JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

My reading backlog has been shrinking but my viewing backlog has been expanding so last night I put my book down and watched two movies. Well, one and a quarter.

First I put on Nothing But The Truth, a thinly-veiled retelling of the Valerie Plame affair, written and directed by Rod Lurie, whose previous work includes The Contender. In The Contender Joan Allen plays the vice-presidential nominee (the elected veep has died) of president Jeff Bridges who gets raked over the coals by conservative senator Gary Oldman. Allen, Bridges, Oldman—the director just had to yell “Action!”

The main problem with Nothing But The Truth (apart from the constant reminder of the old Inday Badiday showbiz talk show with women who gave birth to fish and lost children looking for their parents) is the casting. Playing the Judith Miller character—the dedicated reporter who goes to jail because she will not reveal the name of her source—is Kate Beckinsale. Lovely, smart, effective at waging war with werewolves, but totally unbelievable as a tough national correspondent who chases down a story that could bring down the government. With her cute upswept ponytail, she looks like she would burst into tears if someone said “Boo”. It’s not her looks, it’s the lack of street smarts, steel, and the cynical world-weary quality of women who have faced down powerful, scary men. The quality of “Yeah, and fuck you too.” Maybe my idea of female journalists draws too much from movies, but I’ve worked in newspapers and I know some girls who could flay Beckinsale’s character alive before appetizers are served. Also, Lurie would have us believe that a national reporter can get a scoop no one else has a whiff of, and still be a full-time soccer mom. Where does she work, the homeowners association newsletter?

Enter Matt Dillon as the special prosecutor tasked to find out the source of the leak in national security. There are many roles Matt Dillon can essay brilliantly (see Drugstore Cowboy), and he may be responsible for triggering puberty in the females of my generation, but there’s no way he can play that special prosecutor. Vera Farmiga as the exposed CIA operative and Angela Bassett as the editor are better, but they’re not the leads.

When Beckinsale gets sent to jail, I quit watching the movie. I couldn’t believe a second of it. I put on William Friedkin’s 1985 movie To Live And Die in L.A., of which I knew nothing but the soundtrack by Wang Chung.

Whoa! Freeze frame! Is that William Petersen as the rampant testoterone lead? William Petersen, our beloved eccentric Uncle Grissom from the original C.S.I.? He was…he was Hot. And wearing jeans so tight you could tell what religion he is. The jeans are so distracting they take over the movie; they also explain the character’s unfortunate decisions since they cut off circulation to his brain. Petersen, who was excellent in Michael Mann’s Manhunter, the first adaptation of Red Dragon by Thomas Harris (a much much much better movie than Red Dragon with Edward Norton), plays a Secret Service agent on the trail of a painter/counterfeiter Willem Dafoe (also hot, though we prefer him older and twisted). I think Friedkin was attempting to return to French Connection territory with the antihero-hero and the long car chases; he doesn’t make it, but To Live And Die in L.A. has its moments. Oh and the score is distracting.