Two big surprises!  For one, who would expect an outrageously raunchy comedy from the director of harmless family fare as THE GREAT OUTDOORS and SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL?  Secondly, when told of the embargo on the film review till Saturday of the opening weekend, I was wondering how awful the film would turn out.

The Appaloosa is a special breed of horse known for its leopard coloured spots.  But in the new western directed and co-written by actor Ed Harris (POLLOCK), APPALOOSA is the name of a town and the film is totally different and not to be confused with an earlier western starring Marlon Brando called THE APPALOOSA, this one based on Brando’s recovering of horse of that breed.

GHOST TOWN works or does not – depending on the way one wants to look at it.  British TV’s Office star comedian Ricky Gervais is supposed to play an inconsiderate jerk of a dentist who by a freak hospital procedure dies for a few minutes, only to re-live in the real world as a ghost. 

Based on the book Georgina, The Duchess of Devonshire by Armanda Foreman, THE DUCHESS is the kind of British period piece North Americans love.  Director Saul Dibb (BULLET BOY) satisfies all of what is required from the lavish costumes to the expensive props and expansive estate settings. 

Sukiyaki is a Japanese dish and Django is the common name of a drifter gunfighter in the Italian Spaghetti westerns of the 60’s and 70’s.  As the title implies, Japanese maverick director Takashi Miike (ICHI THE KILLER, AUDITION) takes the western genre and adds a Japanese twist to it.