DEATH RACE

Nothing in director Paul W.S. Anderson's schlock drawer - not "Mortal Kombat," not "Event Horizon," not "Resident Evil," not "Alien vs. Predator" - prepares you for the peppy, good-time nastiness that is "Death Race." It's a loose remake of "Death Race 2 " (1975), which imagined a bloodthirsty nation crazy for a cross-country rally full of flying, dying spectators and ruthlessly sociopathic drivers, not to mention Mary Woronov as the most fearsome thing on four wheels. Anderson's version goes its own frenetic way, and it's one of those vicious larks that just plain hit the spot. It hits the spot, throws 'er into reverse and hits the spot again, before machine-gunning it and ramming it head-on for the fun of it. Sadistic? Yessir. But our hero, a seething kettle of violence played by Jason Statham, is a devoted father of a sweet little girl who needs him, so it's sadism with a heart.

The '75 version veered wildly from camp to slapstick to gore. This one's a more even-toned affair, heavy on the gun-metal-gray color palette and the abandoned-foundry aesthetic. The year is 2 12. Economy's ruined. The prison system lies in the clutches of private enterprise, and the most maximum of all maximum-security prisons is Terminal Island, where rough men lead rough lives and the bravest of them compete in the nation's most popular sporting event: Death Race.

The warden, who apparently grew up catching "Brute Force" at every available prison-film retrospective, controls everything about the murderous affair: who gets to deploy weaponry, and when, and who might win his freedom. Joan Allen plays this authoritarian witch with a steely, implacable air. Despite what appear to be dangerous levels of forehead-freezification (hope it's temporary!), Allen's quite good. In his 1.3-note way, so is Statham, whose abs have already signed up for the "Death Race" sequel, along with his glower.Ian McShane has a high old time as Statham's grizzled Robert Duvall-esque racing coach. Tyrese Gibson brings the full seethe to the role of Machine Gun Joe, chief rival of Statham's Jensen Ames. And as Ames' cohort, track adviser and cleavage administrator, Natalie Martinez really knows how to get out of a tricked-out vehicle in slow motion while removing her sunglasses.

I'm making the movie out to be a different sort of cheese than it is, I fear. Anderson, who wrote the script, lays out the big frame-up (Ames takes the rap for his wife's murder) in a way that's efficient and effective. Aping the conventional three-act screenplay structure, the story's three races provide natural off-track breathers for ... well, for various other ways to kill somebody, or nearly.Anderson's visual-spatial skills are limited at best: You never get the crucial establishing shot of the damn track, for one thing, for another, Anderson never seems to quit moving the frame in that "NYPD Blue"-derived whoopsie-daisy-can't-hold-still style. Yet I came out of "Death Race" strangely satisfied. It's just junk and noise and blood lust and decapitations plus "Wacky Races" gimmickry. (Let's amend that: It's "Wacky Bloodthirsty Sadistic Races" gimmickry.) But the audience whooped it up when the Statham and Gibson characters conspired to destroy that souped-up prison truck with the flamethrower in Race 2.Of course it's like a video game. So was "Shoot 'Em Up," which I hated. So was "Wanted," which I didn't like much. I like this one. I admire its purity of heart and frankness of intention, and even though Anderson has a lot to learn about shaping an extended action sequence, when that big truck flipped up in the air, vanquished, I was, like, wow. Cool.

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The Dark Knight

Sensational, grandly sinister and not for the kids, "The Dark Knight" elevates pulp to a very high level. Heath Ledger's Joker takes it higher still, and the 28-year-old actor's death earlier this year of an accidental overdose lends the film an air of a funeral and a rollicking, out-of-control wake mixed together. In "The Dark Knight," Ledger makes all other comic-book screen villains look like Baby Huey. Like Shakespeare's Iago or Richard III, like Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter or Javier Bardem's implacable murderer in "No Country for Old Men," this is no Method psychopath, asking or telling anyone about his character's motivation. At one point Ledger throws up his hands and says, agitatedly, that it's a waste of time looking for a rationale behind the Joker's smeary Insane Clown Posse makeup."I'm a dog chasing cars," he says. "I wouldn't know what to do with one of them if I caught it."Director and co-writer Christopher Nolan, who fashioned the screenplay with his brother, Jonathan, has created the most ambitious and sleekly beautiful of all the superhero screen outings. A handful of others - "Superman II" and "Spider-Man 2" come to mind - may have fewer loose ends and a more exhilarating spirit. They're certainly shorter, this one is 152 minutes. But "The Dark Knight," which improves upon the solemn authority Nolan and Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne brought to "Batman Begins," has an atmospheric shimmer all its own. Its unsung hero is cinematographer Wally Pfister, who makes every interior and exterior a thing of burnished, menacing beauty. Shot largely in Chicago at night, greatly aided by production designer Nathan Crowley, this is the most nocturnally insinuating entertainment since Michael Mann's "Collateral."Sampling every flat Midwestern dialect he no doubt heard while shooting in Chicago, Ledger gives the Joker the deceptively bland vowel sounds of heartland America. But Gotham City is no heartland paradise. It teeters on the verge of bloody anarchy, and its most outré citizen licks his chops, literally, as if he can't get the taste of blood out of his mouth.While billionaire playboy Wayne continues his clean-up campaign, Gotham City finds a new symbol of righteous hope, district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). He has it all: a fervent desire to clean up a dirty town, plus the love and devotion of Wayne's ex, the assistant D.A. and one of a small handful of Gothamites who know Batman's true identity. She's played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, stepping in for (and improving on) Katie Holmes. Gyllenhaal's curled-at-the-corners smile matches up perfectly with Bale's.The D.A. teams up with Batman and the weary honest cop Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman in a mustache that says "trust me") to combat organized crime, though Batman's vigilantism has inspired all sorts of copycat, low-rent imitators. Then, just when the film needs a good jolt, Dent undergoes a radical physical and psychological transformation and becomes, literally, two-faced.The transformation comes at a narrative cost. The film's focus is thrown slightly out of whack, and it's too bad his coin-flipping gambit is so like that of "No Country's" Anton Chigurh. Not everything in "The Dark Knight" works: Some of the more painful flourishes - a grenade plopped in a bank manager's mouth, the terrorization of Gordon's children - are too much. Yet so much of "The Dark Knight" works on different levels simultaneously. It's a brooding crime saga with some spectacular action sequences. My favorite pits Bale's Batman and his "Bat-Pod," the world's deadliest, most awesome motorcycle, against Ledger's Joker in an 18-wheeler. The setting is Chicago's LaSalle Street canyon, and what I love about the scene - aside from its eerie, 3 a.m. vibe - is Nolan's reliance on good old-fashioned stunt work. "The Dark Knight" offers plenty of digital effects, but they never take over.Nineteen years ago, Jack Nicholson's Joker won a lot of the credit for the popularity of director Tim Burton's "Batman." In contrast to that stylish but uneven picture, one of the splendid things about "The Dark Knight" is its refusal to squander its villain. This is a true ensemble piece, and you can't say that of most $18 million franchise products. Ledger's scenes are few, carefully considered, often startlingly brutal (one scene, over in an eye-blink, involves a disappearing pencil trick and a man's skull) and freakishly effective.Six sequences constituting about 2 minutes of footage were shot using IMAX cameras, including the opening bank heist and a fabulous swoop across the Hong Kong skyline. (The narrative takes a detour for a matter of extraditing an Asian businessman back to Gotham and to justice.) There's a sweep and spaciousness to the imagery here, and even a simple chase sequence such as the one staged along Lower Wacker Drive feels freshly considered. The violence, however rough, is largely free of the lingering, jokey sadism prevalent in so many comic-book and graphic novel-derived films. Nolan paints an inky portrait of a city falling apart, and in a movie rife with two-faced masquerading freaks, the Joker is merely the least conflicted of the bunch. Ledger's work is improbably droll, impossibly creepy, meticulously detailed. See for yourself.

The Sexiest Movie Scenes

Is it the scene, or did the movie screen just fog up? Must be these movie moments be so steamy that temperatures can't help but rise. Below are just some of the sexiest movie scenes, note that it's sexy - not sex - scenes because some of these unforgettable scenes did happen with the stars fully clothed and - gasp! - just talking.

From Here To Eternity (1947)

Sure it's been parodied to death, the lovers kissing on the beach scene, but watch the original scene from the Oscar-winning film and you too will also swept away. Beautiful screen pair Deborah Kerr plays an unhappily married army wife and Burt Lancaster plays a sergeant assigned in Honolulu. In the midst of World War II, their intense adulterous affair begins. The famous beach scene begins with the waves crashing and then ebbing to reveal two bodies locked in a passionate embrace. She breaks the marathon kissing and runs toward her towel, but he tackles her and they engage in yet another round of marathon kissing. She tells him, "No one's ever kissed me like you do." Somehow, we got that, too.

Body Heat (1981)
By general consensus, this film noir from director Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill, Bodyguard) has one of the sexiest movie scenes ever. It features smokin' hot Kathleen Turner, who makes feature film debut and gorgeous William Hurt. She plays Matty, a scheming southern Florida wife who ensnares a willing pawn - that would be Ned, Hurt's cousin - into a scheme to murder her husband and collect money off it. The two get it on, so to speak, early in the movie. Turner begins her game of seduction by inviting Ned home ostensibly to listen to wind chimes on her porch. Yeah, right. Then she puts on the nice girl act and sends Ned home. He puts on the gentleman act and obliges. But, of course, the horn dog returns, only to find her waiting for him inside, with a glass door locked. He crashes through her house and the first of a number of wild, passionate love scenes smolders away.

Boogie Nights (1997)
Director Paul Thomas Anderson's (Magnolia) movie about porn flicks and its "stars" has, as you might have guessed, many sex scenes, but most of them are more about grifty, so un-sexy side of the sex movie business. It's set in the '70s at San Fernando Valley, California and it follows the "rise" and fall of a dishwasher (Mark walhberg), later renamed as Dirk Diggler, who gets a break as a "star" in adult films. One of the film's genuinely erotic scenes begins when veteran porn star Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) guides newcomer Dirk through his first sex scene. But during the course of the sex encounter, the jaded veteran porn star feels something unexpected, she is actually, genuinely aroused. And we all know that is the main ingredient for a truly hot scene.

Out of sight (1998)
When we talk about this movie, particularly the car trunk scene with gorgeous pair George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. In this acclaimed neo noir film from director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's Eleven, Erin Brockovich), Clooney's ex-con accidentally bumps into Lopez's federal marshall, while in the middle of committing a crime. Uh-oh. So Clooney throws the bodacious Lopez, in mini-skirt, into the trunk and he jumps right in with her and the car, driven by his accomplice, speed off. While inside Lopez, with her back to Clooney, manages to insult him and later, fascinate him. They talk about loads of trivial things, all while feeling their attraction towards each other growing.

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
This wickedly funny, moving, exasperating, memorable movie from director Alfonso Cuaronis well known for its sex scenes. These scenes are quite differentfrom each other, some are hilarious, while others are so realistic, you'll feel like you're intruding. But the sexiest moment in the film is near the end when the boys (Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna) and the sexy older woman Maribel Verdu have come to the end of their road trip and finally found Boca del Cielo, a gorgeous beach. After talking and drinking and dancing, They reach the hut and a menage-a-trois ensues for the audience and the two characters in the movie.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Really, it would have been fantastic if the new Indiana Jones movie had turned out gangbusters. Failing that, a good, solid sequel would have been nice - proof that a handsomely graying collection of world-class cinematic entertainers, both behind and in front of a defiantly non-digital camera, were right to haul out the fedora and the bullwhip for one more adventure.But the movie with the title that does not know when to quit, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," does not know when to quit. Nor does it extract much fun from a cockamamie story provided by George Lucas involving aliens, the lost golden city of El Dorado, the Red Menace and the greaser-kid (played by Shia LaBeouf) Indy never knew he had (though the globe-trotting archeologist is certainly the last in the film to figure that out).Even with Cate Blanchett refusing to blink even once and Natasha Fatale-ing her way through the role of a Soviet mind-control expert with the worst haircut since Ish Kabibble, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is so nervous about falling into the quicksands of camp that it forgets to deliver a good time. "Same old, same old," mutters Harrison Ford during a pause in the derring-do in this disappointingly humorless sequel, which premiered in an out-of-competition slot Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival. Same old, same old is right.Nineteen years have passed since "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," which apparently now must be retitled "Indiana Jones and the Second-to-Last Crusade," sent Indy and his dad, played by Sean Connery, off into the sunset. Connery did not return for "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," but Karen Allen is back as Indy's sparring partner, Marion, the one who ran the Himalayan saloon and never quit arguing. She and Indy pick right up where they left off, arguing.The new film begins in 1957 Nevada. On an Air Force nuclear test site, the Russians force a kidnapped Indy and his colleague (played by Ray Winstone) to locate a crystal skull inside a vast warehouse (holding that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" thingie, still). The crystal skull comes from Out There - take that, upcoming "X Files" movie! - and holds the key to eternal power and limitless knowledge. The rest of the skulls are down south, so Indy and his nemeses hightail it down to Peru, down the Amazon, down into sand pits, anthills with giant speedy killer ants, over three waterfalls, one after another.There's no lack of activity in "Crystal Skull." Its soundstage interiors (mixed in with the location shooting) carry a reassuringly fakey air, and they are lit by cinematographer Janusz Kaminski with so much pearly white light, the characters threaten to turn into Stanley Kubrick's Star Children. But in between frenetic action scenes, you have to endure treasure-hunting exchanges such as the malt-shop dialogue between Indy and the kid, Mutt (LaBeouf), whose first appearance on a motorcycle rips off Brando in "The Wild One." The dialogue doesn't even try to make its story points with any flair. "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Exposition" is more like it.That sequence devolves into a greasers-versus-jocks melee that director Steven Spielberg cuts away from as quickly as possible. The film's best action sequence follows, however, and tellingly it's also the simplest, involving Ford and LaBeouf on a motorcycle being pursued by Russkies. For five minutes, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" relies on old-style kinetics and a couple of sharply executed stunts involving Indy climbing off and on the motorcycle.That scene knows what it's doing, but a lot of the picture veers uneasily between solemnity and slapstick and 47 different genres. One second we're treated to Russians on fire, a few seconds later, it's comic-relief reaction shots of computer-generated prairie dogs. Indy stumbles onto a nuclear test site (echoes of the old Mickey Rooney vehicle from the '5 s, "The Atomic Kid") and survives an A-bomb attack. Queasy stuff, and Spielberg's touch is unsure, something's off in this scene. It doesn't jibe with attempts at old-school cliffhanging, such as Blanchett's "Captain Blood" duel with LaBeouf. By the time Blanchett's suffering the wrath of aliens, those who remember "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) may be thinking: been there, melted that.And John Hurt! As the addlebrained holy fool who guides his old pal Indy to where the skulls are, he must say with a straight face: "No more forever waiting. Soon now." So they couldn't get Connery, but they made room for Yoda? "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is not slovenly in terms of craft, but this script fails its interpreters utterly. Indiana Jones - let's be honest - never was a memorable movie character. He was, however, a sturdy vessel for our nostalgia, and for Spielberg's ability to shine up old serialized goods. This time, same old, same old. Would that sequel No. 3 were as stylish as that fedora.