Blow Dry (2001) is about the 2000 National British Hairdressing Championships, and more particularly, about the home town favorites where it is being hosted -- Keighley, in Northern England. Seems the favorite, Ray (Bill Nighy) will do anything to win for the third straight year including cheating, and only fears that Phil (Alan Rickman), who lives in Keighley and owns a barber shop, will enter the competition. Seems Phil was the best there was, and was ready to win his third straight competition when his wife, Shelly (Natasha Richardson) ran off with his model Sandra (Rachel Griffiths) the night before the competition. Even though Phil and his son live within shouting distance of Shelly and Sandra, they haven't spoken in 10 years. The son, Brian (Josh Hartnett) is now cutting hair in his fathers shop, and wants to enter the competition to put Ray in his place. Shelly also wants to enter the competition for reasons of her own. She has cancer, and wants the four of them to get back together before her death.

Griffiths wears body paint and wings and nothing else in the final event of the competition, and Heidi Klum as another model wears some skimpy undies. I enjoyed this, although it might have been that I was in the mood for unchallenging entertainment. The plot is fairly predictable, and the film is mostly low key, but most of the jokes work, and the idea of hairdressers dueling nearly to the death for the "Silver Scissors" trophy struck me funny all by itself. The film enjoyed a full release that lasted for two weeks, and the total US gross was $637,769. Berardinelli says 2 1/2 stars, and IMDB readers give is 6.5/10, scores consistent with an ok comedy. C.

Enemy at the Gates, about the battle of Stalingrad, is not without some flaws, but is the best damned movie I've seen in 2001 (I haven't seen Memento, which was a critical darling). Hell, it's not only a good movie, it's three good movies - an epic "horrors of war" film, a story about the politicizing of war, and a nail-biter about a one-on-one showdown. Beautifully and expensively filmed, powerfully told, solidly acted. (Ed Harris and Bob Hoskins both have to be considered strong contenders for "Best Supporting Actor", in my opinion.) I don't hesitate for a second to say that this is a better WW2 movie than Saving Private Ryan, although Americans may not appreciate it as much because it's about the German-Russian front. 

And you get to see Rachel Weisz' ass.

• Rachel Weiss (1, 2, 3)

They did a great job with the DVD for 15 Minutes. It's another one of those films using the infinifilm technique, in which you can access the special features separately, or wait until the robot recommends a special feature to you while you watch the movie. There's about 15 minutes of deleted footage, including explicit frontal nudity. There's all the footage from Oleg's VCR  camera as he filmed their crimes, and there is feature-length commentary

On top of that, I liked the movie a lot. Good thriller, with an underlying current of social satire, but working simultaneously on both levels without allowing the satire to spoil the thrill ride. Everything that Natural born Killers should have been, but wasn't. Great job by DeNiro as a charming media-friendly supercop. DeNiro is doing some of the best work of his life in his 50's by testing out some different aspects of his personality.

• Noelle Evans (1, 2, 3)
• Stunt hookers (deleted scenes) (1, 2)

Here's some more from TomCat from "Parenthese Enchantee" (comments by Charlie)

Delphine McCarty: as a child/teen she was the first host for Disney Channel in France when it wasn't yet a channel but a
Sunday afternoon block of time on the French national channel TF1. She was quite famous then; she went into acting not too successfully. You can see her in the very controversial "baise moi" ("rape me") as Karen Lancaume's room-mate; but she's one of the few actors who didn't get naked.

Isabelle Le Nouvel. She used the aka Julie Bercot to shoot
an erotic film (caps on my site). She hasn't done much yet.

Clotilde Coureau. No comments necessary.

Unfortunate robo-hooters on display in one more scene from "Dance with the Devil".