FIRST SNOW DARK BUT WARMI am quite sure I could watch two hours of Guy Pearce reading the classifieds from the Sunday paper or a menu from Denny's... something about him is just so compelling. Like Memento, FIRST SNOW is about a confused man on a quest. Jimmy Starks (named after James Dean's character in Rebel Without A Cause) is a slick, smooth salesman. Every word out of his mouth is meant to sell; however, what he is selling changes from start to finish in this film. While waiting on his broken car to be repaired, just for kicks he meets up with a fortune teller, Vacaro (J.K. Simmons in the new smash Juno and know best by me as Dr. Skoda in Law and Order) who shoots a few simple predictions at Jimmy before supposedly seeing something more unpleasant. Jimmy takes that as a good sales technique and brushes the guy off. Soon he discovers that Vacaro is credible and wants to know the full story. That story is the good stuff that many movies are made of; the journey within ourselves. Before he can process the bottom line, things get complicated; but isn't that just how life goes? Not a great movie, but certainly entertaining to watch how Jimmy's destination stays the same, but the road that he decides to take changes.
Rating: Good to have more quality time with Guy Pearce, interesting plot, good movie.
