Film critic Richard Crouse identifies some of the small summer films that look to be worth checking out between popcorn movies.

For example, Dennis Hopper, Michael Madsen and David Carradine are in the biker movie Hell Ride (woohoo!).

Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, The Foot Fist Way and Lou Reed's Berlin are among the other promising flicks.

It's too late for my up-before-the-crack-of-dawn workdays, but if you're up at 11:55 p.m. tonight and in the vicinity of the Royal, check out Machine Girl.

From Now magazine:

The Machine Girl offers lunatic excess from beginning to end. Never mind that our heroine has a machine gun on the stump of her arm – this isn’t some cheap Planet Terror knockoff. It’s a revenge tragedy in the spirit of Lone Wolf And Cub, in the style of Evil Dead II, about a Japanese schoolgirl hellbent on revenge on the yakuza scum who killed her brother.

Not every shot and effect works, but director Noboru Iguchi’s creativity with deep-fried heads, a flying guillotine and much more easily outweighs his small blunders.

At CTV.ca, we had a poll today on which early summer movie a person might be most interested in seeing.

Of the 2,952 people who voted as of the time I wrote this, myself and 30 other iconoclasts went for Speed Racer.

Indiana Jones is likely to do big numbers, if this completely unscientific poll is indeed representative of the movie-going public

"You are an idealist. I pity you like I would pity the village idiot."

- Gen. George Broulard (Adophe Menjou) to Col. Dax (Kirk Douglas)

In this scene from the classic 1957 Stanley Kubrick film about the aftermath of a First World War French military debacle, Broulard blasts Dax for turning down a promotion to general.

Broulard thought Dax's efforts to defend three men scapegoated for the botched attack and to nail a general who wanted his own troops shelled were just part of manoeuvring for a promotion. :)

Here's a Wikipedia page on the film and a collection of reviews at Rottentomatoes.com.

Henry Hill's life story was immortalized in the incomparable Goodfellas. He lived a high-flying life as a gangster before crashing in a drug bust and ratting out his associates to literally save his own life.

What woman appears in both Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy in a speaking role, speaking in both to Robert DeNiro's characters?

No IMDBing! :)

The 2002 film Comedian follows the post-Seinfeld Jerry Seinfeld as he tries to rebuilt a standup comedy routine from scratch.

A parallel plot is the career of Orny Adams, who wants to make the big time. What Adams had to say about the National Post triggered a wry smile (sorry I'm late to this party, but my DVD rental dance card has been filled up for the last five years and change).

He got a front-page story during his appearance at the Montreal Just for Laughs comedy festival.

During his routine, he trotted the paper out on stage. No one seemed to have read the article -- or the paper.

"Nobody reads this goddam paper? I make it on the front page of my first national paper and nobody reads it?!?!"

He wasn't kidding. "I'm sorry, but this audience sucks," a pouty Adams said afterwards.

"I really thought I could do more with the paper, and I was proud to be in the paper," he said. "But it's too bad nobody reads it."