Loosies & Answers to Nothing (A Tale of Two Films)
This was a productive weekend for me where movie watching was concerned as I decided to started on my Must Watch List of newly released films this winter. I watched the first three on my list - the smaller, relatively unknown independent films Loosies and Answers to Nothing as well as the much buzzed about independent film Shame (review for this one to come).
Don’t see: Answers to Nothing (starring Dane Cook, Julie Benz, Elizabeth Mitchell, Zach Gilford) - The premise is much like that of the Oscar-winning film Crash, a number of strangers in Los Angeles are interconnected and their resulting connections bring up issues of race, societal responses to crime, morality of the police, husband-wife dynamics, and social tensions. Though unlike Crash, these connections between characters lack meaning and depth and therefore have no real impact on each other. Stories which may have some potential if they were explored further, including a recovering addict and her wheel chair bound brother preparing for the LA marathon and a man suffering with tramatic stress over the violent death of his wife, are pushed a side for the main been there, done that storyline of a husband and wife whose relationship is marred with infidelity and childlessness. I love Dane Cook, as a comedian (and I don’t even like stand-up comedy like that) and overall star of some of my fantasies, and Elizabeth Mitchell was one of the best characters on LOST but paired together, the two did not work for me.
Do see: Loosies (starring Peter Facinelli, Jamie Alexander) - I have to give it up to Peter Facinelli who wrote and produced this film, I really liked it. Named after the slang for cigarettes, this film wasn’t anything flashy or even very intricate but it was a pretty good movie of a New York pickpocket and slight casanova who discovers he is also a soon-to-be father when a one-night stand tracks him down. We as the audience discover there is more to him than meets the eye. I’ve always felt that Peter Facinelli had a charm to him that he always conveys onscreen and his pairing with newcomer Jamie Alexander is great to watch.
