Time Travel Recipe
Predestination follows a logical if not scientifically impossible conceit that time travel exists. For if one had a machine the size of a briefcase that allows travel through time then no matter when it’s invented it would mean that time travel can exist in any time for which one sets the controls. Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook star while the Spierig Brothers, Peter and Michael, write and direct.
Hawke is a temporal agent going back to specific dates in the 20th century to prevent crimes. Predestination is based on an 11-page short story by Robert A. Heinlein that first appeared in the March 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Set a few hundred years from our current time the story hops around between the 1970s and decades close to that as Hawke tracks a character known as The Unmarried Mother and another suspected terrorist. Heinlein would be ripe for a series of movie adaptions, much in the same manner that the stories of Philip K. Dick resonate with recent cinema.
What makes the Heinlein story and thus Predestination such a mind blower is the way the story resolves and all the threads of all the time periods pull together into a neat package. I would love to tell you what happens at the end because it’s a finale that makes you want to talk about it with somebody. But I can’t until you see it. If you’re a fan of sci-fi it is probably already on your list.
A documentary can be many things. The Search for General Tso examines the Chinese dish with the titular name but also digs deep into a cultural history of Chinese immigrants in America over the last 150 (or so) years. TSFGT really is a timeline of Chinese cuisine in America and what we learn concerns the origins of General Tso the man and if such a dish actually exists in Mainland China. One interesting talking head belongs to a man who has the world’s largest collection of Americanized Chinese Restaurant menus, some dating back to the 1910s. One thing is certain, this doc will give you cravings for the crunchy entrée.
The Search for General Tso opens exclusively at the Alamo Drafthouse Vintage Park location. Predestination opens at the AMC Studio 30 and the Alamo Drafthouse Vintage Park.
— Michael Bergeron
