first snow Tagged Articles at Cinematical

*A guest review today, from Nick Schager, of Slant Magazine

On the evidence of First Snow, it's apparent that Mark Fergus is a devoted student of classic crime cinema. For his directorial debut, the filmmaker (re-teaming with his Children of Men screenwriting partner Hawk Ostby) delivers a streamlined, straightforward slice of "Sunshine Noir," a sub-genre in which noir's pessimistic thematic preoccupations are transplanted from the shadowy night to the blisteringly bright daytime. As in Fergus' film, this shift also often involves a milieu relocation from the seedy, malevolent city to the imposingly empty rural wasteland, with the omnipresent air of gloom and calamity found not beneath towering skyscrapers and in darkened alleys but, rather, just behind scraggly tumbleweed bushes, across the horizon-seeking interstate, and around the corner from the dilapidated gas stations that sit, like ominous oases, in the middle of the vast nowhere.

Such a fill-up station is the starting point for the turbulent journey of Jimmy (Guy Pearce), a cocky, fast-talking flooring salesman who dreams of making it big selling classic Wurlitzer jukeboxes, and who becomes stranded at an out-of-the-way New Mexico rest stop after his car hits a (literal and figurative) bump in the road. While waiting for repairs, Jimmy entertains himself by having his fortune read by a laid-back psychic named Vacaro (J.K. Simmons), though his mockery of the man's supposed supernatural gifts come to a halt when – after offering up some cryptic comments about impending events – the seer is overwhelmed by violent seizures and, consequently, halts the reading and returns Jimmy's money. Simultaneously amused and mildly annoyed, the salesman nonetheless thinks little of the encounter until the prophesies begin coming true, prompting a return visit to Vacaro during which he's told that death shall arrive with the season's first snowfall.

The critics almost universally panned Guy Pearce's latest film, Factory Girl. Our own Ryan Stewart, in his review of the feature, said: "But as turned-on by superficiality as Warhol was, this film, coming in the age of Paris Hilton, stumbles by settling for a pair of superficial portraits." While Pearce had a wonderful stint dolled up in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, lately audiences haven't been happy unless he's dirty and dripping with angst and drama, which he does so well. So, it's probably a really good thing that he's following up Factory Girl with First Snow.

The film's official website has a trailer up for the film, and it looks a million times more fun than his big-screen take on Warhol. Pearce plays Jimmy Starks, a flooring salesman and hustler whose car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. He asks someone if the area has "interesting diversions," and finds himself getting a scary reading from a psychic who says that with the first snow, there will be no tomorrow. So, obviously, Starks gets suspicious and paranoid as bits of the reading start to come true. And, in case you think he could just hightail it for Mexico, they add a little Final Destination in -- that his destiny will find him.

Granted, you'll have to look beyond his long hair/mullet look, which I really don't understand. Or, why the cute Piper Perabo wouldn't have forced him to get a haircut yet. Nevertheless, Pearce pulls off paranoia and inner-angst to a tee, and he's helped by William Fichtner, who already sold us as a salesman in Go, and JK Simmons in the meaty role as the psychic -- a nice change from his J. Jonah Jameson. The film will be released this March, just as the snow will hopefully be thawing.

[via Twitch]