Depp was so impressed with the kid that now the kid is playing Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Yeah, I remember reading this somewhere. There was this almost spooky center of emotional gravitas in the kid--or the character--it was rather unsettling. There is this scene in which Peter destroys the props for his play after his mother fell sick during the performance, and there's such anguish and anger in his little frame, it quite stopped my breath. It's a fantastic performance, and you see that this kid is an *actor*, not just a kid playing at acting, the moment you hear him utter his first line.

Hmm. I googled his name (Freddie Highmore) and it appears NY Times has done a a brief piece on him.

Who's hotter? Charlotte Rampling or Bo Derek?

Pfft. Charlotte Rampling, duh.

Calli! Underworld and Van Helsing are my current fave double header.

I bet your robot sidekicks have decided you've gone round the bend finally, though.

Charlotte Rampling

Somebody shoulda cast Lauren Bacall and Charlotte Rambling as mother-daughter in something. They've got the same colt-lean body, the same slanty-eyed, husky-voiced, smoldering sexuality.

Some of it felt awfully manipulative, but I bawled anyway.

Yep. I spent almost the entire thing crying my eyes out while in the back of my head I was thinking "'On every page of your imagination?' Come (sob!) on..."

No worries, ita. It was all good.

See, I never got this. It felt like the cast and crew were trying to present a relatively serious action movie and failing horribly. If they were embracing the cheese, they were doing a good job of hiding it from me. Perhaps they were brushing a little to close too the cheese while passing it in the hall, occaisionally daring to share a brief touch when alone in a shadowed alcove, but they certainly weren't doing it shamelessly for all to see.

I guess what I mean is, is that it seemed like somebody thought that the movie ought to be played seriously, and all of the actors got together, and were like, dude, so cheesy. So they played up the cheese, because it amused them, while still leaving it open to claiming that they were totally serious to their boss, or something. Because if you look for it, you can totally see that the actors know it's cheesy, and they are laughing at it with you. If that makes sense, and I don't think it does. Whatever. I enjoyed it.

Somebody shoulda cast Lauren Bacall and Charlotte Rambling as mother-daughter in something. They've got the same colt-lean body, the same slanty-eyed, husky-voiced, smoldering sexuality.

Good call. They have both played female leads in movies based on Raymond Chandler books, Bacall opposite Bogie in The Big Sleep, and Rampling opposite Mitchum in Farewell my Lovely.

Who's hotter? Charlotte Rampling or Bo Derek?

What Hec said. No contest.

it seemed like somebody thought that the movie ought to be played seriously

But who? The pre-release info I got was that it was supposed to be in The Mummy vein. Now, I think it was nowhere as successful, but I never had any impression it was supposed to be anything other than a riff on august cheese that had gone before.

The pre-release info I got was that it was supposed to be in The Mummy vein. Now, I think it was nowhere as successful, but I never had any impression it was supposed to be anything other than a riff on august cheese that had gone before.

If I had heard that, I think I might have enjoyed the movie much more. I do like cheese, if I'm in the mood for it.

That being said, I don't think that movies should have to rely on pre-release info on how they are to be watched for the movie to be appreciated in the spirit intended. In an ideal world, the clues for how to watch should be able to be picked up from the first several minutes of the movie itself.

But weren't the first few minutes cheesy? I know I went into it in a different frame, but I thought the B&W extremely cheesy, and by the time they were also ripping James Bond, the cheese was set.