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The Lookout
I’m a big fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, so this one has been in my Blockbuster queue since it hit the theaters. Broken down to its most basic plot elements, the story is a pretty standard heist film about a crew of thugs who gain the confidence of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, the victim of a head injury, in order to rob the bank where he works. To leave it at that, however, would be a disservice to a really enjoyable film. Gordon-Levitt continues to impress the hell out of me with this film, selling the role of “Chris Pratt,” the biggest fish in a small pond before a catastrophic injury left him unable to process many of the most fundamental aspects of a day-to-day life. Jeff Daniels manages to steal one scene after another in his role as “Lewis,” Pratt’s blind housemate who hopes to eventually open a gas-station themed diner named “Lew’s Your Lunch.” The scene in which Chris and Lewis fumble through their attempt to secure a small-business loan for the diner is a great dose of fun in an otherwise drama-filled project. To be honest, I couldn’t find a weak performance anywhere in the supporting cast. In fact, the film was able to provide one of the most important elements of any good heist film, in my humble opinion: that moment when seemingly irreversible events are set into motion and you can’t figure out any way for the main character to make a clean escape.

ALSO: Possibly one of my favorite Joseph Gordon-Levitt moments in film is this video, in which the actor turns around the camera on a pair of paparazzi, aptly named, “Pictures of Assholes.”

No Country For Old Men
I love going to theaters, but most of the time, I hate theater audiences. Rather than create situations in which frustration is inevitable - such as going to the opening night of a horror film aimed at young audiences - I try to only hit the theaters for films that are near the end of their run and/or recent films that are flying under the mainstream radar. The Coen Brothers’ “No Country For Old Men” fit into both categories Saturday night, and produced one of my favorite performances by an actor in quite a while. Simply put, Javier Bardem was a genius choice for the role of “Anton Chigurh,” the film’s bowl-cut sporting killer, and I’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t receive some recognition in this year’s awards for his role in “No Country.” Josh Brolin was pretty damn good, too - good enough, in fact, to prompt me to look him up on IMDB.com after I returned home in order to see what other films I might have seen him in already. (”Grindhouse” and “Goonies” were among the most notable, but I have a special place in my heart for “Thrashin’.”) Tommy Lee Jones was Tommy Lee Jones - stable, reliable and able to support whatever scene he’s charged with holding up. As usual, the Coens are great at generating moods with sound and scenery that add to a scene and supplement it rather than simply providing a backdrop. Reading through ‘Net audiences’ comments on the film, it sounds like the big-screen version of the film remained fairly accurate to its literary predecessor. To be honest, the film didn’t inspire me to go out and pick up the book - which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In cases like this, I tend to want to read the book whenever I feel as if there were large chunks of the story missing or parts of the film that I’d like to read more about. The film’s finale left me a bit perplexed, but it’s an ending I understood better once I took time to dwell on the story a bit.

Spider-Man 3
First off, let me say that I put off seeing this film as long as possible. I was an opening-night ticket holder for the first two films in the franchise, but by the time the third film was in production, I was covering the entertainment industry professionally and privy to much early discussion of the film. There was so much negativity about the film crossing my desk that, as a fan of the franchise, I felt it was important to put off seeing it until all of the chaos had died down and I could put a little distance between the criticism of “Spider-Man 3″ and my time with the film. However, I have to admit that the bar was set pretty low when I finally pressed “play” on my remote control. Amazingly enough, the film managed to be even worse than I anticipated. The dialogue felt like it was written by a student filmmaker, the action scenes were so heavy with computer-generated effects that they felt like trailers for the video game, and the dance scene… oh lord, the dance scene… *shudder* The dance scene made the film feel like someone had picked up a rejected Bollywood script and repurposed it for this film. And don’t even get me started on the bizarre character revelations and deus ex machina moments that are used and reused throughout the film. The overall story felt like it was just a series of cameos held together with the screenwriting equivalent of twist-ties and rubber bands. Honestly, I think “Spider-Man 3″ actually made me think better of “Batman & Robin.” Without a second thought, “Spider-Man 3″ gets my vote for one of 2007’s worst films.