These brief reviews have the potential of being a continuing occurance, since I’m a weirdo.
I rent movies based on my “flavor of the week” crush that I’ve got. So, for a week or so, I’ll rent every Van Damme movie out there, or every Ralph Fiennes movie or whatever, regardless of their reviews, just to see my love interest.
So, this weeks’ choices were “Best Laid Plans” starring Tangent Lover Alessandro Nivola, and “Gossip” with a cameo/tiny role appearance by Eric Bogosian.
Both of these movies were box office flops with terrible terrible reviews. But I must say that up until the last “big revelation” of Gossip, it was a good, clever movie. I liked the twists and turns that it took, and the idea of a rumor spinning out of control and people ending up dead is an intriguing one. My husband hates ‘mind game’ movies, but I love them. I love twists and lies and all that, and at a trim 1 1/2 hours, you can’t really beat Gossip. But if you want to make it an even better movie, turn it off five minutes before the end.
Were there any good bitchslaps? no
Eric Bogosian’s Part: It was just him doing his thing (loud, angry Armenian), but I can’t help but smile when he’s on screen.
on a scale of 1 to 6 burly Germans, I give Gossip 3 burly Germans.
Best Laid Plans was another twisty, turny, screwed up li’l film, but to me, moderately enjoyable. It’s got that highly stylized MTV generation editing with sweeps and dissolves that are sometimes distracting. There’s also a lot of REAL obvious imagery and symbolism, but it can be overlooked. Contrary to Gossip, the ‘big revelation’ made me laugh out loud with surprise, although the tidy, tied up ending of the movie made me look up and say “what the…” Someone call Josh Brolin and tell him “yelling doesn’t equal good acting” no matter how much Gary Oldman wants us to believe. It was a good rent, with some great stuff from Reese “I’m so cute it’s horrifying” Witherspoon.
were there any good bitchslaps? no
Alessandro Nivola’s part? really good. He’s a great actor with a gorgeous face. He did a great job with weird script and an even weirder co-star in Brolin. I hope Nivola plays a real bad guy sometime soon.
On a scale of 1 to 6 burly Germans, I give Best Laid Plans 3 burly Germans.
jarbaby
