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Ryuhei Kitamura’s Versus has, in something more or less akin to order: samurai, samurai zombies, convicts, gangsters, mysterious women, zombie gangsters, zombie convicts, cops, and mutants. Most of them wind up fighting each other. I won’t try to list the arsenals; rest assured that if you like guns, blades, fists, or feet you’ll be happy. There’s also rambunctiously zestful overacting. It’s pretty great. It’s sort of hard to figure out what else one can say about this movie. It’s not that it’s plot-light — there’s a ton of plot, to the point where some of the plot kind of spills out the sides and runs down the edge until Kitamura remembers to go clean it up. It’s not coherent plot, but it’s plot. There’s also a ton of style; Kitamura loves his electronica and he really loves rotating the camera around a fight scene. The fight scenes are good. All the characters have enough cool to freeze a smallish ocean. ...

For some reason, Glenn Reynolds (original) is very interested in the Volcker Report, which implicates the UN in corruption involving Iraq’s food for oil program, but hasn’t said a word about CNN’s report that the US condoned Saddam’s oil smuggling.

About that election — I gotta say, it looks like it went better (original) than I thought it would. The final results won’t be in for another week or two, but the preliminary indications look solid in terms of turnout, and I’m glad for that. In retrospect, I should have specified the necessary turnout for each major ethnic segment of Iraq; the biggest problem I see going forward is that the Sunnis stayed away in droves. I’m hearing 20% turnout. That rekindles my worries about civil war in Iraq; a lot depends on whether or not any Sunni parties are included in the governing coalition. No party won a 2/3rds majority, which is the majority needed in the National Assembly to elect a President, so there will be a coalition. Who will the members be? That’s the big question (original). ...

I report, fanboys and fangirls decide (original). Hey, this is the second in quick succession after Brad and Jennifer — does that mean there’s a third to come?

You ought, perhaps, to be watching Boston Legal. Yeah, it’s a David Kelley show. He’s flashy and he goes for the cheesy drama too often and he allows his shows to slip into the precious. What’s worse, this one co-stars William Shatner, the very avatar of kitsch. Can the acting stylings of James Spader overcome these handicaps? Surely not. But yes, because it’s fucking brilliant. Let me tell you about last Sunday’s episode. ...

So, the legions ask, what should I be looking out for on DVD this week? Well, the Babe Family Double Feature DVD is out. I’d be a little leery of this, although I liked both the Babe movies — it appears to be one DVD, so picture quality may suffer. Still, a cheap way to get two good movies. DVD of the week is the Chariots of Fire Special Edition. It’s about time; this was previously only available in a full-screen version. It comes with commentary, screen tests, making of documentaries, deleted scenes, and so on. ...

Some notes on Apple’s new word processor/page layout software, Pages: It is a decent enough word processor for pumping out text; it is a consumer-class page layout program that won’t fit the needs of anyone doing serious layout work. It’s been driving me nuts, trying to get stuff done in it. You can’t put borders around an in-line paragraph. You can put borders around a text box, but it’s all or nothing: you have four borders or none. You can’t shrink table row heights to an arbitrary size; there’s a fairly widely spaced point beyond which it will not go. You can’t delete a single page in the middle of, say, a newsletter. You can’t shuffle pages around. ...

If you’re into the Boston art scene, you might want to check out the Berwick Research Institute’s BRI:AIR, A Retrospective. I have somewhat of an ulterior motive in saying this, as my brother co-designed the exhibition, but I’ve been down to tbe BRI a few times and it’s always been interesting. It opens this Saturday and runs for about two months.

It’s my belief that the next wave of action movie innovation — or at least excitement — is going to come from France. Luc Besson made the initial pass at this back in the 90s with La Femme Nikita and Leon before a couple of regrettable US failures — but now he’s back in France producing movies like Wasabi and the Taxi series and Haute Tension and so on. The guy has his own little action movie empire over there. ...

Looks like the Copley Place theater is closing (original). Can’t say I’m surprised, although I’m a little bit sorry. They were a lousy theater but they were also the best bet for second run art flicks in Boston. Not, mind you, that I got down there very often. It’s a pity, regardless.