The Page Turner has a Patricia Highsmith-esque quality about it that makes what is a remarkably banal plot into a devious, delicious French thriller. Take the nature of the slight that results in the ensuing revenge story. A preteen girl, Melanie, fails a major musical examination when one of the judges, a professional pianist, signs an autograph in the middle of the girl’s session. The intrusion distracts the girl, making her lose her place, and ending her young career as a pianist.

Flash forward some eight years later. Melanie (Déborah François), now a young woman, takes an internship with a prestigious Parisian law firm. One of the lawyers is married to Ariane (Catherine Frot), the pianist who meet with a fan during Melanie’s audition. Melanie’s internship ends with the law firm, but she volunteers to watch the lawyer’s child while he is away and while Ariane prepares for a comeback concert. When Melanie gains Ariane’s trust and becomes her page turner, she holds Ariane’s career and life in her hands.

Gaining trust is one thing, but having Ariane believe in a love affair is another. The seduction is where Melanie’s truly conniving nature comes out and also where François truly shines. Her controlled meticulous performance gives the plot the measured suspense of the slow motion dropping of a guillotine.

The Page Tuner has the added bonus of being a mere 81 minutes in length, meaning the tangents, regressions and plot twists we’re so used to with Hollywood thrillers are absent. Though the film still doesn’t pack a punch to the gut like a Talented Mr. Ripley or Ripley’s Game, it does make me believe that Melanie has the quality to become a Tom Ripley.

I would love to see how she develops as a character beyond The Page Turner, though the likelihood of that happening is very small. Director Denis Dercourt proves with his calm, determined direction that he may have bigger fish to fry than making a sequel to his debut thriller. Regardless of if we see a second film, The Page Turner as a stand alone psychological thriller is worth delving into.

DVD Special Features:

• English and Spanish Subtitles
• Making of Featurette
• Original Theatrical Trailer

A lot of what people who watch this show have been asking for is starting to be realized. People are wanting the guys and gals to have some back story, to add character to these characters so we know why, for instance, Riley is such a complete loner, socially inept computer whiz or how Maureen or for that matter Painkiller Jane Vasco got into the law enforcement biz.

With a title like "Ghost In The Machine" you knew the general plot before it started, so there has to be something else going on.

Vasco visits Connor – brutish ex-cop, ex-prisoner – at his place, which looks like the inside of a garage. He has an urban motorbike in his front room, not a Harley, not a chopper.

"Nice hardware," she says.

"Damn right? … Oh, you mean the bike."

As McBride pages the team, the bike starts up and his foot gets snagged between the back tire and the engine. Luckily he's wearing industrial boots and remains uninjured before she reaches over to turn it off. He's impressed with bike knowledge.

Strikeforce Vicodin is breaking into a red garage door, but we don't know why. Riley has a major in to their work, being able to view everything. They're inside when suddenly a wall of sound breaks vases and makes Riley's screens go white noise. McBride's ears are bleeding as they break through a wall with hell's choir facing them. A semicircle group of Columbine goth look-alikes have their mouths wide open to cover the one guy making the noise. (And is this a different neuro because what the fuck?)

Jane, the least affected of them all, of course, figures out that the kid making the noise is the one farthest from the window because it hasn't broken yet. Oh-kay. Just a few minutes later, in slow-down mode, the garage door slams down on Connor's leg as he's stretching for something else. Coupled with burns from a coffee maker and the bike revving, Jane wonders whether something else is contributing to his accident proclivity.

Jane voices her thoughts to McBride who's shadowboxing somewhere. She says she doesn't know enough about Connor to form more than an opinion. By the way, the show just pretends that blood flowing out of McBride's ears didn't happen.

Connor is a little pissed when he discovers everyone's talking about him behind his back.

"Vasco remains invulnerable to injuries and everyone around her," he says. Connor isn't aware of any skeletons coming out of his closest, he adds. But after McBride leaves he's obviously double-thinking whether that's true. A little while later Riley's going through Connor's files – with a lot of redacted info – until he goes wide eyed.

Before that we see a security guard get his leg chewed up on some machine. Like with Connor, it starts up for no reason. A few squelchy sounds later and he's gone, real gone.

Ah, we get too see a few slow-motion workout moves from Vasco at Deckard Street HQ. Some producer has made a conscious decision to show the sign more — a nod to the world of Blade Runner.

Riley comes downstairs to Jane pumping iron, arm curls, and the entire night he wasted at her whim — and then he says her hunch paid off. Connor was the leader of the Barrier Precinct Tactical Response Squad, and five of the 12 in the photo that Riley found have been killed. Joey Berlin was the security guard at Bassett's Department Store and he was part of the BPTRS. McBride says Connor is a risk and needs to stay away from the team for a while. There's loyalty for you.

Connor better be revealed as some amazing spook — or JFK's assassin, because the mystery the writers are building about his past is extraordinary.

Ah-ha, the tall guy in the episode "Catch Me If You Can" caught in the rain with Vasco is back and they seem to have been living together for awhile. By the way he's a reporter, the Lois Lane of this series clearly. Or he will be. That could be interesting. Vasco's got a secret, she isn't used to hiding them – though is used to hiding feelings – and he's going to smell the story.

This whole scene is kind of thrown in the mix of the show apropos of nothing, as is the fact that she finished a stack of crosswords in a couple of hours, in pen, while doing her laundry.

Connor remembers some letters that one of his old squad members wrote — and Vasco is asked to leave her cozy home environment to get them. Before she can get there, we see some guy with a mini-ice pick search through his Craftsman's tool cupboard and finds one of the Tactical Unit patches. She enters not very quietly and starts to disarm him but he's trained well and they get into it. He doesn't respect her as a woman and so she wins — well, almost.

Turns out William Hoyt Pearse is the guy, a member of the Tactical Response Squad. Riley runs aging software over all its members for Jane with an image they somehow got from somewhere.

Connor walks outside his place to be a draw for Pearse and out rumbles a nearby vehicle. Except, Connor gets out of the way and Pearse gets killed. Jane notices that it's the legs in most cases that seem to get whacked. With that, Harry Beaman is a name Connor comes up with and it turns out he's some bitter-ass in a wheelchair who blames Connor for sending him into a booby-trapped building looking for a perp.

Beaman looks 15 years younger than a picture from a decade ago. McBride notes that it was only after he was injured that he got his powers.

Joe Waterman, the train guru, is back. As they're all standing around he gets a chip gun near him and hesitates instead of firing it. Beaman manages to guide a steam stream right in his face and he falls off the main center platform. He's okay, which is sad because I thought we had an explanation for how he died.

They've split up with Connor and Vasco one way, and the rest escaping. Joe thinks he knows a back way out that doesn't need electricity. This way has a huge fan at the top of the column – like Willy Wonka's extra-fizzy soda. It suddenly turns on and starts spinning. We're supposed to believe that it's sucking air out of the column enough so they die. In fact they get all woozy in less than ten minutes. No. Bad science, bad.

A fan with that slow of a rotation and wide gaps would always suck air back in as well. It's a Bernoulli convection thing. It's a failed physics thing for the show.

Meanwhile Connor has what almost amounts to a declaration of love for Jane. He says he wants her near because if he lost her he'd lose the only thing he's cared about in a long time. Ohhhh wow, he kisses her — and Beaman watches, except I think Connor knows he's watching. On cue, Vasco gets crushed by the railcar. Beaman asks aloud: "Question: Can you live with yourself now?"

King comes up behind and doesn't bullshit around, killing him outright. His death gets everything working as it should.

As people have requested, the characters are fleshing out. This was Connor's moment. The reverence for Joe is a rich vein to mine. Riley seems to be a complete technoN00b and who knows what else. The rest of the crew isn't as familiar with death as Connor, and by extension Jane, who's died a few times.

We're back at Connor's place and with voiceover she gently strokes the bike and she thinks he's a well-built machine who shouldn't be judged by his cover. Having watched a lot of Magnum PI this past weekend, I've nailed down the problems with the voiceovers in this show. Painkiller Jane rambles on too long, and also too quietly. Thomas Magnum kept it short, and always related it to something that had happened in his life instead of ethereal, general bromides.

Next episode, "Something Nasty In The Neighborhood." For one team member it's the end of the line — we hear. Well, Waterman would be my guess. I thought he was a goner since he's been a gone for most of the series.

On Friday's General Hospital:

Amelia, who's out to see Sam suffer as much as possible, was all too happy to tell Sonny Sam witnessed Jake's kidnapping and did nothing. Sonny called Sam over to find out the truth and, in the end, caught her in a big fat lie when she denied knowing anything about it. Now that Sonny knows for sure Sam's been up to no good, I look for him to come at her with all kinds of vengeance.

After threatening to go public with how Ric had held her captive in the panic room oh so long ago if he didn't allow her to go visit Jason, Carly went to Liz to ask her to bear witness. Liz didn't see what brining the past up would do, informing Carly that Lucky says the evidence against Jason is huge and most likely going to stick. You can just imagine how well she took that. When Carly backed her up against the wall, Liz nearly spilled the paternity secret. Not that it's much of a secret. I think Carly and Lucky are the only two who don't know the truth.

After Lulu told Dillon they didn't have a future (so he would accept the job offer in LA) they shared a tearful goodbye, as he did with the rest of the Quartermaines – even Skye was allowed in the house to say goodbye. In the last minutes, Tracy came bursting into the mansion, having broke out of Shadybrook, donning a blond wig and wearing a blue bathrobe, to try one more time to convince him not to leave. I will miss Scott Clifton, and wish him well in the future.

Noah and Patrick did what they do best – argue. This time over which of them was better suited to treat Eli Love, the '80s rock star brought in with an embolism. As other doctors pointed out, for Noah it would be like operating on himself and as Robin pointed out, for Patrick it would be like operating on his father. Noah is still dismayed that anyone thinks he looks anything like the rock-star, while Eli is "totally freaked out" by "the doctor who looks just like me." I'd really like to see Noah and Patrick come together with some sort of understanding and work together, and hope that with all the attention he's getting for being a look-alike to Love, Noah remembers what a lady's man he used to be. It'd be very nice to see a romantic storyline for the senior Dr. Drake.

Warning! News and Spoilers Ahead!

• Anna Devane is a huge Eli Love fan? She will arrive in Port Charles for the benefit concert in time to find out that he has been hospitalized and will not be able to perform. She makes it her goal to get Noah to step in for the ailing rock star.
• But how can she make it to town for a concert, but not have been around when Jerry was shooting Robin during the Metro Court crisis? Those questions will be addressed in the few short weeks Hughes is back on GH.
• When Spinelli's grandmother dies, he learns he has family ties to Port Charles.
• Thursday at 11:00 pm the Soapnet original series General Hospital: Night Shift will kick off its thirteen week run. Look for Thursday's episode to lead into the prime time show (Robin and Patrick are 'sentenced' to three months in the ER on the night shift for operating on a patient without health insurance by Dr. Ford) but from that point on, the episodic spin-off is said to not have intersecting plotlines with its daytime counterpart. It is being described as an edgier, sexier medical drama.

Wife, mother, aspiring novelist, and music editor at BC Magazine, Connie Phillips spends most of her time in a fantasy land of her own creating. In reality, she writes about music, television, and the process of writing, when she’s not cheering on her kids at equestrian events. Contact: Phillips.connie@gmail.com

I have this friend who married a karate instructor, which isn't by itself all that remarkable, except that it allows everyone else to refer to him as "the ninja" and give them Christmas presents of plastic throwing stars and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures and the like. It's one of those running jokes that's more amusingly self-referential than actually funny to anyone outside a radius of ten people.

To some extent, that's the feeling I get when I watch Sujewa Ekanayake's Date Number One — that I'm watching a self-referential film that's much more entertaining to the creators than it is to an uninvolved third party.

The film revolves around five first date vignettes, ranging from a ninja (punk musician John Stabb Schroeder) looking for love to the pursuit of a long-term threesome to a woman who uses air quotes to the point of overkill. All five contain the same lo-fi production values and are indistinguishable in terms of writing and stylistic techniques, which gives the film a certain cohesiveness that, depending on your point of view, may or may not work to the film's advantage. That is to say, you could certainly make an argument for each segment to have its own distinct look. Whether or not they should, I'm not sure.

But if I had to choose, I'd say they should, since one of the chief problems with Date Number One comes from a production style that's so consistently frustrating. Virtually every shot in the film is a loosely-constructed composition, sloppy and with an abundance of head room, where the camera seems completely unsure of where it wants to be, almost as if it wandered in off the street and happened upon these first dates. It reminds me of things I shot before I knew how to shoot things.

As a stylistic choice used for a specific purpose, this isn't so bad, but without some fundamental framing and composition, the camera looks disinterested, like it can't be bothered to get in place for a two shot that does something as simple as have both actors in the frame. So, what you get is a two shot where the ninja is in the frame, but his date is just out of it and the camera has to pan over slightly to catch her dialogue, at which point the ninja is out of the frame. Rarely does the camera seem to make any strong, artistically-driven choices that further the story, nor does it do something as simple as backing up a couple feet and having the confidence to stay with a master shot. There's a distinct feeling that the film might at any moment get fed up with these characters and move on to something else, but not in a way that invests the audience. Rather, it gives the impression that if the film doesn't really care, why should we?

But maybe the camera doesn't care because the characters haven't given it anything to care about. With a few exceptions (Jennifer Blakemore comes to mind), the performances are wooden and stilted, the sort of thing you get in student films where the filmmaker recruits actors from the football team, and the script feels like a first draft of something that might eventually become substantial and inventive. The actors play it like they've just recently memorized the text and large chunks of the dialogue have the feel of something inspired either by a textbook (most of the dialogue on quantum physics) or a soapbox ("…the enemies of choice are not interested in dialogue and discovery of new and better perspectives. They want women to go back to 'their place' so their neo-conservative, God-fearing, moral majority crap…").

Clearly this is a cast comprised of friends and cohorts willing to give up their free time to get the film finished, and it's hard to fault a no-budget film for going in that direction, but when the performances range from adequate to embarrassing, there has to be a better approach. You could, for example, limit the size of your cast or make a film that isn't as heavily dependent on dialogue, thus minimizing the impact of the performances. But relying on a large cast of non-actors in a film with long stretches of conversation is a recipe for disaster. A good cast can hide a lot of awkward scripting, but an inexperienced cast with anything less than a great script is lethal.

Sadly, the script for Date Number One is littered with cliche and exposition, constantly running afoul of the mandate to "show, don't tell", is mostly devoid of subtext, contains dialogue that reads better than it sounds, and you can see most of the jokes coming far in advance. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a good screenplay. The title cards don't help, interrupting the film to tell us things we don't need to know, like that the bartender is the ninja's twin (Why do we need to know this? Why does it matter? Why are we seeing this actor again?), or telling us a proverb seconds before the actors talk about it. Such is the mark of a film either completely unsure of itself or struggling to incorporate audience feedback.

Part of the problem with Date Number One has to do with the sequence of events. The first two segments combine for over half of the 115-minute running time and both segments are at least ten minutes longer than they need to be. So, by the time we get to the second half of the film (which contains segments three and five, the two strongest), our patience is worn thin, especially by the ninja segment, which fills the first thirty minutes with what is easily the film's weakest performance. Trimming that first hour to something more manageable would do wonders.

But that alone wouldn't make it a good film, just a shorter one with fewer problems. What it needs is some harsh re-writes and a cast with a modicum of acting experience. There's no shortage of aspiring actors in the world more than willing to be in a film. Casting people just because they happen to be your friends and have free time is counter-productive and undermines the end product, especially when there are better alternatives willing and able to do the job. Similarly, it never hurts to get a director of photography who will do more than use the camera's auto focus and exposure. Such are the little things that a casual observer won't mind, but others will, and it severely limits the potential audience. There's value to doing everything yourself, but there's usually more value in seeing if there's people around who can just as easily do it better. This film would have been better served with the latter.

Starring: John Stabb Schroeder, Julia Stemper, Jennifer Blakemore, Shervin Boloorian, Dele Williams, and Christine D. Lee
Cinematography by: Sujewa Ekanayake[1]
Written and directed by: Sujewa Ekanayake
$10,000/115 min/Washington, D.C.

You can check out Date Number One on IMDb, MySpace, or the official web page. You can read the various writings of Sujewa Ekanayake at his blog.

Got a film you'd like to submit for the Uber-Indie Project? Go here for details.

A DVD of one guy sitting in a chair and talking for 53 minutes isn’t what most people would call entertainment. But the Speaking Freely series, inaugurated by an interview with author/activist John Perkins, is an enlightening exercise in the power of the medium.

While radio and cable news are the refuge of conservatives, film and newspapers (longer, more revealing sources) are where progressive ideas thrive. With Speaking Freely, Perkins, the author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman and The Secret History of the American Empire, delivers a dissertation on the state of the global corporate empire that would make even the most liberal American cringe.

Of course, shocking truths make the Speaking Freely DVD series a revolutionary change of pace from even the Dan Rather/Ted Koppel hour-longs that exist on cable TV. Featuring interviews with authors mostly speaking on the global economy, Speaking Freely combines expert knowledge with a social consciousness that is regularly absent from news today.

Perkins, in fact, is able to easily connect the problems that are at the forefront of the American consciousness (illegal immigration, terrorism, and the Iraq War) to the unstable, greedy global corporatocracy. He establishes the World Bank as a major arm in keeping developing countries in debt to the world’s major powers, while providing major corporations with profits from infrastructure projects.

Of course, watching Michael Moore’s Sicko and Perkins in Speaking Freely so close together also makes it easy to see the connection to debt (health care and education for individual Americans and infrastructure for developing countries) and the creation of a slave class.

I know right now most people will be inclined to discredit or disregard the claims, but consider the rhetoric the major media uses in describing democratically elected South American presidents like Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales. As Perkins describes them, such leaders are only there to take back the resources of their countrymen, making them enemies of the corporatocracy and thus “dictators” in the media.

Most leaders cave to the bribes of “economic hit men” (paid professionals who extort profits through international aid packages and development loans). If that doesn’t work, they become enemies who are set up for assassination or overthrow. If that doesn’t work, well, you know what happened in Iraq.

On the DVD, Perkins adds depth to the topics I mention here and he does it articulately and logically. For anyone looking for news that’s not fit to print, Speaking Freely volume one is a great place to start investigating.

As anyone who watches with any regularity can attest, television viewing can be something of a crap shoot during the summer months. In the summer absence of the hit shows we all got hooked on during the fall — 24, Lost, and after this past season, Heroes all come to mind here — summer is that notorious time that the networks trot out their replacement fare.

For television, this usually means that the summer months are relegated to something like a science experiment. Since presumably no one is watching anyway, the networks will often use this time to try out the shows they weren't so willing to take a chance on during the fall season. Generally speaking, these replacement programs will fill space for a few weeks before becoming completely forgotten by the time the big guns are rolled out for fall.

One summer series which has refreshingly bucked this trend is USA Network's The 4400. Now in its fourth season, the sci-fi drama has drawn not only decent ratings, but has even developed something of a devoted fan base. Set in Seattle, the show's premise revolves around a group of 4400 individuals who mysteriously vanish, then are returned unharmed, unaged, and newly gifted with various paranormal abilities.

Early on in the show, the implication was that these people had been abducted and returned by aliens. More recently, this assumption has shifted somewhat to where it now appears to be a future version of ourselves who took these folks. They have also been tasked with a mission to save mankind from some unknown future calamity.

Since my personal nitpicks about this show number so few, I'll dispense with those here and now. As I said, the show is set in Seattle. But as someone who was born and raised here, I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the show isn't filmed anywhere near Seattle.

Since becoming everybody's favorite hippest town in the world — between Microsoft, Starbucks, and grunge in the nineties — many movies and shows now have stories and plots that originate in Seattle. Some, like Greys Anatomy for instance, do it right by either filming here or at least getting the local references correctly. The 4400 occasionally gets this part right too. More often though, they miss the mark.

Personal hometown gripe aside though, The 4400 has become a major summertime guilty pleasure for me. I've always been a sucker for sci-fi anyway, and over the course of four seasons now, this show has taken some very interesting twists and turns.

Take the series' two principal characters, Tom Baldwin (Joel Gretsch) and Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie), for example. Working as investigators for a government agency called NTAC (National Threat Assessment Command), the pair are tasked with keeping tabs on the 4400. It seems however, that Baldwin and Skouris also have more than a few personal ties themselves.

Tom's son Kyle was rescued from a coma by his nephew Shawn, a 4400 who has the ability to heal. Tom also fell in love with, married, and subsequently lost Alana, a 4400 with the ability to transport herself and others in and out of time. Meanwhile, Diana has adopted Maia — a pre-teenaged 4400 who has sometimes disturbing visions of the future — as her own daughter.

For its first few seasons, The 4400 mainly focused on the perception within certain corridors of government that this group somehow posed a threat. Last year, the show took off in some interesting new directions though. Jordan Collier, a 4400 who was "assassinated" in the first season (by Tom's son Kyle in another of this show's numerous twists), came back to life looking more than ever like a prophet, if not an actual messiah. Meanwhile, Isabelle Tyler grew from an infant to a full-grown, full-fledged female antichrist sort of figure over the course of a few weeks.

Three episodes into its fourth season, the shocking new developments continue unabated. Jordan Collier has offered 4400-like abilities absolutely free to anyone willing to inject themselves with the ability-producing drug promicin. Although many take Collier up on his offer — including Diana's sister — the government is not happy about this since taking the shot involves a fifty percent risk of death.

Shawn has also re-embraced his healing abiltiy, and boldly defied the government by reopening the former 4400 center as a healing foundation — with a standing offer to heal anyone who shows up at his door.

Meanwhile, Baldwin's son Kyle — who has also taken the promicin shot — has developed a most interesting ability himself. This "ability" manifests itself in the form of a beautiful young woman who may or may not be actual flesh and blood. Nonetheless, she leads Kyle to an obscure religious cult with a manuscript of holy scripture prophesying Collier as the Messiah and Kyle as his shaman.

Will Diana find her sister? Will the Republican party put a stop to Shawn's plan to put the pharmaceutical industry out of business? Will Kyle claim his destiny as John The Baptist to Jordan Collier's apparent Jesus Christ? One thing is for certain, there is never a dull moment and The 4400 is not your typical summertime replacement series.

Of course, if you have cable (and who doesn't these days?) you can tune in to find out for yourself. The 4400 airs Sunday nights at 9:00 PM in most time zones on the USA Network.

You’ll find Blogcritics contributing editor and music raconteur Glen Boyd sharing his Thoughtmares about everything from music to politics to professional wrestling on his personal blog The World Wide Glen: Welcome To My Thoughtmare. In his alter-ego as “Disco Glen,” Mr. Boyd is also the undisputed king of the dancefloor.