Cutting a Director and a Director's Cut

A film filled with trials and tribulations finding a director has to be crappy. Exorcist: The Beginning was horrible and it died a lowly death at the box office and at the hands of critics. Initially, John Frankenheimer was to helm the project but fell ill and the nod was given to Paul Schrader. He turned in a film that was reported too artsy-fartsy for the studio so the execs 86'd Schrader and wiped the slate clean. Then some someone thought it would be a good idea to bring in Renny Harlin to start anew on the project. The result was Exorcist: The Beginning. And now Paul Schrader gets his version of the story released as Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist to theaters starting Friday in a limited release. So it's not a director's cut but the same story told by someone else. From what I've read, it's not particularly arty, just not a lot of typical horror, i.e. - not a lot of jolts and stuff jumping out at the audience. At least Harlin had the good sense to keep Stellan Skarsgård, one of the best actors around, IMHO. I loved him in the original Insomnia.

Oliver Stones epic failure, Alexander will be released on DVD come August 2nd in 2 flavas. First is the theatrical version while the second is the director's cut. Instead of inserting material that had been excised by the evil, money-grubbing movie studio, as is usually the case with director's cuts, Stone has removed 8 minutes of footage. Apparently scenes of character development, specifically the homosexual side of Alexander's character, have been removed. I love the DVD cover with it's little blurb that sounds like it's from an ad for floor wax: "Newly inspired, faster paced, more action packed!" Perhaps it should read, "Newly hetero, faster paced, less gay-action packed!" Hmmm...