Tremko, Anne

True Women

This well-acted, sweeping herstorical epic focuses on the lives of three women, beginning in 1853. China Beach's Dana Delany is Sarah, the family matriarch, whose little sister Euphemia (a delightful and empathetic Tina Majorino) has been living with her best friend, Georgia (beautiful Rachael Leigh Cook), and Georgia's parents (Michael York, Julie Carmen) on a large, bucolic Georgia plantation. After the sisters' father dies, Sarah's husband, upstanding Texas Ranger Bartlett (Powers Boothe), takes "Pheemy" down to Peach Tree, Texas, to live with him and Sarah.

Pheemy and Georgia begin a correspondence chronicling their divergent lives. As Pheemy and her family work their farm and battle Santa Ana and hostile Indians, indulged Georgia is coming to terms with her family's greatest secret: she is one-quarter Native American. Majorino and Cook are excellent in their demanding roles and offer a challenge for their adult counterparts (Annabeth Gish as Pheemy, Angelina Jolie as Georgia). This film, originally a TV miniseries, is an earnest attempt to depict the difficult--and often tragic--role women were compelled to endure during this historically rich but phenomenally difficult time. True Women has plenty of action, but relationships, politics, and grim reality are the true focus, as issues of sexuality, prejudice, human rights, and of course slavery are eagerly examined in the frontier setting. The sensitive should be forewarned: it seems like there is a death every five minutes. --N.F. Mendoza

Uncle Sam

This G.I.-zombie tale, smartly scripted by exploitation auteur Larry Cohen (It's Alive, God Told Me To) and directed by William Lustig (Maniac, Vigilante), straddles the line between antiwar satire and slasher-movie silliness. American soldier Uncle Sam, as he's known to his hero-worshipping young nephew, is a bullying homicidal misfit too ornery to die. His bloodied and burned corpse, sent home from Kuwait for burial, crawls out of his casket and declares war on punks, crooked politicians, draft dodgers, and pretty much anyone who wanders into his path. There are some interesting ideas floating around--a pointed commentary on the attraction of violence under the flag of patriotism, an undercurrent of psychosis and sadism in Sam's home life, and a clever twist on all-American iconography--which get lost in the Fourth of July reign of terror. Body-count fans will appreciate victims hacked with hatchets, cleavers, and garden shears, teenagers buried alive, and a severed head found smoking in a barbecue pit. David "Shark" Fralick stars as Sam, with Isaac Hayes as a crippled Korean War vet and small roles by cult stars Bo Hopkins, Timothy Bottoms, P.J. Soles, and Robert Forster, a smarmy governor given a fireworks sendoff he'll never forget. --Sean Axmaker

Uncle Sam

This G.I.-zombie tale, smartly scripted by exploitation auteur Larry Cohen (It's Alive, God Told Me To) and directed by William Lustig (Maniac, Vigilante), straddles the line between antiwar satire and slasher-movie silliness. American soldier Uncle Sam, as he's known to his hero-worshipping young nephew, is a bullying homicidal misfit too ornery to die. His bloodied and burned corpse, sent home from Kuwait for burial, crawls out of his casket and declares war on punks, crooked politicians, draft dodgers, and pretty much anyone who wanders into his path. There are some interesting ideas floating around--a pointed commentary on the attraction of violence under the flag of patriotism, an undercurrent of psychosis and sadism in Sam's home life, and a clever twist on all-American iconography--which get lost in the Fourth of July reign of terror. Body-count fans will appreciate victims hacked with hatchets, cleavers, and garden shears, teenagers buried alive, and a severed head found smoking in a barbecue pit. David "Shark" Fralick stars as Sam, with Isaac Hayes as a crippled Korean War vet and small roles by cult stars Bo Hopkins, Timothy Bottoms, P.J. Soles, and Robert Forster, a smarmy governor given a fireworks sendoff he'll never forget. --Sean Axmaker