dougraham

Whew. What can I say. This was a fascinating film that was very hard to turn away from (even to answer the phone!). Edward Furlong turns in another very solid performance as a too-young-to-be-in-this-type-of-place prisoner and Willem Dafoe was very interesting as his would-be mentor.

Prison films are always tough to make as they tend to lean heavily upon stereotypes (the prisoner who runs the prison, male rape scenes, the violence in the prison yard) and this film is no exception. Buscemi gets away with it by making it all seem so workaday and routine, which in some ways is even more frightening.

Overall I enjoyed this film but I imagine the audience for a stark prison flick is pretty small. Kudos to Buscemi for having the nerve to make it, tho.

Shame on the naysayers who were hostile to this obviously labor intensive recreation of Herbert's DUNE. I was astounded at how many small touches(Jessica noting the signal lamps at Arakeen, the comments about Jessica being Gaius Helen's serving girl, etc) from the book were painstakingly recreated in this film. I like the look of this film a lot and am glad that, while being a big departure from Lynch's vision, is still very true to the book. Thank God they got the stillsuits right! At last they have hoods! Given the readers-digest version that Lynch delivered, I for one am grateful to the filmmakers for really doing the book justice. Plus, there seem to be no major changes in the storyline (as Lynch added to his film with the so-called "wierding modules" that had no place in the book).

More power to the sci-fi channel for funding this venture. Also,I love the cast of unknowns (sans Hurt)to american eyes.