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"The Lookout" Review

"Something in the middle of nowhere. Little farm bank where they get all that USDA money. The four to five million cash that comes twice a year. Farm subsidy money."

In "The Lookout", directed and written by Scott Frank (screenwriter of "Out of Sight" and "Get Shorty"), Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode) plays the devil's advocate, a shady character, in appearance a formulaic plain thug, but some brilliant philosophical conclusions often burst forth from his mouth whenever he's confronted with our bank nighttime clerk protagonist, Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Pratt is afflicted with a frontal lobe malfunction of his brain after surviving an accident four years ago when he was a hockey hero in his nativesmall town of Noel, Kansas. Chris walks funny and doesn't get along well with his estranged parents who don't visit his place (Bruce McGill and Alberta Watson), and his only friend is a blind man Lewis (Jeff Daniels), who works for a flower shop online. Lewis helps Chris to organize his messed-up sequencing of daily tasks as if it was an important story he must follow, listing such banal events as taking a shower, turning off the alarm, or cooking, creating a sense of order. Chris is encouraged by Lewis to make small progresses despite his terrible condition, so much so that Chris even tries to convince his boss Mr. Tuttle (David Huband) that he could be a competent teller at The Noel State Bank & Trust. If given a chance, he could be as friendly and accurate as Mrs. Lange (Alex Borstein) who "is never out of balance". But after attending a Thanksgiving day celebration in his parents' home, the tension between them refloats his internal bitterness again: "Never come back home", Lewis warns him. His interactions with women are also frustrating: the scene when he is disinhibited in presence of his caseworker Jane (Carla Gugino) is an embarrassing proof of it; his social skills are weak, although some are friendly to him, like Deputy "Donut" Ted Tillman (Sergio di Zio) -who jokes with Chris and whose wife is pregnant- he's the archetypal affable character we can find in classical noir cinema.
So when Gary -who suffers from anhelation breathing- chats Chris up about a risky business which he's been planning, this reactivates Chris' hidden desire to become a winnner for second time ("The Mustangs are the new state champions!").
Of course meeting ex-stripper, asthmatic Gary's collaborator and ditzy femme-fatale Luvlee Lemons (Isla Fisher), blinds him eventually after a seduction game so long needed by our sexually tormented ex-athlete. But for Lewis, this new redheaded female companion isn't good news -he makes a sleuthing report of her perfume, her "performer" vocation, and intentions for good measure. Gary's message ("whoever has the money has the power", or quoting Amber Pawlik "money is the cure to all evil") is almost the only honest thing that resonates in Chris' ears these days, and his father isn't disposed to lend him money for the moment. Chris is unable to forgive himself for the maiming of his ex-girlfriend Kelly (Laura Vandervoort) in the accident that left him brain-damaged, and in a dream she says that she’s no
longer mad at him. The plot is divided in a third act of heist and gunfires, but especially in the moral order that Chris must pass through, where he will have to discern who must be saved or killed. "The simple truth is, Chris you're smart enough, you can get away with anything, including murder", is like an echo of that new brand convertible crashed into a truck because of Chris' negligence turning his car's lights off while he drove in company of best pal Danny Stevens, Danny's girlfriend (Nina) and his blonde cheerleader Kelly. The film's metaphor could be more complex we'd suppose, the opposite stages of Chris as the high school victor, admired and envied (by Gary and Luvlee among them), and the lonely has-been, angry victim he's become.
In Amber Pawlik's words: "Despite popular belief, evil is not the product of people who feel confident in their ability to negotiate reality. Evil has always been the product of have-nots. [...] Indeed, I am looking forward to the movie that actually captures evil for what it is. A movie in which the antagonist is not the ultra-intelligent Ph.D, but rather the person who has slipped into the evils of victimology."

"And of better days
From this town, we'd escape
If we holler loud and make our way
We'd all live one big holiday."
("One Big Holiday" song by "My Morning Jacket",
from the film's opening sequence.)
Published today in Blogcritics.org

Through the eyes

"The strongest actor in Donnie's life is "frank", a hallucination that has come into existence (in Donnie's mind) to aid Donnie in his task. Through the eyes of (an assumed) schizophrenic, we can never really know for sure what Donnie experienced during those 28 days. What we know with confidence is that during his tenure as the Living Receiver, Donnie finally overcame his fears of death and loneliness, finding love in Gretchen. In his death, Donnie finally found peace." Source: www.The-elite.net
"And so when Brendan hides his eyes in "Brick", we know it's because there's something there —something in them— that he doesn't want us to see; not because they're empty." -by Meghan O'Rourke. Source: www.Slate.com

I'll be your mirror

"I'll be your mirror
Reflect what you are, in case you don't know
I'll be the wind, the rain and the sunset
The light on your door to show that you're home
When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you're twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
'Cause I see you
I find it hard to believe you don't know
The beauty that you are
But if you don't let me be your eyes
A hand in your darkness, so you won't be afraid
When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you're twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
'Cause I see you
I'll be your mirror
(Reflect what you are)"
"I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR", "The Velvet Underground & Nico" (1967).

Jake on bike & family

"Jake Gyllenhaal takes his spandex to the street, pedaling laps around Runyan Canyon in Los Angeles on Friday.

On Saturday, the 26-year-old cycling stud was spotted leaving Hollywood healthy restaurant “Ammo” with German shepherd Atticus. Upon spotting paparazzi, Jake tried to avoid the cameras by walking backwards!" Source: http://JustJared.buzznet.com




Source: http://justjared.buzznet.com

The Lookout

"Elmore Leonard has a lot to answer for in regards to the current state of crime cinema. Thin, almost non-existent plots are given the power of verite when they are driven by Leonard’s oddball characters, with their pop culture obsessions and mental hang-ups. The stories seem like Hammett and Chandler rewritten by the crime beat reporter for the New York Daily News. Double crosses and secrets unfold effortlessly, as though noir had never been invented, as though femme fatales were nothing but tanned beach babes 10 years past their prime looking for a sugar
daddy to pay for their fix, or worse, a young fool looking for sincerity and love. He may be the quintessential fall guy ready for the picking, but in Leonard’s stories, as in Scott Frank’s assured directorial debut, “The Lookout”, he may not realize that he’s supposed to lose.
It’s the loser, the sap, and the fall guy that drives most of noir fiction. He’s really us, the ordinary everyman who’s not unintelligent, just too trusting. In a way, most noirs are coming of age stories where an innocent learns how vicious and cruel the world can be. Only in a noir, he usually learns it while a hunk of hot lead burns in his gut.
Dying, not only from the bullet, but also from the knife edge of betrayal, the noir hero can only tell us his story and hope to enlighten us to the ugly truth. The world is a cesspool and it’s only with a cold heart and steely eyes that a man may find peace.
But peace in whatever form it comes in is not part and parcel of the noir genre. It’s danger, the adrenaline pumping danger of pulling off a crime, the pulse pounding danger of being on the run, and the erotic danger of sexual obsession.
It’s the excitement that draws the noir hero to the danger like a moth to the flame. He knows that the object of his desire is destructive, but cannot turn back.
“Ritual. Pattern. Repetition.” These are words we hear in the noir voiceover of “The Lookout”. They are spoken in a drone like manner by Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the brain-damaged-bank-janitor–fall-guy-in-the-making narrator of “The Lookout”. The words are a catchphrase designed to help him keep his grip on the memory he lost in a car accident that shattered his life. Chris was once a High School hockey star from a privileged family with a bright future. You know, the likable kid who stayed likable even though he had everything.
Following his accident, Chris is left with a faulty brain that cannot keep track of chronology. Ordinary activities like reading newspapers leave him angry and frustrated. He makes it through the day, day by day, by writing everything down in his notebook, a journal of life that does not mark the high points, but all points relevant to common existence. Like where the can opener is located.
They are, of course, planning a robbery that just happens to be at Chris’ bank. They really need his help, since he knows the whole layout. He would make a great lookout. Chris seems powerless to avoid getting involved. It’s been years since he’s been respected, since he’s been needed for anything. And it’s been years since he’s been involved with a beautiful girl.
Even if her name is Luvlee Lemons and she’s not exactly innocent. When Lewis tells her about how he lost his sight, she says in a very flat tone, “That’s a sad story. I’m sorry…if it’s true.” A nice world she must come from.
In many ways, “The Lookout” most resembles the neo-noirs of John Dahl from the ’90s, like “Red Rock West” and “The Last Seduction”.
The cast Frank puts together is absolutely perfect, and at its center, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is really something. How he underplays a role that seems to be screaming for some kind of explosive bad acting is a hint to his intelligence. He’s not a household name by any means, not even after 5 years on “Third Rock from the Sun”, but with any luck, that’ll change soon.
Luvlee Lemons is the thinnest character in the script and yet, [Isla] Fisher has the charm and charisma to make her seem more complex. She is also very attractive, and this is no small requirement in a story where the hero must fall for the potential femme fatale.
It’s in the very use of the femme fatale archetype that Elmore Leonard has marked the contemporary film noir. Classical cinema died a bloody death around 1968, in a hail of bullets from Sam
Peckinpah and Arthur Penn, and was run over for good measure by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda’s motorcycles. Genre films since then have all been played with quotation marks at the fade in and out points. What Leonard has demonstrated, and Quentin Tarantino brought to Hollywood, was a certain way of toying with the old conventions by arriving at them organically, through a story about some very original characters. Since they are original, their choices will be surprising, even if they are based on genre plots." Source: www.Beyondhollywood.com