Vince, Kate, and Jeff...Oh my!

So my fourth of July weekend was pretty quiet (it just doesn't hold the luster it did when i was a kid -- but that's a discussion for a different post). I mostly worked on major cleaning of my apartment (I swear cat hair and hardwood floors -- not a great combo)and watched movies. Several of these movies happened to have stars from LOCI in them (well one who will be a start on LOCI next year) so here our some thoughts on what I watched and the actors who made them happen. There are some spoilers...so just be warned if you've never seen any of these.

VINCE:

So I watched "Happy Accidents" for the first time in a while and I think it's still (so far) my favorite Vincent D'Onofrio film that I have seen. It was the first that I got when I started seeking out his other work beyond LOCI and there's something about unconventional romantic comedies that I love. It's not that far from the same feeling of endearment I get when watching "Benny & Joon." I'm really not much for romantic movies. I'm really at the point where I'm like "okay I get it: Meg & Tom Forever -- I get it!"

But "Happy Accidents" is so different because it's about one person who's either from the future or a complete fruit cake, and another who is a neurotic co-dependent. I don't know what this says about me, but I have a much easier time relating to that insanity than I do the sweet romantics of "Sleepless in Seattle" or "You've Got Mail." Plus it has that sci-fi element, which I love (what can I say my mom liked Star Trek), but what makes the film so clever and me absolutely in love with the writer, Brad Anderson, is that we don't know whether Sam (VDO's character) is really from the future or insane until the very end. It's a very cleverly pieced together film.

The dialogue and the characters are so genuine and believable that it leaves you willing to take a leap of faith in the same way Ruby (Marissa Tomei -- who is just adorable) does with Sam. Even the cheesie parts work because of how naive the Sam character is. One thing that just amazes me about VDO is his ability to go from a intimidating or unnerving character (did you see him as Elton in "Claire Dolan" -- can we say creepy stalker tendencies) to someone as innocent and nearly child-like as Sam is, and do both so convincingly.

My favorite thing about the film, though, is the idea of can you really change the past or will you just make the same mistakes over and over and over? Sam comes back to save Ruby from dying in an accident, but what's interesting is that it's Sam's desperate actions to try and prevent it that lead to the perfect circumstances for her death to happen, but no worries there's still a happy ending.

KATE:

To keep with the LOCI and Sci-fi theme, I watched "Stir of Echoes." I really need to find other films that Kathryn Erbe has done but I do like this film. It's nice to see a horror film that at the end of the day is really just about a family trying to stay together. I tend to be more fascinated with established relationships than I am with relationships just starting out because there're more complications, more history to build from. It's also nice to see a "genre" film have really well established characters because so many of the bigger budget sci-fi/horror films are much more about the visual effects than they are the people within the story which i really can't stand.

Tom and Maggie (Kevin Bacon & Kathryn Erbe) are just a regular couple trying to make ends meet and this extraordinary thing just happens to them by chance. I think Erbe is great at being a strong woman but also retain a sense of femininity, without either being too over powering. There is more of a softness to Maggie than there is to Eames (she's a little more emotional but it's not over the top), but I find both to be very believable characters. So many female characters we see seem to be more like characitures of real women as opposed to really feeling like a real woman. Even in the clips I've seen of her from OZ, she feels real -- psychotic, but real. It's that honesty and realness that she just naturally has that makes me like her so much.

JEFF:

I noticed this movie called "Hideaway" on my OnDemand this weekend and saw that it had Jeff Goldblum, so I figured I'd take gander and remind myself whether ot not I liked the actor since he is joining one of my favorite shows. At first i was a little apprehensive about welcoming him to the show because it just seemed like such an odd choice. It probably doesn't help that the last thing I saw him in was a film called "Mimi's First Time," which is about this 16, 17 year old girl who has an affair with her step-father and together they plot the murder of her boozing actress mother -- it's a comedy. But Goldblum in that plays their neigbor who is basically a creepy old man who seduces all of these barely legal girls -- so that was my last impression of Jeff Goldblum.

But "Hideaway" is an older film (it's still weird that mid-nineties stuff is over ten years old now) and was based on a Dean Koontz novel. It actually has a pretty recognizable cast with Jeff Goldblum as a protective family man, Christine Lahti as his wife, and Alicia Silverstone either right before or just after her "Clueless" fame. It also had her co-star from "Clueless" Jeremy Sisto as a psycho killer (I have to say Sisto is far more attractive now with his L&O, I bet this is how Goren looked in narcotics thing he has going on.

The movie itself wasn't great, but it gave me hope that maybe whatever character they come up with for Goldblum won't be a Gore-knock off. I could actually see several different possibilities now including a family man, which might be a nice change from the cast of characters we already have (not that i don't love my guarded, commitment phobic Eames and Goren). It would be interesting to pair Wheeler with someone who has been married a long time since she's engaged now...it could add an interesting element to them building a partnership.