“First Snow” opens to limited release

“First Snow,” the thriller starring Guy Pearce that was filmed almost entirely in the Route 66 town of Albuquerque, opened to limited release on Friday.

According to some stories I read, the film will gain wider release later.

Here’s the premise:

Stranded after an accident outside a desolate town, Jimmy Munson (Guy Pearce) visits a fortune teller to pass the time, but soon learns that he is running out of time. At first skeptical, Jimmy’s world begins to unravel as the psychic’s visions come true. Now, with his fate looming nearer, Jimmy becomes obsessed with revisiting his past in hopes of changing his destiny.

The Rotten Tomatoes site has given “First Snow” a somewhat tepid reception, with just 55 percent of critics giving it favorable reviews so far. Still, that’s miles better than “Wild Hogs,” also shot in Albuquerque, and its sub-20s rating.

Here’s the trailer:

“First Snow” director Mark Fergus told ComingSoon.net about his experience in filming in the Duke City:

CS: Can you talk about that landscape and location, because Albuquerque, New Mexico really adds a lot to the vibe of the film. Does it really snow there?

Fergus: Yeah, it does. Well, I’m from New York and I moved out there for a couple of years right about the time we were struggling with this script and finally, I really understood what we were trying to do because the landscape there just blew my mind. I had never seen anything like that and yeah, just realizing that in the desert there’s four seasons and that it snows in the desert. Just something about the image of snow in the desert is such a beautiful image, it just didn’t seem possible. We wrote the script very specifically to be in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the state’s been very aggressive about getting business there so we were able to eventually convince everyone that we should shoot the film exactly where it’s supposed to be. Then we went there and they have tons of great crews there now. One of the cool things about ours was that it took place in their city so we didn’t have to hide anything and everything was real and on location. We wanted to make it like the score, make it a character in the film that’s telling the story in some way. I’m so glad we got to film it there, because that’s where we wrote it to be done, and it was really fun to be able to go back and pull it off there. Here’s the kicker. Most of the film has to have snow or otherwise, the story doesn’t work and then in the last week of the shoot where we needed snow, we had all sorts of plans to do snow blankets and CGI, and one night, it just poured 12 inches of snow, the last week of the schedule, covered everything and we just used it. It doesn’t usually snow in late March, and we just got a gift from the Gods.

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