Betty Fisher et autres histoires (2001) is making its US debut direct to DVD under the title Alias Betty. The film received acting nods from several festivals, and is currently rated 7.1 at IMDB. Critical response is 2.5 to 3 stars. Betty Fisher was the daughter of a woman with mental problems. As the film opens, she has returned to Paris with her small son, and she picks up her mother, who is now living in Spain, and is somewhat cured. That night, her son falls to his death. Her mother, seeing her daughter deeply depressed, comes up with a solution. She grabs another kid for her. Fisher is slow to accept the kid, but, when she discovers he has bruises from abuse, elects to keep him.

The mother of the stolen child, Mathilde Seigner, is a cocktail waitress and hooker, living with a black, unemployed ex con, and really is not at all broken up about being rid of the kid, but has to make noises like she is. She has no idea who the father is, as it could have been any of a dozen men that week. Since this is highly rated, and you may want to see it, I will let the plot rest there. The story is told a chunk at a time, each chunk focusing on different characters, which I found distracting and hard to follow. Seigner shows breasts in a shower scene. The photography is very nice, the DVD transfer very good, and there are lots of extras, such as a making of featurette and filmographies. The subtitles were bad enough that, even with my very limited knowledge of French, I was able to find inaccuracies. C-.

Movies:

Demasiado Amor (2001, Mexico, in Spanish, subtitled)

Demasiado Amor (Too Much Love) is a beautifully photographed, offbeat romantic comedy. The beautiful locations in Mexico are photographed by Gabriel Figueroa Jr., a second generation cinematographer. His father, Gabriel Sr., The film follows two sisters, Beatriz and Laura, who are nurturing a childhood dream to go to another country, set up bed and breakfast and live off the income. One day they decide that one of them must go to Spain and get the project started. They leave it to a coin-flip. Laura leaves. Beatriz, in her loneliness, begins to live three different lives and three different dreams. On the one hand, she still dreams of joining her sister in Spain, She also accepts the attentions of many lovers. Finally, she searches for and dreams about an elusive true love. In the course of the movie, Beatriz discovers more about herself, and realizes that she belongs in Mexico, on her own.

 It is a good film of its type, and it looks beautiful, but be forewarned that it is a romantic comedy in Mexican Spanish with subtitles. If those things don't scare you off, it's a pretty good little movie, with some beautiful nudity

• Karina Gidi (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Sasquatch (2002, straight-to-cable):

Also known as The Untold

Sasquatch is the story of a billionaire corporate executive who takes a team of specialists (wilderness experts, local guides, etc) into the remote forests of the Pacific Northwest to find a missing company plane. It is a matter of personal concern to him because the people on board included his daughter. The team begins to suspect that his main goal is not related to his missing daughter at all, but to an irreplaceable DNA testing machine called the Huxley Project, which his company has spent so much time and money developing that the company is valueless without it. After finding the plane, with its passengers apparently ripped apart by a ferocious beast, the group tries to figure out what could have happened.

Well, I guess the name of the movie should pretty much tell you who/what was responsible. The mystery is "why?". In the process of the investigation, the CEO (Lance Hendrickson) finds out that he and the Sasquatch have a lot in common. Especially around the hairline. Actually, Sasquatch looks a lot like those flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.

Hendrickson turns in his usual professional acting job, and the film really looks good in a crisp 1.85 anamorphic transfer, except when they do some crazy distortive effects to represent Sassy's POV. Other than those plusses, the film is about what you'd expect from a straight-to-vid-or-cable, except for a director's commentary on the DVD (I didn't listen to it, but others said it was good.)

The film is supposed to be "based on actual accounts"  (see story here), although a disclaimer at the end says it is based solely on the CEO's account. The others denied that there was any sasquatch involved, and the investigators felt that the CEO's account was delusional, brought on by despair and grief.

• Unknowns (1, 2)

Other crap:

• The Sun morphs Chirac into his alter ego
• URL says it all: www.nudeforpeace.org
• Before marriage, Jay Leno was a kinky, powerfully-hung sex machine. I didn't make it up. Honest.
• Is this for real? American shock-jocks get through to Chirac, pretending to be Jerry Lewis That seems too convenient to be real, but ...
• The 12 Angry Men of Sports
• The Miami Herald says Don Johnson is running around Germany with eight BILLION dollars in a suitcase.  He says he was going to buy a car. They told him he had enough to buy the factory. Eight billion???? Is this a James Bond movie plot?
• OSAMA BIN LADEN’s niece, Waffa bin Laden, is to launch a pop career in Britain. Waffa bin Laden? Sounds like a menu item in Belgium
  
   

What're the odds?

75th Academy Awards: Best Actor in a Supporting Role

This is kinda cool, unless you're Chris Cooper, who really deserves the Oscar. Just about a week ago, Cooper was the odds-on favorite for the best supporting actor Oscar. As of this minute, the Cult of Walken is causing a major shift in the odds, and they are now almost co-favorites.

"My Little Eye" (2002)

Five young people will win a prize of a million dollars if they spend six months in an isolated house having their every move watched by cameras. The one difference to the Big Brother format is that the prize is contingent on all five remaining the entire six months. The film suffers from the usual reality television problem - the characters are a bunch of losers seeking five minutes of fame on a digital channel watched by ten people or in this case a website. Therefore watching them being watched by cameras is mind numbingly boring. Clearly this was seen as a big brother goes bad horror movie but a few spooks aside nothing, absolutely nothing, happens until the last few minutes. The director chooses to go for the grand finale but he's lost the audience within the first half-hour. The finale itself is more gratuitous slasher than horror and as it happens to actors, uninteresting.

Now, I'm all in favour of the gruesome elimination of contestants on reality shows - it would be compulsive viewing - but the concept doesn't work as a movie.

Jennifer Sky (star of the short lived -and really bad syndicated series "Cleopatra 2525") is topless three times including a long sex scene with Will Tippen from "Alias". The scenes are dark and grainy due to the voyeur cam effect but it was the best thing about the film. Laura Regan shows her breasts in the shower - you don't see face and breasts in the same shot but it's doubtful an actress with a couple of credits got a double.

• Jennifer Sky (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

• Laura Regan

Jacqueline Lovell
(1, 2)

Unknowns
(1, 2, 3, 4)

TV STATION YANKS "MARRIED BY AMERICA"
Example Of A Good Husband: Norm! - Fox affiliate WRAZ-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina, which refused to air "Temptation Island," has yanked "Married by America" off the air after one airing, saying it was not in good taste and was "clearly demeaning to the institution of marriage." It was replaced by reruns of "Cheers."