson lays down the laws of time travel in this world, he plays in that sandbox, mining it for clever ideas and bringing them up naturally within the plot.

The second thing he does is move beyond the premise and reframe the entire film. Rarely do you see a movie that forces you to look at it again in an entirely different context, but “Looper” does just that. The key is: The whole thing works emotionally. It would be useless to toy with the possibilities of this kind of time-travel without giving the characters a solid foundation and a need for growth. Johnson’s characters have just that, and you root for them all.

“Looper” is smart sci-fi genre fare, and its studio TriStar is banking not only on the star appeal of Willis and Gordon-Levitt, but also on the fact that people want to see smarter genre films. If Christopher Nolan can blow minds and rake in box office with something as far-out as “Inception,” why can’t Johnson have a similar success with “Looper”?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMyqYvZtdMo

Ironically, the film’s biggest chance for mainstream success is also its curse. Despite his recent role in Wes Anderson’s surprise sleeper “Moonrise Kingdom,” Willis hasn’t exactly been choosing to appear in brainy movies lately. A lot of people are seeing the “Looper” trailer and Willis and thinking it could be another one of the actor’s horribly generic action films.

It’s not. It’s terrific fun and it packs an emotional punch as well. Send the studios a message. If you want smarter stuff from your genre movies, go see “Looper” in the theater and help make it a success.

Sunday morning at 11am, Liberty Hall continues its Film Church series when it screens the harrowing indie drama “Winter’s Bone.”

This is the movie that put young Jennifer Lawrence on the map, earning her a Best Actress nomination. She deserved it for playing a 17-year-old girl in the wilds of rural Ozark country — a place rife with crime, betrayal, and underground methamphetamine labs. John Hawkes received a richly deserved Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing her meth-addicted uncle.

Despite being filmed on location for a measly $2 million, director Debra Granik‘s adaptation of the Daniel Woodrell book went on to gross five times that amount and nab Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay nominations as well.

Film Church is is teaming up with The Lawrence Public Library‘s Read Across Lawrence event to present this modern classic, and the whole program comes with a delicious brunch and bloody marys. Woodrell was just in town on Thursday for two library-sponsored speaking events, and and signed copies of most of his works will be available for sale at Liberty Hall, courtesy of The Raven Book Store.