Tag: Cam Gigandet

Oooh. What is that? Another surprise movie for me. Before last night I had no idea there was ever a movie based off of the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Please read about it. There is a good chance you have heard of it before, but just might not remember it.

But yeah! The Experiment. A modern and fictionalized exaggeration of real events. Go go go!

Hooray science!

In case you are an asshole who doesn’t know about the experiment and didn’t click the link, it was a social experiment done at Stanford. A group of guys were chosen to be inmates, and a group of guys chosen to be prison guards. It was an experiment that was supposed to last 14 days, but lasted only six before the plug had to be pulled. Why? People adapted to their roles super quickly and performed things they didn’t think capable. Forms of tortue, abuse, no physical violecne only mental. Prisoners became complacent and passive and only obeyed orders. It worked way too well.

So yeah, that is happening here too. Adrien Brody is a very passive guy, kind of a hippy, but needs money. So does Forest Whittaker, who lives with his mother. They befriend in the original application process, because in this experiment they are offered $14,000 for fourteen days of work. Of course Forest becomes one of the guards, and Adrien a prisoner.

In his cell, Adrien is bunked with Clifton Collins Jr., a guy who seems to know how to be a prisoner already, and Ethan Cohn, a fat diabetic graphic novelist looking for new material.

The main mean guard (At the start) is played by Cam Gigandet, who quickly takes in his new role. They are given five rules that the prisoners must abide by, and the knowledge that if a prisoner breaks a rule, they must punish them accordingly (non violently). If they don’t within 30 minutes, a red light will flash and the experiment will be over and they will not be paid.

The real question is, how far will this experiment go? How much are humans different than animals, really?

“Mmm. You got a pretty (Shiny) mouth.

Just kidding, those aren’t the real questions. You know how far they go.

I liked that the movie relied not on special effects or any CGI, but just the actors themselves. A lot of them do very good jobs, showing the emotion that both sides go through, and change into their stereotypes.

BUT. It is pretty different from the actual experiment. Films change actuality. But in this case, I think the actuality is a cooler story than the film version. In this movie there was attempted rape, death, and yeah, some physical violence. Also some nice urinating on people stuff. Gross right? That kind of stuff didn’t happen in the real experiment. (Would it have happened over six days? Maybe. Have to wait for an unethical country or Texas to try it again).

Had it made it “realer” in terms of what happened in the 70s, I think it might have been a better movie. The ending also seemed to take away from some things. Was pretty unnecessary.

The Roommate tries to capture that niche audience of people who have ever had a roommate. Which I would guess is a lot of people. It takes the sentence “You think your roommate is bad, well check out this bitch!” and runs with it.

Oh god, she is so crazy!

So Minka Kelly goes to college! Yeah! Far from home. Has a dead older sister too. That is important. Her roommate isn’t there when she moves in, so she goes out to party, with other hall mates, like Aly Michalka, a drunk slut, and meets Cam Gigandet, a fray boy in a band.

When she gets back, she hits a bag, and bam! Leighton Meester is all chirpy and whats up! Wooo! So Leighton seems to be needy, and lonely. She wants to hang out a lot, and doesn’t approve of Minka doing bad things. In fact, they made up a social networking thing for their laptops, just to show that she was crazy by already making her roommate in the “best friend” spot.

I feel like that is enough of the plot. Eventually crazier and bad things happen, until (spoiler?) the roommate is killed and they can all go on with their lives.

Here are some things I dislike. Its rating is again PG-13, so although everyone can be promiscuous, and slutty, nothing is shown, so its like a tease the whole film.

Also shit like this. And 2 or 3 shower scenes. What?!

But this movie advocates something also that is horrible, and so you shouldn’t watch it. In the movie we find out that Leighton DOES have a disease/disorder whatever, making her all weird. In fact, apparently it is curable, if she takes pills she will be fine. We learn all of this. It is assumed she never takes the pills though, and that is the problem.

ASSUMED. But also once the discovery of the pills comes up, it is NEVER talked about again. Not even taking the roommate aside, especially if Leighton is fond of Minka, and going “Hey look, lets take the pills” and being there for her, or something. They never tell her to do anything with them. Instead after they find out, more weird stuff happens, so Minka leaves the room for good, causing Leighton to flip out and go real crazy, until she dies.

This movie condones killing people with disorders, even if a cure is readily available.

That is all.

Look at this movie. Burlesque? How does it not scream out “hey everyone, we have scantly clad chicks that will make you all enjoy me!” Well I didn’t.

“Enjoy me right this instant, damn it!”

The movie begins with Christina Aguilera being a small town girl who just likes to sing. She hates her life, and isn’t getting paid, so she suddenly she rushes off to Los Angeles to look for a singing job. But she fails. And she then walks into Cher‘s Burlesque club, seeing a bunch of scantly clad women dancing to Cher singing. SHe wants in. Doesn’t get a job. So she just begins waitressing there for free, to get them to notice her.

Christina A has that “can do” attitude! She also ends up moving in with the bartender, Cam Gigadet, because her money was stolen and she feels unsafe. Sure, he has a girlfriend, but theres no way having a girl live there can be a problem.

Oh yeah. Kristen Bell is the star of the show, but the only actual singer is Cher. They just dance and lip sync to already made songs. Why? Because Cher demands it. Doesn’t matter if Kristen Bell can sing too. She wont let her. So eventually Christina gets a job, and thanks to Kristen sabotage, Christina ends up singing a song instead of lip syncing. People love it. She becomes a star.

This is good. Because Cher is about to lose her club and blah blah blah. Profit. People changing. Love triangles. Women fights. Jealousy. Lessons learned. End movie.

Now, my problem with this movie is (besides the story being not too original) is that I feel like the movie was actually made just to be a showboat for Christina Aguilera. Since she sings all the songs but like, two (Cher gets those) it is just a movie about how good she can sing. And that is annoying.

When I saw the cast, and heard it was musical, I assume I wasn’t just going to get a Christina concert. Because of how the plot goes, no one else was supposed to get to sing. But damn it, I was expecting a Kristen Bell song or two, and so was she I bet. She was also the star of the show in my book.

Wait. You’re telling me the fact that she was always drunk was a PROBLEM?

Stanley Tucci is also in this as “stage manager dude” and most definitely the best role. Everything else is a formulaic blah set to Christina and Cher acting like they are the best singers ever.

Trespass is one of those words that just looks misspelled to me always. Trespass. Treespas? Tresspass? Just all look wrong.

Trespass however tells the story of a nice rich family! The dad (Nick Cage) deals with diamonds, not the blood kind, the normal legal ones. His wife (Nicole Kidman) just loves that money, and their daughter is probably spoiled, but at least has good morals (Liana Liberato).

I heard she has less morals in Trust, but I haven’t reviewed it yet, so who knows.

Long story short, she sneaks out of the house to go to the party, and the parents get held up at gun point in their own home. FROM TRESPASSERS. Three men and a lady, guns, mask, all black. They’ve been working on this for months (expected the kid to be home) and need that sexy diamond money / diamonds. Cam Gigandet is one of those bad people, and he has been in a bunch of movies lately.

Longer story short, fuck Joel Schumacher.

I was generally interested in this movie. But after awhile, not only did I get bored, but aggravated. There is a twist limit. A few are good. But every couple minutes another “Twist” (coupled with more of the happy married couple getting beaten) did not entertain, just annoy. Because after a few twists, if they keep coming, you can no long accept the new twist as real. Then its just, “get to the fucking point already”. Because when you are on a rollercoaster of twists, you can just blank out and wait for the last one and be good.

I give it an okay rating, just because I was interested in the beginning. Some of Cage’s yelling scenes were good. This movie just goes to show (over and over and over again) that everyone lies.

Everyone.