Victor/Victoria and corpse

Corpse Bride
or Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

this one gives me chills! Coming this fall...

Batmen

Details on the new Batman "Special Edition" DVDs set for release this year. From Dark Horizons:

Burton's: "The first two films are finished. Tim Burton re-recorded his commentary tracks with a 'guest.' Disc One of both will include remastered pictures and sound with commentary. Disc 2 has trailers, TV Spots, vintage footage and a new featurette on the film. The first film also gets a feature length documentary."

Sounds great. A little over-due.

Schumacher's: "Joel recorded commentary tracks for the theatrical edition of 'Batman Forever' along with 'Batman & Robin'. Afterwards Joel decided to ask WB to recut 'Forever' back to something that resembles his original edit. WB agreed and gave him a budget to do so. Joel is currently in Burbank working on some alterations to the film...The extended cut is expected to run around 2 hrs 35 mins. Schumacher is going to add as much footage as possible back in."

Right...

I hope Joel Schumacher has plans to cut Arnold out of the "Batman & Robin 10th Anniversary Extended Director's Cut" (yikes) and replace him with a CGI Twiki from Buck Rogers...actually, that outfit looked more like a Cylon from Battlestar Galactica than anything else.

And speaking of "Battlestar Galactica," the new mini-series (which aired on the Sci/Fi Channel) was not a complete disaster. Produced by Ronald D. Moore, the series was updated for a more sophisticated audience and featured a few twists on the original characters, including a kick-ass female heroine played by Katee Sackhoff (as Lt. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace). "The Sci-Fi Channel's 'Galactica' ruthlessly eliminates the original's camp elements and substitutes for them a brutal war story where the villains are more than just mustache-twirling caricatures and the heroes aren't spared making hard decisions" reports Franklin Harris from Pop Culture Productions.

I don't know, I still prefer my Starbuck to be played by a dude (Dirk Benedict) but I'll take former fashion model, Tricia Helfer (above) as a humanoid Cylon spy, any day of the week.

the man in black

Lance Henriksen has a face that looks like beef jerky. Actually, he has one of the most expressive faces I have ever seen in a film or television series. His whole body looks like he was carved out of solid granite. His voice sounds like the low hum of a 747, or as if he had just finished gargling with gravel. His hair may be white now, but he's always had that ageless quality. He also appears as if he has the qualities of a man who may have shook hands with the devil himself - and lived to tell the tale.

Lance Henriksen was born on May 5, 1940 in New York, New York. He was a graduate of the famed Actors Studio. He broke into film in small roles, but his big break came (in a small but memorable role) in Sidney Lumet's urban masterpiece, Dog Day Afternoon (75). He's never stopped since. Other small but memorable roles soon followed, in big-budget and significant films like: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (77) and Damien: Omen II (78), but in 1983 he took a role in the star-studded ensemble of Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff. He played astronaut Wally Schirra, alongside Ed Harris as John Glenn, Scott Glenn as Alan Shepard, Dennis Quaid as Gordon Cooper, Fred Ward as Gus Grissom and Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager. It would remain one of the best films he's ever appeared in. The 5'10 and a quarter inch actor seems to be able to adjust to the height of any character he plays, simply by raising or loweing an eyebrow. He also looks like he can stare a hole straight through a brick wall.

But underneath it all, he always maintains a certain humanity that makes his performances watchable again and again. It's most interesting to note that his most famous role had him not playing a "human" at all - but the synthetic life-form, Bishop, in James Cameron's Aliens (86). Cameron, who is an old friend of Henriksen, had written the role of The Terminator (84) with him in mind. The part eventually went to Arnold (and the rest was history) but Lance still got to play the guy who took him down. He would go on to play the Bishop character a second time, for David Fincher in Alien³ (92) - but that film, although good, was nothing like it's predecessor. In addition to playing that other stoic Hollywood heavy, Charles Bronson, in the TV film, Reason for Living: The Jill Ireland Story (91), he turned in his best non-film role as retired FBI agent, Frank Black, in Chris Carter's (X-Files) TV series, Millennium (96). The show lasted for three seasons, and it remains one of the most under-rated series of all-time. A true cult item, and very, very dark.

Henriksen was actually illiterate until the age of thirty and learned to read by studying movie scripts. His father was a fisherman nicknamed "Icewater." His parents divorced when he was two and he left home at the age of twelve. He went on to serve in the Navy before he became an actor. Although many of his films cannot be considered anything other than straight-to-video B-movie schlock, he always manages to give whatever is required of his part, and often times he can elevate an entire picture. Sometimes without even saying a word. Now that's what I call "method acting." He's also starred in nearly a hundred feature films. One of my favorite of his performances was in the vampire-western, Near Dark. The vampires in Kathryn Bigelow's cult masterpiece are the victims, and Henriksen is both tragic and unforgettable as their leader, Jesse. More often than not, his work goes unnoticed (including his ceramic "glazescapes" which can be purchased from his website) - but do yourself a favor, and see some of his lesser known films - you may just decide he's the greatest thing since, well - since beef jerky.

Lance's Best:

Dog Day Afternoon (75) *****
Network (76, uncredited) *****
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (77) *****
Damien: Omen II (78) ***1/2
Prince of the City (81) *****
The Right Stuff (83) *****
The Terminator (84) ****1/2
Jagged Edge (85) ****
Aliens (86) *****
Near Dark (87) ****1/2
Johnny Handsome (89) ***1/2
Alien³ (92) ****
Jennifer Eight (92) ***
Dead Man (95) ****
Powder (95) ****

guilty pleasures:
these films are ranked by their "craptastic value" only

Savage Dawn (85) ***
Pumpkinhead (89) ****
Stone Cold (91) ****1/2
Man's Best Friend (93) ***
No Escape (94) **
Color of Night (94) *****
The Quick and the Dead (95) ***1/2
Gunfighter's Moon (95) ****1/2
Alien vs. Predator (04) shit sandwich

"I always wanted to be an actor, even when I was a little kid. When I used to run away from home, I'd go to movies and sit all night watching Kirk Douglas. When I was 16, I tried getting into the Actors Studio and they told me to get lost. I said 'I'll come back when I'm a man', and I came back when I was 30. I went to sea, I travelled the world ... I was waiting."

"I'm pretty slapstick in my life but nobody sees that. You get typecast. I'm from New York and I have a shit-detector that's outspoken. I'm very streetwise and the producers detect that. So they get me on a movie and kill me. I go into their offices and I'm sure when I leave they say, 'You know, he'd be great to kill'. I've been killed every way you can imagine."

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (04)
Directed by Ken Burns and Written by Geoffrey C. Ward

There is something about Keith David's voice. It's almost soothing. I have watched him over the years turn many a "nothing role" into something substantial. Films like: The Thing (82), Platoon (86), Off Limits (88), Bird (88), They Live (88), Men at Work (90), Clockers (95), Blue in the Face (95, in a short faceless cameo as Jackie Robinson), There's Something About Mary (98) and Requiem for a Dream (00) to name only a handfull. Then there are the films (or series) he's leant that unmistakable voice to: Gargoyles (94-98 TV series), Spawn (97/99 TV series), Princess Mononoke (97, English version), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (01) and namely his narration work for documentary television: (Ken Burns') Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony (99), New York: A Documentary Film (99), (Burns') Jazz (01) and Mark Twain (01), Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked (03) and now Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson for the man who has brought us some of the most moving and expertly handled explorations into the myths and realities of this country's short and checkered past, Ken Burns.

Best known for his ground-breaking, Civil War (90) mini series, Burns sort of reinvigorated the documentary film and made American history "cool" and accessible for alot of people who wouldn't normally be interested in an early twentieth century boxer and nearly-forgotten legend like Jack Johnson. Burns' usual approach is to side-step the academic meanderings of a history lesson and go right to the heart of the story, showing us not only the context of the subject's personal life - but the backdrop of an entire nation. In alot of ways, I think Unforgivable Blackness is Burn's seminal and most audacious work to date. It isn't so much the subject matter (which has already been explored in an excellent and fictionalized feature film by director Martin Ritt, called: The Great White Hope, 70 - finally released on DVD this month) but it's the very nature of the film that gives it a pungent sting: racism. Johnson was quite a character, and I have never read much on him before (such as his own autobiography) but I have always known who he was - just never how important and truly tragic his life was. James Earl Jones played Johnson in the Martin Ritt film (alongside the luminous and Oscar-nominated Jane Alexander as Eleanor Backman) and he also appears as himself in interviews in the Burns documentary. The tagline for Ritt's film was: "He could beat any white man in the world. He just couldn't beat all of them." That about sums Johnson up to a T.

Jack Johnson (1878-1946) became the first African American heavyweight champion after winning the crown from Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia on December 26, 1908. As a result of this victory, he became the center of a bitter racial controversy with the American public clamoring for the former white champion, Jim Jeffries, to come out of retirement and recapture the crown. His life was like a see-saw of wine, women and song - mixed dangerously with pride, passion and a will to keep on despite innumerable odds. I have never been much of a great boxing fan, but I do keep a framed print of Bellows' "Dempsey and Firpo" over a desk in my study (mainly because this was the painting featuring two men boxing over Oscar Madison's fireplace in The Odd Couple, 68) and I was amazed to learn that many people, even to this day, consider Johnson to have been the greatest fighter of all-time (even technically better than Muhammad Ali). This is not the only revelation the film conjures up. There is too much to write about Johnson's life here - but that's what the movie's for.

Burns takes his time in telling Johnson's story and it pays off. Wynton Marsalis' score is everything you would expect it to be: brilliant. In addition to the immeasurable gift of Keith David's narration of the piece, the film also features the voice talents of Samuel L. Jackson (as Johnson himself) and Billy Bob Thornton. Jackson took some getting used to, but by the second half, I basically forgot that I was hearing Samuel L. Jackson, and started believing it was someone else. Still, this choice was the only major criticism I had with the whole film (simply because his voice is so recognizable) - clocking in at a reasonable 214 minutes. Still, the true brilliance of the picture is Burn's use of letters, photographs, archival footage and early film to tell the whole story - and from all sides (unlike some other modern myth-makers and current "documentarians" - you know who you are) to paint a canvas of unmistakable beauty and historic integrity. There is a segment involving D.W. Griffith's immortal (and still controversial) film, The Birth of a Nation (1915), that puts the whole era in perspective. Then there are the scenes of Johnson's historic (and tragic) fight in Havana that are so fascinating that it may be hard for you to take your eyes off your television for even a second. Burns uses the original early film of the fight in almost it's entirity. It was a bold choice, and a stroke of genius. One among many in the film. This is a must see cultural document that is as endlessly entertaining as it is sobering. A one-of-a-kind viewing experience.

5 stars out of 5

Catwoman review take 2

You may think that a film such as Warner's, Catwoman (04) would be an easy target for criticism. Well, if you think that, than you're probably right. It's easy to get angry at a film as eagerly-anticipated and as poorly-made as this. The thing is, haven't we come to expect most big budget "franchise" films to be just that: poor? I still hold out hope whenever I go into one of these things that maybe there will be that small performance, or that unique camera angle - or that perfect choice of score or song that can carry me through to the next small, redeeming moment. Then you come across a film like this, where there really isn't any significant, or even "small" moment for that matter - that makes it all worth-while. I don't really hate Halle Berry, but she is an actress of limited range, and in Catwoman, she displays her utter lack of any real talent for all the world to see. This has nothing to do with her winning an Oscar or anything, but a film like this almost requires a certain dumbing-down of the acting senses to pull it off. Berry was already dumb in that department to begin with. So why then did it fail? It probably started with the lack of originality in not only the screenplay, stunts and costume departments, but the entire production lacked a certain spark that could have been just enough to shine a little glimmer of hope on the dim proceedings.

The film's director, Pitof, has had more experience in the "visual effects" aspect of movie-making. A veteren effects engineer on many of my favorite French films, including: Jeunet & Caro's Delicatessen (91), The City of Lost Children (95) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien: Resurrection (97), in addition to The Visitors (93) and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (99) - you would think that Pitof has an eye for detail. There isn't much detail in Catwoman, except for a heavy-handed and distracting use of CGI, when in some cases, the real thing would have worked just fine. The script was written by Theresa Rebeck, based on characters created by Bob Kane. Rebeck was a vetern TV writer (and producer) having developed material on NYPD Blue (93), Third Watch (99) and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" (01). She also wrote the screenplay for Harriet the Spy (96). She probably needed to develop the story for this adaptation of Catwoman a little more carefully. There are some truly dreadful moments in the film from a story and characterization standpoint, and just because you introduce an element of the supernatural into the story, doesn't give you a license to throw out all reality. I could give you examples (like when a pre-Catwoman Berry crashes the most "unrealistic" and "unnatural" party of all-time) but that would spoil your enjoyment of the film.

I would not recommend the picture to anyone. Even non-comic book (or Catwoman) fans. If you are a fan of Berry, Benjamin Bratt or Sharon Stone - do yourself a favor and go watch one of their more solid (and better) works. Each of them have perfomed admirably in the past (even Stone). Bratt was excellent in the little-seen Piñero (01) and I have never forgotten him from Taylor Hackford's (Ray, 04) guilty-pleasure classic, Blood In, Blood Out (Bound by Honor, 93). He got a subtle nose-job after that film (ruining his wonderful Incan-looking nose) and his career has never recovered. Even Stone has had her moments. Basic Instinct (92) is sort of a classic in that train-wreck kind of way, and I always admired her work in B-movies (where she probably should have stayed) such as: King Solomon's Mines (85) and it's sequel Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (87) as the aptly named "Jesse Huston", as well as Action Jackson (88) and Above the Law (88). After she became a star however (following the over-night success of Basic Instinct), she never fully formed into a great beauty, or a great actress. She's just always remained somewhere in between. Berry I should not let off so easy.

What is it about Halle Berry? Besides her incredible beauty. The more you read about Berry, the more you wonder why this woman is allowed out of prison or the looney bin. Sure, alot of stuff is written about these big stars (like the story about Berry's infamous hit-and-run involving a child and her paying-off certain parties to keep the whole thing under wraps) but with Berry - you actually start to believe some of those stories. But let's focus on Berry the actress. I have seen her do good work before: Jungle Fever (91), Executive Decision (96), Bulworth (98) and Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (99) which is probably her best role to date. After the undesreved Academy Award for Monster's Ball (01), it became clear that Berry was now Hollywood royalty. Fine. I have no problem with that, but if Berry is going to be allowed to get away with making films as awful as Catwoman, I think Pauly Shore deserves to be re-evaluted for his dramatic abilites as a film actor (and he may just get the chance after the anticipated release of, Pauly Shore Is Dead 03). Berry's next big project will be a planned re-make of Foxy Brown. That just has "disaster" written all over it. I will always be willing to watch the stunningly beautiful Berry on screen however, but lately - I've been thinking of bringing along ear-plugs when I watch her work. The only thing I can figure is, the director is French, so he probably couldn't tell exactly how bad Berry's panting and purring sounded completely in English. She also moved around in character like she was playing a run-way model in a Right Said Fred music video.

There are little to no pleasures in watching Catwoman. To be honest, I sort of dozed off somewhere in the middle, and woke up with a pain in my neck. I thought maybe it was just the way I had positioned myself, but I realized that the sharp pain only came whenever I stared directly at Catwoman on the screen. I don't need to tell you how bad of a mis-fire this film was at the box-office - because if you know me, than you know that I don't usually care about how much a movie costs, or how much an actor gets paid, or how many booger-eating morons go or don't go to see it in the theaters. I'm only concerned that the film is made with care, honesty and above all else: total conviction. The only thing that should be considered "convicted" about Catwoman, are it's film-makers. This film has been met with nothing but ridicule since the very beginning: The movie had to undergo re-shoots after testing poorly with screeners, with only a month left before the theatrical release date; a rough cut of the trailer was put online a few months before the film's release, and drew such heavy criticism that it was quickly pulled - it was soon replaced with a new trailer which didn't feature any dialogue; a newspaper reported that Sharon Stone's cell phone rang in the middle of filming a scene and Stone took the call, holding up filming for a time; Halle Berry's stunt- and body-double is the 29-year-old Hawaiian male actor Nito Larioza, an expert in martial arts; Her nickname "The Halle Cat" was given to her by the cast and crew on the set of the film...

So, does that mean that we should continue to kick it while it's down? Ashley Judd, Michelle Pfeiffer (who played the role in Tim Burton's under-rated Batman Returns 92) and Josh Lucas all wisely passed on the film. Others were not so lucky. The absolutely horrible music in the film was supplied by (last minute) composer, Klaus Badelt whose list of scores include: Chill Factor (99), Mission: Impossible II (00), Hannibal (01), Pearl Harbor (01), The Time Machine (02), Equilibrium (02), Basic (03), The In-Laws (03) and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (03). Somehow, Catwoman seems right at home in this list. At least there was something right about it afterall.

Sharon Stone gives Halle Berry a few "pointers" on how to piss away her career.

no stars out of 5

put out the cat

Catwoman (04)
It's hard to talk about something like this. First off, it's not a real movie. "Real" in the sense of creative people coming together to employ their talents with the over-all purpose of producing something that shows an actual artistic and collaborative effort. There. I'm done trying to sound diplomatic. I don't want to talk about the bad costume (that made Catwoman's mask look like one of those truck-driver hats with the ventilated back), I don't want to talk about the ridiculous CGI (that was clearly swept up from Sam Raimi's cutting-room floor), I don't want to talk about the piss-poor martial arts (a mixture of capoeira and break-dancing), I don't want to talk about Benjamin Bratt (enough said) - the movie is a rancid waste of not only your money (however you choose to put it down) but also of your precious little time on the Earth. I would tell you to see it, if I thought you'd enjoy any one aspect in particular. It's not like watching a bad movie and having a laugh at it's own expense. These people gave it everything they could - and they still let Halle Berry impersonate Eartha Kitt (so badly to the point that one could actually acquire a rare form of liver disease just watching her on screen) I might add. I can't articulate just how terrible Berry is in the film. I was in so much physical pain watching her that I may have actually blacked-out a few times. That's it. No need to drop anymore names - if you participated in ruining the image of the cherished Catwoman character for this film - you know who you are.

But, one name deserves special mention: Pitof. I know, I had to do a double take the first time I saw this word mentioned as the director of Catwoman. Sounds like a vegetable. In any case, Pitof (who should officially be dubbed "the worst director of a comic book film to date") got the nickname by his childhood peers. It's good he's kept his "real" identity a secret - he may be able to slip back into the industry by directing episodes of Nash Bridges or Doc, with Billy Ray Cyrus (is that show even still on the air?) under the name Rhubarb or Kumquat. I mean, what the fuck, man? What were they thinking? It's so bad. Sure it has it's moments, but even Mussolini had his moments (or so I'm told). Is watching this movie some form of sensory torture? YES. If you do see it, it really boils down to a contest to see which element of the film is more degenerating to your soul: the music, or Halle Berry. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the only thing Berry is qualified to do - is shake her ass, which we see plenty of during the 104 minute running time. There is a quick scene where Berry slips through the bars of a jail cell, and we are treated to a nice view of her bountiful back-side sliding against a steal beam. Thank God for small miracles. Tim Burton still rules (Batman Returns, 92) and now it looks like we'll have to wait another ten years or so before someone else can touch the character (and make up for this natural disaster of a film). Oh well, with the potential for Elektra dead and buried, there's still Black Cat and Black Widow (two of my favorite female comic book characters) left for Hollywood to ruin. In the immortal words of Paul Westerberg: can't hardly wait.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: Sharon Stone has gone bye-bye.

la belle est la bete

(from comingsoon.net)
Natassia Malthe Cast in DOA: Dead or Alive
Source: Production Weekly January 10, 2005

"Natassia Malthe, who plays nemesis Typhoid Mary in this Friday's Elektra, has been cast in the feature adaptation of Tecmo's bestselling game franchise DOA: Dead or Alive, reports Production Weekly. Hong Kong helmer Corey Yuen (The Transporter) will direct for Impact Pictures. The script was written by J.F. Lawton (Under Siege, Pretty Woman). Production is scheduled to begin this spring in China. The movie centers on four female fighters in a competition to the death on an exotic island."

Forget Aeon Flux (above) - this one makes me very, very happy...

The 2005 Golden Globe Award Winners

The Best of the Best: (my favorite winners)


Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama)
Hilary Swank - Million Dollar Baby
Best Director
Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby


Best Foreign Language Film
The Sea Inside


Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
William Shatner - "Boston Legal"

DiCaprio and Bening got the "throw-away" awards, since there's no way in hell they'll win Oscars this year (but expect nominations nonetheless) it makes sense that the Hollywood Foreign Press gave them their bones. Owen and Portman were surprises (each with a win in the supporting performance categories) and it's a little more than obvious that in awarding them, the H.F.P. wanted to throw Mike Nichols his bone too (for directing them in Closer). Too bad for the H.F.P. the film's a P.O.S. Look's like it's going to be a good year for Eastwood. The two heavyweight contenders for the Best Director Oscar are Eastwood and Martin Scorsese (for The Aviator). They could split it right down the middle (like they did for The Globes) and give Scorsese the award for Picture, and Eastwood the award for Director. Then again, Alexander Payne (director of Sideways) might have something to say about that. I've heard this before: "Million Dollar Baby is nothing new", "it's the same old 'Eastwood' thing" - well, that may be true - but with Million Dollar Baby, he's raised "nothing new" and "the same old 'Eastwood' thing" to an art form, and they still owe him one for Mystic River (03). The race is on, and may the best Clint win - I mean "man"...

"never fuck with a Kubrick fan"

5-25-77 (05) written and directed by Patrick Read Johnson, starring: John Francis Daley, Steve Coulter, Emmi Chen, Colleen Camp, Christopher Lloyd and Kenneth Mitchell as John Dykstra

For those of you who don't already know, John C. Dykstra is the man behind the visual effects of Star Wars (77, special photographic effects supervisor), Battlestar Galactica (78 series, special effects photography and visual effects supervisor), Spider-Man (02) and Spider-Man 2 (04). He's also the man behind the special effects of Silent Running (72) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (79).

Patrick Read Johnson is the man behind Angus (95).

He also directed a couple other near-classics: Spaced Invaders (90, aka: Martians!!!) and Baby's Day Out (94).

It seems perfect then that these two "visionaries" should finally come together and create a lasting work of cinematic art. No, I'm not talking about Spaced Invaders II (or should that be: Martians 2!!!), I'm talking about Johnson's latest project: 5-25-77, which if you have to ask what the relevance of that date is in science fiction film history (or just plain cinema history) than you don't need to know. Well, actually, it isn't really a teaming in the collaborative sense, Dykstra is just a character in Johnson's low-budget (but interesting looking) comedy. It may very well be an "autobiographical" film (as a friend of mine and former P.R.J. colleague has pointed out) but it bares more than just a passing resemblance to another low-budget (and extremely hilarious and under-rated) comedy: Free Enterprise (98). Can't Johnson come up with anything original? Or at the very least: worth a damn? Is this going to be a fun homage to all of the best sci/fi films from the seventies - or just another stupid parody that makes people who know all of the lines from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (82) look bad? Okay, we don't really need a film to do that, but you see where I'm goin'...

Actually, I'm not going to pass judgement on this film until I see it (and I will see it), but just know this: in casting the lead for his film, Angus ("film" is what it is), writer/director P.R.J. found his lead actor (Charlie Talbert) eating hamburgers at a Wendy's fast food restaurant - and according to a reliable source (you know who you are) the fat little bastard would not only be supplied with dozens upon dozens of combo meals from that well-known establishment ("Biggie Size" I'm sure), but he was also brandished with an ample supply of hookers while on set. Folks, I could not make this kinda thing up. And even if I could, why the hell would I?

Director Patrick Read Johnson (above left) supposedly told his editor after the filming was completed on Angus (above right), to cut him an: "Academy Award-winning picture". Say whaaa?

5-25-77 is not Johnson's first film to reference Star Wars - in fact, The Empire Strikes Back (80) director, Irvin Kershner, had a small role in Angus. Weird.

Check out the link to Free Enterprise under my "movie links" - even if you're not a fan of all this sci/fi geek stuff...Actually, I read somewhere that the film was getting a re-release this year, and a reported sequel is still in the works. It's actually a very funny movie. I know, I know - whenever someone says, "it's actually a very funny movie" they may just be blowing smoke up your ass - but believe me when I tell you: it is a very funny, extremely well-written and extraordinarily well-made little film. A true gem and already a lost classic. I would call it a "cult movie" but I wouldn't want to belong to any cult that would have me as a member...thank you, Mr. Allen.

switchblade sister

Haute tension (03) aka: High Tension and Switchblade Romance (Rated NC-17 for strong graphic violence) directed and co-written by, Alexandre Aja

Why is this movie not out on DVD in the U.S.? It seems to be available everywhere else in the world (there is an excellent region 0 Korean special edition with english subtitles available). Oh well, I guess it wouldn't be the first time a foriegn-made shocker has been with-held from entering our shores - can anyone say: Battle Royale (00)?

here's the plot (from imdb): "Two female students, Marie and Alex, set off to Alex's parent's secluded homestead in the country to relax and study. Come nightfall, Hell pulls up at the front door. Alex is now bound and gagged, taken off, with Marie alluding the intruder. Can she save her friend's life in time? Or is everything all that it seems..."

check out this review from film monthly...