Tag Archives: J.K. Simmons

Off the Map (2003)

It's like a Beckett play...
It's like a Beckett play...

And then there was Campbell Scott, son of the great George C. and co-director of the award-winning 1996 drama Big Night. That film became the darling of mid-90s critics everywhere, earning itself a regular place on the newly-created Sundance Channel. From there, it entered my eyes and proceeded to make absolutely no impression on me whatsoever.

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw him turn up in a Jazz Age version of Hamlet on…the Hallmark Channel…I know, right? It was the year 2000, I was seventeen at the time, and seventeen-year-olds channel surf. So sue me, I wound up watching Hamlet on the Hallmark Channel. Having seen three movie-Hamlets in the previous decade (four if you count that episode of MST3k), Campbell Scott’s production convinced me the man had gone insane. The ghost of Hamlet’s dead father possessed his script for a Great Gatsby movie. So I’m skipping over his third movie, Final, to talk about Off the Map. Because Sam Elliot’s in this one. And he’s always awesome. Continue reading Off the Map (2003)