I re-watched the totally underappreciated Bullets Over Broadway last night, wondering what Dianne Wiest (Brad Pitt's favorite actress, per IMDb's trivia page) has been up to since she got her Oscar for the film. Turns out she's been reunited with Chazz Paminteri in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, screening at the Venice Film Festival this Sunday.
Wiest and Palminteri play the parents of Dito, a young man growing up in Queens in the 80's. The adult Dito is played by Robert Downey Jr., who, despite several widely acclaimed roles, has yet to really make a full comeback. Rosario Dawson is also in the cast, no doubt as some sort of 'Rican barrio princess who sets those wisecracking boys straight. The movie was gently panned earlier this year by Cinematical's own Mr. Rocchi, and so much less gently panned by The Hollywood Reporter after it debuted at Sundance. Variety dissed it, but in so doing clued me in to the fact that Richard E. Grant (whom I adore) directed an autobiographical flick (with Emily Watson, Miranda Richardon and Gabriel Byrne, no less!), which I am now totally ravenous to rent, despite the fact that Chris wasn't a huge fan when he saw it at Tribeca.
For context, please see Bullets, or A Bronx Tale, both with Chazz playing full-on Italian gangsters, Bronx being Palminteri's NYC neighborhood pic. Quality Dianne Wiest movies requiring your urgent attention (unless you've already seen them and have come to appreciate them like I do): Parenthood, The Birdcage, Edward Scissorhands, Little Man Tate and The Lost Boys. Seriously, you are wasting valuable time reading this if you have not seen these Wiest-flicks. I want to hear you all singing "Thou Shalt Not Kill," by the end of this holiday weekend.
