1998 in Review: "Zero Effect"
This is the first in a year-long series of essays about the films of 1998, a crucial year in my evolution as a film lover. To be honest, I didn’t see many of them in the theater—I was busy that year being a dumb, rambunctious senior in high school—but the following year I started collecting DVDs, and the films from 1998 were among the first that I bought and watched. And rewatched. And rewatched some more. In many ways, these are the films that formed me, and none more so than the one you’re about to read about. I present to you: Zero Effect.
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This much is true. Actor Bill Pullman and writer-director Jake Kasdan first met in 1987 during the filming of The Accidental Tourist, the Oscar-nominated drama directed by Jake’s father Lawrence. The elder Kasdan was kind of a big deal at the time, having written and directed The Big Chill and Body Heat, and co-written a couple of Star Wars movies. The Accidental Tourist was a smaller film, a character study of a man who has gone through life unable or unwilling to emotionally connect, a condition that worsens after the tragic death of his son. Eventually, he meets a woman who helps him open up and experience life, not just visit it. The main character, a writer of travel guides, is played by William Hurt. Pullman plays his editor. Jake has one line in the film as a teenager in a department store.
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