Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000

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You Know The Movie You're Watching Is Stupid When... ...you stop bothering with taking notes on it and start wondering about silly stuff - like, do clubs that Disaffected White Teens frequent really have big huge bathrooms and big huge bedrooms with big huge beds in them? THE STORY (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**) Girl-Next-Door Cathy Jones (Lena Headey), Richie-Rich-Playboy Derek (James Marsden), and Strange-But-Loveable Travis (Norman Reedus) are Bored with living a life of privilege at their college, and even more bored with doing actual school work. Given an assignment to write a paper on the effects of rumor and innuendo by their Professor (Eric Bogosian; is his character ever actually given a name? If so, I missed it. Not that I care. But I do digress.), the trio decide to make it a group study by starting a rumor to see how far it spreads and what form it takes when it gets back to them. Partially because Jones hates rich folks (though she is decidedly fond of Derek "because he's nice"), they decide to make rich stuck-up Naomi (Kate Hudson) and her boyfriend Bo (Joshua Jackson) the target of their rumor. After Derek watched Bo try to have sex with the drunk, teasing, but Just Say No-ing Naomi, Derek convinces Jones and Travis to start a rumor that Bo and Naomi actually had sex, though Bo apparently walked away from a passed-out Naomi. And once the rumor spreads like Magical Wildfire across campus, Naomi - who didn't remember having said Yes - is convinced that Bo raped her; she reports his act to Detective Kelly (Sharon Lawrence), who proceeds to investigate him. Seeing their little rumor take a Nasty Turn, Jones wants to put an end to it, but is met by some resistance by Derek, who may have a secret or two of his own. THE UPSHOT Well, so much for women at college being taken seriously when they press date rape charges. Movies like Gossip (and its act-alike kin, Brokedown Palace) are an insult to hard-working White high school and college students everywhere. They are not unlike Booty Call to Black youth, in that both types of movies present their subjects as childish brats who need to be under constant adult supervision, lest they go off and do Stupid Stuff just so they can piss their parents and/or teachers off. In Gossip, the lines are drawn quickly. Derek is established as a liar and womanizer early on, saving the audience from having to Discover that for ourselves; likewise, Travis is shown to be The Weird One, and maintains that persona throughout most of the flick. Strangely enough, Lena Headey chooses to play Jones with a constant smirk on her face, which only serves to make her character less likable; had she taken her character seriously and not constantly assault the audience with that winky smirk, Headey may have actually pulled off a more convincing performance. I spent the first half of the movie wondering what any of these characters saw in each other (especially once The Truth was revealed about one of them); by the second half, I no longer cared. I simply prided myself on having the ability to sit through this torture without screaming obscenities at the screen. As for the "adults" in this flick, I had to wonder why Edward James Olmos and Sharon Lawrence were so obviously slumming. Is this why Lawrence left NYPD-Blue? Not that she was getting much more play there; I guess this role must've been seen as a step up, after having been ignored for so long on that show. And I don't know what Olmos' deal was; maybe they pay well for sleepy walk-throughs these days. Eric Bogosian is another matter entirely. One that I would just as soon forget. I would say that the entire movie is telegraphed, leaving no surprises to be found; but that would be only partially true, if only because of the final scene. But could these folks leave well enough alone and let the twist stand on its own? I'll answer that by directing your attention to the redlight at the bottom of this review. Ye gods, this was a bad movie. Isn't there a cable channel we can restrict these kinds of vapid flicks to? Criminy...we can Put A Man On The Moon; surely, we can Stop This Madness! BAMMER'S BOTTOM LINE This one almost pulled out a yellow light solely on the basis of its twist ending - until they had to go and mess that up with a lame "explanation". lord, save me from Disaffected Teen Flicks... GOSSIP:   back to top And that's the way I see it. Rose "Bams" Cooper 3BlackChicks Review™ Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com    ICQ: 7760005 http://www.3blackchicks.com/