Film Focus

The imminent UK release (on Pansy Cradledew's birthday!) of überCatholic Melvin Gibson's blood-drenched and preposterous The Passion of the Christ prompts us to recommend some films you might prefer to see.

The Stepford Hives Ecological horror about a swarm of brainwashed bees.

Where B-Girls Dare A crack squad of floozies storms a Nazi fortress.

Apocalypse Cow Drug-crazed American soldiers go crazy in a barnyard.

The Wild Bench Action picture set in a municipal park.

Quatermass And The Git Sci-fi classic in which a sordid old man is found buried in a London Underground station.

The Hound of Music Austrian singing dog drama.

Close Encounters of the Bird Kind Richard Dreyfuss as a scruffy, obsessed ornithologist.

Bring Me The Shed of Alfredo GarciaV iolent revenge thriller set in a garden centre.

And not forgetting:

Waterpostman Director's cut of two Kevin Costner triumphs. A man swims through a post-nuclear nightmare delivering soaking wet letters.

This paragraph is an hommage à Max Décharné. Max's book Hardboiled Hollywood : The Origins of the Great Crime Films (No Exit Press) is available in all good bookshops, and from that online one named after a big river.