films_viewed

All stars play one once in their lives, and get noticed for it mostly in a good light. Pitt does his role justice as the trailer trash hick you don't mind as a buddy for protection but your partner has different opinions on. His scenes with Duchnovys partner when they are alone are very eerie, and the two play off each other well to create a tense feel. The movie rolls quite slow and softly but kicks into a nice overdrive when we find out whats been happening behind closed doors. I believe it would be hard to recreate a role like this when he is the bad guy as his status in too lovey dovey currently and continues taking on safe roles. Duchovny on the other hand would love any role if given, I think I saw him in this type of character in playing god some years back. He even seems he was still on scully?/moulder? duty throughout this flick with his tape recorder investigating (no I never watched xfiles). Juilette does her thing, really type-casted during this era, funny to look back at her being brad pitts love interest. Nothing too graphic, which does dimmer the film overall especially given the name KALIfornia

despite only catching the film halfway through, the time when shannons already been conned, I was luckily able to catch up quickly and thankfully did because this turned out to be a better than average TV movie. Shannon doesn't bring her A game but does enough to keep us interested, I recall years ago reading a couple of bad reviews for two of her movies at the time and I think this might have been one of them which might have put me off a little before viewing this? Regardless because I think I might decide to watch another one of her films if they turn up on TV in the near future. Although the film doesn't cross the creepy line and we don't get to see any goodies of any such nature, shannon does look remarkably good. Wasn't a fan of her in 90210 (in kelly/jennies camp) or charmed (never seen it) but loved scare tactics. like the summary states, there was one too many twists leading to the climax and it did seemed force feed as you don't really see whats happening to who and remember who was crossed etc etc.

Well thats what I thought and hoped, but the matter of fact that after watching it at least 5 times (a couple were interrupted viewings) since it was released I'm still pretty much in the dark. At least if you were to watch it now you'd appreciate the supporting cast of more familiar faces of benecio and pollack, at the time byrne and baldwin would have been the recognizables and spacey the newcomer. I was thinking their was more action in this, but to watch it now seems it more an episode of gillmore girls than a lost episode. It was released around the same time as Heat which i'm a huge fan of and probably a big factor to why I didn't rate this to well because for the timing issue I always think of heat when I hear usual suspects. Benecio is very very funny especially reading the card in the line up. The twist is what the film is primarily remembered for which is pretty sad, due to the very good acting and chemistry. But regardless the movie still ended up as a classic in many eyes (and launched spacey, del toro & singer)...sadly not mine, I'll give it another shot one day