I just read that Angela Bassett has joined the cast of Nothing but the Truth, a political drama loosely based on the Valerie Plame scandal. Bassett is busy these days. According to IMDb.com, she has two movies (Gospel Hill and Of Boys and Men) in post-production, two (Truth and Meet the Browns) currently filming, and one (Toussaint) in pre-production. And I couldn’t be happier. As Siege noted recently on the blog, smart women are hot – and Yalie Angela Bassett is both very smart and very hot. I first noticed her as Katherine Jackson in The Jacksons: An American Dream, which used to play on VH1 every 20 minutes or so. And I kept noticing her as her career took off.
Nothing but the Truth sounds worth seeing even without Bassett – although it might feel a little too “ripped from the headlines.” Written and directed by Rod Lurie (The Contender), the movie focuses on a reporter (Kate Beckinsale) who is jailed for outing a CIA agent. In a nice bit of optimistic casting, Bassett plays the editor-in-chief of the Washington D.C. newspaper for which Beckinsale writes. How many real-life major-market newspapers are helmed by African-American women? And the ensemble cast is pretty impressive, as well. The men include Noah Wylie as the attorney representing Beckinsale, and Alan Alda, David Schwimmer
and Matt Dillon (my childhood love) in unspecified roles. I wonder if one of them is a fictionalized Karl Rove or Scooter Libby.
The casting that has me most excited, apart from Angela Bassett, is Edie Falco. She’s another one who can pretty much do no wrong in my book. I would probably pay money to watch her read from the phone book. And I loved seeing both Falco and Bassett in
Sunshine State, so I’ll happily see them in another movie together.
And then there’s Vera Farmiga. I’ve never actually seen her in anything, but she’s pretty. And I heard she was good in The Departed.
And, of course, there’s Kate Beckinsale. (I suspect she won’t have a gun quite this big.)
She’s the one who makes me nervous. I’ve liked movies that she’s been in, but I don’t know that I can say I’ve ever liked her in a movie. And I’ve definitely not liked her a few movies. (Serendipity was unwatchable.) She did, however, get to kiss Frances McDormand in Laurel Canyon. So I kind of want to be her – at least for a little while back in 2002.
Regardless, I’m cautiously optimistic and looking forward to this movie next year. Has anyone heard anything more about it?
