Cyr, Myriam

Species 2

"They could f**k the human race out of existence!" warns Michael Madsen in this inevitable--and inevitably contrived--sequel to 1995's surprise sci-fi hit. He's referring to a celebrated astronaut (Justin Lazard) infected with alien DNA from his history-making Mars landing, and the half-alien Eve (Natasha Henstridge), who was created from alien-human embryo splicing by biochemist Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger) in an effort to discover the alien species's vulnerabilities on Earth. While the astronaut sows his gruesomely wild oats with doomed women (resulting in a bevy of creepy kids in alien cocoons), Eve goes into heat until she and the astronaut can consummate their procreative lust. Sex and death are served up like money-shots in a porno flick, with an emphasis on gory flesh-regeneration, explosive pregnancies, and slimy-tentacled intercourse. All of which makes this is the kind of derivative schlock that only a true fan could love, but it's boosted to a tolerable level of entertainment by the returning cast (Madsen, Henstridge, and Helgenberger) from the previous film. --Jeff Shannon

Having just returned from a mission to Mars, Commander Ross (Justin Lazard) isn't exactly himself. He's slowly becoming a terrifying alien entity with a one track mindto procreate with human women! When countless women suffer gruesome deaths after bearing half-alien offspring, scientist Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger) and hired assassin Press Lennox (Michael Madsen) use Eve (Henstridge), a more tempered alien clone, to find Ross and his virulent brood. But they underestimate Eve's maternal drive, and before long she escapes to mate with Ross in order to create a purer and unstoppable race that could spell doom for mankind. As time is running out, the ultimate battle of human brain over alien brawn takes place in a chilling climax that puts Darwin's theory to the ultimate test and only the strongest species will survive.

I Shot Andy Warhol

Mary Harron's feature--which picked up a Special Jury Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival for lead actress and independent film mainstay Lili Taylor--is a highly suspect mishmash of golly-gee counterculture reconstruction and inflammatory agitprop. Harron re-creates the ultimately violent relationship of motor-mouth street freak writer-prostitute-lesbian-gun-wielding assailant Valerie Solanas (Taylor) and pop artist Andy Warhol (Jared Harris) in the late 1960s, which ended in Solanas's assault on Warhol for his charmingly noncommittal responses to her search for a patron. It's a great idea for a film, but I Shot Andy Warhol is truly at odds with itself. Harron's modular construction of the story--part naive reenactment of the instant-celebrity life at Warhol's studio, part celebration of Solanas's subversive ramblings, part investigation into the roots of her hyper-victimization at, apparently, the hands of all men--is ultimately a shell game that allows the writer-director to avoid taking a clear stand on Solanas's bizarro politics. The cast is the only draw here: besides indie-film queen Taylor, Jared Harris makes for a convincingly cagey Warhol. --Tom Keogh

He was the world-renowned King of Pop Art and his life was about to take a dramatic turn in exchange for someone else's 15 minutes of fame! Starring Lili Taylor (Ransom) and Jared Harris (Father's Day) and winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Special Jury Award in 1996 this "vibrant touching and thoroughly entertaining film" (The New York Times) explores the provocative story behind the shooting of '60s superstar Andy Warhol.Valerie Solanas (Taylor) a lesbian writer loner and prostitute has come to the Big Apple with one goal in mind: to spread the gospel of her radical feminism. Desperate for an audience she latches on to the fringes of Warhol's (Harris) glamorous sex-and-drug-laced Factory scene. But as her zeal swerves dangerously out of control her private madness leads to a bizarre obsession with the artist himself - and a final explosive act of violence that not only gets her noticed...but makes her manifesto infamous.System Requirements:Starring: Lili Taylor Jared Harris Martha Plimpton Lothaire Bluteau Anna Levine Peter Friedman Tahnee Welch and Jamie Harrold. Directed By: Mary Harron. Running Time: 103 Min. Color. This film is presented in both "Widescreen" and "Standard" formats. Copyright 2000 MGM Studios.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 027616857699 Manufacturer No: 1001449

Gothic

Lurid, kitschy, over the top--what more does one expect from Ken Russell, director of The Devils, Tommy, and Altered States? Gothic purports to tell the story of a night that Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and the future Mary Shelley spent at a country estate and decided to write ghost stories--a night that ultimately resulted in Mary writing the novel Frankenstein. These three and a couple of friends romp around the mansion, freaking out at shadows and the sounds of a storm, getting increasingly hysterical and hallucinatory as the night progresses. Thrown into the mix are a mechanical belly dancer, nudity, walking suits of armor, an orgy, séances, grotesque masks, leeches, a pig's head, stigmata, snakes, and God-awful dialogue like "We are the gods now--we have dared to call ourselves creators!" Gabriel Byrne (Byron), Julian Sands (Shelley), and Natasha Richardson (Mary) are all terrible; it's a miracle any of their careers survived. But good or bad isn't really the point with Ken Russell, who aspires to a kind of visual delirium. Gothic isn't the masterpiece of excess that The Lair of the White Worm is, but towards the last half-hour it does achieve a creepy state of disorientation entirely suited to its subject matter. Russell isn't afraid to be trashy in the pursuit of unfettered cinematic symbolism. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. --Bret Fetzer

Frankenstein Unbound

Joseph Buchanan is a brilliant scientist conducting implosion experiments in the year 2031. His humanitarian goal is to develop a weapons system that will not destroy all life on Earth but the results are catastrophic! The very core of time and space is fractured and Buchanan finds himself thrust into 19th century Geneva.He meets fellow scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein whose own monstrous experiment has gone haywire killing his brother and threatening the entire village. Frankenstein's creature is even more ho