Butterfield 8 (1961) was released September 19th on DVD. First, let me say that this widescreen transfer looks very good for a 39 year old film. It stars Elizabeth Taylor in her prime, in a role which won her an Oscar for best actress (her first). Some say it was a sympathy vote, as she underwent a tracheotomy shortly after the ballots went out, but there is no doubt that Elizabeth Taylor at 28 was a beauty, and could act. If I had to sum up the film in one word, it would be anachronism. As the image shows, gas was 29 cents a gallon for regular, and any young woman who lived the way Gloria (Taylor) did was a very bad girl. Gloria modeled dresses by going to nightclubs and being photographed. This suited her perfectly, as she enjoyed this sort of night life, and was able to meet lots of men. She slept with whoever she wanted when ever she wanted.

Although this is considered relatively normal behavior today, it was scandalous in 1961. Perhaps that is why most of the reviews I have read today have mistakenly labeled her as a prostitute. The plot only works assuming 1961 moral standards. In fact, the movie is very clear on the point that she refused to accept money from anyone, and was her own woman. She falls for a wealthy unhappily married man. She also has to keep up a pretense with her mother, whom she lives with. Single women did not live alone in 1961. The film has a suitably moralistic ending. A sub-plot worthy of mentioning is a platonic relationship she had with her childhood friend, played by Eddie Fisher. Butterfield 8 was her "exchange service," another anachronism in these days of answering machines, cell phones, pagers and message center.

There are some good points to the film. Elizabeth was superb. The photography and art direction was also top notch. The score, unfortunately, is so heavy handed it must have been jarring even in 1961. Much of the dialogue is terribly stilted, probably do to censorship by the film rating board. Though I found the reminder of the 1961 moral climate somewhat interesting, the film does not translate well to modern times.

No nudity in this new release.

A pretty decent movie in the teenage fast-cut horror genre. Despite some flaws, it has some thrills, and is many cuts above the typical offering of this type.

Devon Sawa plays a guy who is on his way to Paris for his senior trip when he has a disaster vision. Because of his erratic behavior, he and six others are kicked out of the plane. Lo and behold, his vision was accurate, and the plane blows up.

Well, it turns out that death is not happy at being cheated of seven victims, so it decides to claim them back. The challenge - are they all doomed, or is there a way to beat even death itself? It's a slasher movie, except that death has cut out the middle man, and just does his own work.

It's the usual formula stuff, nothing special, but enlivened by some very good use of the surprise cut techniques and some good performances from the kids.

General consensus: Again, opinions were strongly divided. Most critics were lukewarm or hated it (Berardinelli gave it one star! Apollo gave it a lackluster 72.) But average moviegoers liked it, Apollo users loved it, and gave it an average of 90, and with a substantial number of votes!

IMDB summary: 6.9 out of 10. This is an extraordinarily good score for a teen-oriented grisly death film. The original Nightmare on Elm Street is 7.0. The original Halloween is 7.5. The original Scream is 7.3.

Rotten Tomatoes. Mostly rotten. 30% positives across the board, but only 25% from the top critics. Ebert gave it three stars, but his admiration was rare among critics.

Box office: a solid hit at $53 million US, 10 million pounds UK, on a $27 million budget.

DVD info from Amazon. Believe it or not, the DVD contains deleted scenes, an alternate ending, and commentary! If only it contained Ali Larter naked.

Guilty of violating one of the most important of the Scoopian Unities, the Kieslowski Rule. (No double lives.)

Rachel Griffiths plays a lonely single woman who wonders what her life would have been like if she had married a guy named Robert. While crossing the street, she is nearly run over by a woman. When she awakes from brief unconsciousness, she sees that the woman standing over her is her - the alternate version of her who DID marry Robert. They change places briefly, and emerge both the wiser and happier.

This pause provided so you can retch without missing anything.

You might consider this the antiMap. I carped that Map of the World did a heavy handed job on some important and gripping themes. This film is the opposite - it does a pretty good job on a really, really trite and cliched premise. I expected to hate every minute of this movie, but I didn't. Oh, mind you, the ending was dumb. The ending is everything promised by the weak premise.

So think of the film as a trip to Key West - even though the destination might be disappointing, the ride there isn't bad at all.

Rachel Griffiths is a talented actress. This particular movie is a comedy, but she's done some serious work in the past, notably as the less talented but more loveable sister in "Hilary and Jackie". Here's she's a big rawboned rubbery-faced woman with a broad comic style. She's Carol Burnett with an Aussie accent, and she is able to get some empathy for her character without resorting to any Chaplainesque tricks. She draws it out of reality. Basically, she's a good actress doing comedy rather than a comedienne doing schtick.

Of course, she had to carry the entire comedy, and that's a lot to ask from one person not named Groucho.

But I guess the bottom line is that I actually watched the movie, despite the fact that I hated the premise and fully expected to hate the entire film, so give the director and the performers a lot of credit for making it palatable.

The nudity situation was somewhat confusing to me..Griffiths has a really big chest, but she didn't show it. And I have to admit I was really wanted to see it, because she shows a lot of cleavage in a couple scenes. On the other hand, she doesn't have one of those tight gym-rat butts, and you'd expect her to keep her bottom hidden, but she DID show that. I'm pretty sure that the picture of her standing in the bathtub is a double (Two reasons: I don't think her butt actually looks that good, and her body double is listed in the cast), but the other two butts are obviously really Miss Griffiths (albeit partially covered by the guy's knee).

Box office: A domestic USA dud, despite decent reviews and good audience reactions. $565 thousand. Never made it to more than 59 screens.

IMDB summary: 7.1 out of 10.

General consensus: about three stars. Lots of people loved it. Apollo scored it 82, and Apollo users scored it 86. Ebert gave it three stars. Berardinelli gave it two and a half. Interestingly, Berardinelli disagreed with me 100%. He felt it constituted poor development of a promising idea.

DVD info from Amazon. No special features worth noting.

Prior to all this, the Mexican soldiers performed a raid on a local village looking for women. The rest of the collages show some of the local women they found before they themselves were killed.

Estefania Pigazzi
(1, 2)

Jennifer Blanc

Kari Wuhrer

Kelly Preston

On the domestic front there are some pics found on a Reuters newsphoto site. They include Jennifer Blanc at the premiere of Dark Angel, Kari Wuhrer at the football Titans premiere and Kelly Preston at some outing without John the hubby. I bet all of you are thinking the same thing about that pic: I know Kelly Preston's boobs, Kelly's Preston's boobs are friends of mine and those, senator, are not Kelly Preston's boobs. Either she has put a lot of weight, all in one place, or Ms. Preston has committed a mortal sin and surgically altered her physique. Neither is a particularly attractive possibility, but given the choice I am in favor of natural...and reversible...weight gain.