The Lookout (2007)

The Lookout stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun, Brick, Mysterious Skin) as Chris, a young man who had everything ahead of him--until a car accident killed two of his friends and left him with brain damage. Now reduced to being a janitor at a bank, Chris struggles to maintain some semblance of order in his life. When a guy he meets at a bar turns out to be an old classmate, Chris succumbs to his flattery, not suspecting that the guy's intentions are criminal.

It also stars Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode, Isla Fisher and Carla Gugino.

Chris (Gordon-Levitt) had everything going for him, hockey player adored by the fans, a beautiful girlfriend, great friends, and a loving family, until one night of stupidity.
He, his girlfriend, and 2 friends, were driving down the road, Chris at the wheel, and he wanted to show them how the fireflies light up the night.
He shut off his headlights as he drove down an old farm road, turning them back on too late to notice the large combine broke down on the side of the road.
His 2 friends died, his girlfriend's leg cut off, and he ended up with brain damage.

He has hardly any memories of that night, he can no longer get through the day without writing down what he's supposed to do, no immediate memory of events that just happened.
Everyday, he wakes up
takes a shower
with soap
gets dressed
eats breakfast
goes to the learning center
goes home
eats dinner
goes to work.
His life is a series of lists of what to do next.
Chris lives with Lewis, (Daniels) who is blind, and together they make a pretty good team, they cook, keep their home, and have plans to open a restaurant.

But a guy named Gary Spargo (Goode) meets up with Chris in a bar one night, and makes Chris believe they are friends, helps him get a girl, party, treat him as family, all to get Chris to help him and his friends rob the bank Chris works at.
Being so frustrated with his life, not being able to advance at work beyond janitor due to his brain injury, and having his parents pay his rent, his car insurance, everything for him, because no one thinks he can do it himself, Chris decides to help Gary rob the bank.
On the night it goes down however, Chris has a change of mind and tries to get out of it.

What happens for the rest of the movie is unpredictable, and suspenseful.
Chris uses his notebook to write down all the directions from Gary, 'he who has the money, has the power', what time, who does what, everything he's supposed to do in order, sequencing.
He also uses that notebook to get out of having to help with the robbery, and change his and Lewis' life.

Gordon-Levitt does a great job portraying Chris, Jeff Daniels is terrific as his blind room mate with a great insight into people.
This was just a really well done film, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

One of the things that struck me though, was how much Gordon-Levitt resembles the late Heath Ledger.
Maybe I'll be the only person to ever say that, but take a look at this side-by-side comparison I put together.
You can click for larger.

I am in no way comparing the acting abilities of either man, but if they were to ever make a film about Ledger, here's the perfect actor for the role.

Sayeth Kat at 3:06 AM | Comments [1] | Movies

Hard Candy (2006)

Hard Candy is the story of a smart, charming teenage girl, Hayley probably shouldn't be going to a local coffee shop to meet Jeff, a 30-something fashion photographer she met on the Internet. But before she knows it, she's mixing drinks at Jeff's place and stripping for an impromptu photo shoot. It's Jeff's lucky night. But Hayley isn't as innocent as she looks, and the night takes a turn when she begins to impose a hard-hitting investigation on Jeff in an attempt to reveal his possibly scandalous past.

It stars Ellen Page (Juno), Patrick Wilson, and Sandra Oh.

This movie was very controversial when it came out, a young girl meeting a much older man she met on the internet, for what he thinks will be a good time with a 14 year old girl.
Hayley however, is not quite so innocent. Everything she says to Jeff is carefully planned, she knows what to say to him to make him think he's going to be having sex with her at some point during their meet-up.
She has other plans, devious ones.
She psychologically tortures Jeff, ties him up, plans to castrate him, all in an attempt to get him to confess to kidnapping and raping another girl who is now missing.
This is at times, hard to watch, not because of the graphic scenes, but because the script was just lacking in a few places.
Page ends up acting terrified when her character is clearly in control, always had control, and so the mixed emotions she displays, come out all wrong.
The dialog is also very quiet. We had the volume all the way up and missed some of their lines no doubt.

The director also tries to hard too make twists and turns in the story as he goes. Up, down, over here, over there, wait, where were we going with this again?

Overall, the movie was gripping, suspenseful, and timely in this day and age of almost every teen on the planet, having an internet connection and myspace page.
I give it a 7 on a scale of 1-10.

Sayeth Kat at 11:33 PM | Comments [0] | Movies

Gears of War 2 teaser trailer is out.

GoW 2 is coming to xbox 360 in November 2008, check out the teaser trailer below.
It really doesn't tell us much of anything, but damn, I'm hyped up anyway.

Sayeth Kat at 4:18 PM | Comments [0] | Video Games

Guitar hero 4 coming in 2008.

UK band, The Answer, has confirmed that they will be on the track listing for GH4, with the song "Never Too Late."

It's a pretty bad ass song with some amazing guitar riffs.
Awesome.

Sayeth Kat at 8:02 PM | Comments [0] | Video Games

Netflix subscribers get unlimited pc viewing.

http://netflix.com sent out emails to their customers who are subscribed to any plan greater than the 2 at a time for $4.99 deal, to let them know they now have unlimited on line pc viewing.

The pc viewing used to be based on what you paid, so if your plan was $16.99 a month, you had 17 hours of instant watch movie time available to you.
This new plan means you get unlimited hours of movie watching on your computer, and that is so awesome for people like me who can go through my mailed movies very quickly, and then have to wait for my next shipment.

This was done after the news that Apple iTunes movie rentals would start in February.
Steve Jobs says they currently have about 1,000 movie titles for users to buy and download.
iTunes store is a very direct competitor to Amazon Unbox, while iTunes and Netflix Watch It Now play to very different segments of the audience. Apple offers up mostly new releases, available 30 days after the DVD release, and you have to pay up before you can play. There's no subscription fee, though.

Netflix currently has over 6,000 watch it now titles available for instant viewing, and are adding more every day.

Surprisingly, Netflix and Blockbuster stock shares fell after the announcement from Apple.
Blockbuster shares tumbled 14% to $2.79 on volume of over 9 million. The issue's 30-day average volume is about 4.4 million shares. The stock hit a new 52-week low of $2.74 intraday.

Shares of Netflix fell 5.4% to $21.55 on volume of over 4 million. The issue's 30-day average volume is about 1.5 million.
But analysts say it's nothing to worry about as Apples iTunes movies will be more for people on the go, using their ipods to watch movies on their commute, and not watching them at home.

Sayeth Kat at 12:46 PM | Comments [0] | Movies

No show but the awards were still given.

Due to the writers strike and not being able to reach an agreement, the Golden Globes were canceled, but the winners were still announced in a press conference.
Here they are:

Best Motion Picture - Drama
Atonement

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
Julie Christie – Away From Her

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood

Best Motion Picture - Musical Or Comedy
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Marion Cotillard – La Vie En Rose

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical Or Comedy
Johnny Depp – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Cate Blanchett – I'm Not There

Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Javier Bardem – No Country For Old Men

Best Animated Feature Film
Ratatouille

Best Foreign Language Film
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (France, United States)

Best Director - Motion Picture
Julian Schnabel – The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
No Country For Old Men

Best Original Score - Motion Picture
Atonement
Composed by Dario Marianelli

Best Original Song - Motion Picture
"Guaranteed" – Into The Wild
Music & Lyrics By: Eddie Vedder

Best Television Series - Drama
Mad Men (AMC)

Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama
Glenn Close – Damages (FX NETWORK)

Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Drama
Jon Hamm – Mad Men (AMC)

Best Television Series - Musical Or Comedy
Extras (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Musical Or Comedy
Tina Fey – 30 Rock (NBC)

Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Musical Or Comedy
David Duchovny – Californication (SHOWTIME)

Best Mini-Series Or Motion Picture Made for Television
Longford (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actress In A Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Queen Latifah – Life Support (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Jim Broadbent – Longford (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Samantha Morton – Longford (HBO)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Jeremy Piven – Entourage (HBO)

Sayeth Kat at 11:46 PM | Comments [1] | Movies

Xbox 360 text messaging kit.

In very cool video game news, I just saw the Xbox 360 Text Messaging Kit.

It plugs into the headset port, and allows you to text message people in game, or with people using Windows based pc messenger systems. One review I read said it can be used to send text messages back and forth to cell phones as well.
If you watch the demo video on Circuit City's website, you can see it works with cell phones. Not sure how that works because I don't have this text pad yet, but if it can do all that stuff, and even comes with a special headset that works with it, it might be a kick ass add-on for the xbox360.
A lot of the video games make heavy use of texting like Phantasy Star Universe does, so this would be a very nice addition so you don't have to leave your game screen to send messages back and forth, you could just do it in game from the chat pad.
I may have to check one of these out.

Sayeth Kat at 5:16 PM | Comments [0] | Video Games