TheLookout Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Welcome to the Thanksgiving edition of The Write Stuff!

Thanksgiving is always rough on a screenwriter. You're usually seeing a lot of friends and family, and while they (candied) yammer on about their accomplishments, you have to start all of your sentences with: "We're still waiting to hear on that one..." and "Our agent says we're really close..." and "Grandma, let me explain the WGA strike to you one more time..."

But there is a great deal to be thankful for this year. On Monday, still happy and groggy from a weekend of gorging, representatives from the WGA and the AMPTP will resume talks. Ideally, each side will come away happy and we can end this strike. From a personal note, my writing career was right on the verge of kicking into high gear when the strike was announced, and I certainly don't want to lose that upward momentum. And looking at the bigger picture, we're a month away from Christmas here. Who wants to see not just writers but everyone who works in and around the entertainment industry desperately struggling to pay the bills? The grips, the gaffers, the assistants, the dry cleaners...these people are out of work, too.

So send your good vibes to the negotiating table on Monday. And if you think there's nothing you can do, you're wrong. You can electronically sign this petition to the AMPTP, which starts: "We, the undersigned, fully support the strike of the Writers Guild of America, and agree with the WGA's stated goals of obtaining just and fair compensation regarding revenues generated through "new media". The petition currently has 57, 695 signatures, which is extremely impressive. Won't you add yours?

The Lookout, which is open now in theaters near and far, is a smart, intricate heist flick with a twist: the bad guys tag Chris Pratt, former golden boy/star athlete and currently recovering head trauma patient, to help them with achieve their goal of robbing the small rural bank where Chris is the night janitor. Cinematical recently sat down with Frank, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter (Out of Sight, Get Shorty) who both wrote and directed The Lookout, to talk about the film.

Cinematical: The first thing I wanted to talk to you about was making that transition from screenwriter to director – what motivated you to do that and the process of making that happen.

SCOTT FRANK: Well, I'd say first of all that I'm probably the least bitter screenwriter in all of Hollywood. I had my share of horrible experiences, but for the most part I feel like I've had a great ride, and I'm really happy and comfortable with my life. And I'd started off wanting to direct, I'd always assumed I would.

What happened to me was, I've got three kids kind of close together, they were all young and it was really hard, as you know, for me to think about leaving home to do directing. I've seen it with friends, and it's so disruptive to their personal lives. It's really hard on your marriage and your family, and so I waited and waited. But I really became too comfortable and so into this groove that I became a victim of my own inertia.

And then I stared to feel myself growing older and the way to feel younger is to keep learning and to scare the hell out of myself. And the one thing I'd been directly avoiding was directing -- I'd been sort of hiding in my comfort level and the needs of my family. Then my wife said, quit hiding behind us, if you want to do this do it now. And I could see, 20 years from now, looking back and feeling I was too careful, and I made a career out of pleasing others, and I knew I wasn't going to like the way that made me feel. And so I decided to make the leap.

More after the jump ...

Have yourself a little indie niblet:

• Who would've ever thought of Eddie Vedder as the voice of inspiration for young men suffering from severe head trauma? It seems that Jospeh Gordon-Levitt, who has morphed from the quirky kid on 3rd Rock into a pretty powerful indie actor, listened to Pearl Jam non-stop to get in character for The Lookout, which Kim reviewed recently. According to what the actor told VH1: "I always design an arsenal of songs to go with every character I play, and I had never done it before with only picking one band. But for some reason, just because [the character's] mind goes in circles, [it seemed appropriate]." I think that would be a great jump to a new sort of special feature: the songs, films, goodies that an actor uses to get into character. I'd love to know what music Gordon-Levitt used for his other films.
• Entrapment director Jon Amiel is set to direct the upcoming 105 Degrees and Rising for Overture Films and Echo Lake Productions. The film is about the fall of Saigon in 1975, and it brings together a number of story arcs dealing with characters who are trying to escape South Vietnam as U.S. control ended -- up through the evacuation of the last Americans and some South Vietnamese by helicopter from the roof of the American Embassy. The script has been penned by William M. Akers, the same guy who brought us...Ernest Rides Again. To give the guy credit, his last work in 2002 was an historical story, but it's still surprising. As for the title of the film -- it's part of a code broadcast on Armed Forces Radio. It seems that this quote, followed by part of Bing Crosby's White Christmas was a sign to get the heck out of dodge, pronto.
• Lastly, Spain is starting to look into its laws on child actors after Madrid's child protection ombudsman asked parliament to create some by-laws to protect them. The limits requested: that children can only work fewer than 5 hours a day, that they can only work between the hours of 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. and that the types of work they can do must be specified. According to Carmen Gonzalez Madrid, the ombudsman's assistant: "A child doesn't have the maturity to assimilate certain frustrations that an adult could do, such as why today he is in Vogue and tomorrow he isn't." Hmm, I think Dakota Fanning would have a few words for him on the matter!

What would you do if your entire life as you know it was changed in the blink of an eye? It doesn't take much, really ... just a few minutes of bad judgment and a smattering of bad luck and BOOM! -- everything's changed. The Lookout, directed by Oscar-nommed screenwriter Scott Frank in his directorial debut, turns a lens to that question through the story of Chris Pratt (Jospeh Gordon-Levitt), one-time high school ice hockey star and all around popular rich guy, whose life is forever altered after a car wreck that kills his best friend and the friend's date, and causes Chris to have a severe closed head injury.

When we meet Chris, he is working a mundane job as the night janitor of a small local bank, and the only friends he has are Deputy Ted (Sergio Di Zio) the local night shift cop who stops by the bank each evening to check on Chris and bring him donuts, and Lewis (Jeff Daniels), Chris' roommate, a blind man who Chris met at the head trauma rehab school he attends. Chris makes his way from one day to the next almost on autopilot, and his greatest wish is to be able to turn back the clock, undo everything and just have his old life back.

In an age of moviemaking where non-linear storytelling has, in some ways, gone from the exception to the norm, the trailer for The Lookout -- with screenwriter Scott Frank (Out of Sight, Minority Report) making his directorial debut -- didn't inspire confidence. It shows a hero (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) suffering from a traumatic head injury that affects his memory, a bad guy (a nearly-unrecognizable Matthew Goode) planning a bank heist with our hero's help and a character actor (Jeff Daniels) intoning "Start at the end, and then go back from there ..." before the trailer explodes in a barrage of stutter-cuts and rewind noises. I could feel my eyes involuntarily roll at The Lookout's trailer, and some small, cynical part of myself said "Oh, awesome -- Memento, Jr." And then, I found myself surprised by The Lookout -- and not just because of the fact that, trailer and Frank's work on Out of Sight aside, it unspooled in a fashion as clean and linear as a bullet from the muzzle of a rifle.

I admired its economy, its modernist spin on classic noir ideas, its unexpected surprises and ultimately the fact that the film's central spine wasn't twists or tricks but rather an iron-strong emotional core, brought to life with an ambitious but never showy performance by Gordon-Levitt. As The Lookout opens, teens roll down a road in the night, laughing and smiling -- one couple in the front, one couple in the back. Chris Pratt (Gordon-Levitt) is driving; he kills the lights so they can see the fireflies stream by in the Kansas darkness. And then something bad happens -- unexpected, irreversible. We flash forward four long years, and Chris is having a hard time of it. He forgets things -- the apartment he shares with garrulous, blind roommate Lewis (Jeff Daniels) is marked with Dymo-tape reminders: "lock door from the outside"; "turn off alarm." Chris can't find things easily, or gets confused; unable to locate a can opener, we watch as he tries to open a can of tomatoes with the garlic press. We know it won't work; Chris knows it won't work. But he can't stop trying.