Credit goes first to Robert Rodriguez, a tirelessly innovative director who thrives on doing things that the rules say he can't. When the Directors' Guild said he couldn't co-direct Sin City with Miller, he quit the guild, then rubbed salt in the wound by bringing in his pal Quentin Tarantino to direct one scene in a car featuring a talking corpse with a gun wedged in his forehead. Better yet, the creator of the child-friendly Spy Kids trilogy has now made an R-rated movie that no sane person should let a child near.

Sin City, shot by Rodriguez in black-and-white with the occasional splash of color from, say, a whore's lip gloss or a yellow-skinned rapist, mixes hard-boiled pulp fiction, 1940s film noir and the dazzling monochrome of Miller's graphic design to explore the dark night of the soul.

It moves quickly to the first and most exciting story, "The Hard Goodbye." Mickey Rourke gives a sensational comeback performance as Marv, an ex-con with a Frankenstein jaw line who wakes up next to a dead hooker (Jaime King) and vows revenge. All three of the overlapping stories involve voice-overs, but Rourke puts real heat into his as Marv searches for "a soul to send screaming into hell."

Bruce Willis nails the role of Hartigan, a cop with a bad ticker who saves an eleven-year-old girl from a pedophile rapist (Nick Stahl) by doing jail time for the creep (the son of a powerful senator). When Hartigan gets out, the girl has grown into a hottie (Jessica Alba) who's hot for him. One catch: The rapist has turned into a foul-smelling, canary-yellow demon, which makes Hartigan ball-ripping mad — literally. "I take his weapons from him — both of them," says Hartigan as testicles are flung at the screen and we wonder if the film escaped an NC-17 rating because the bastard's blood looks like cartoon custard.

I would show more images, but, you must really see this film and guess who is who in character.

A bold, uncompromised vision.

Both the DVD and the book about the making of the film are must-haves for the collector. And of course, the reprints of Frank millers novels would make this collectors triology complete.

Click on these images to read more reviews and make purchases at Amazon.

It's 1186. Not a good year for Balian — the French blacksmith played by Brit sensation Orlando Bloom, minus the blond locks that goosed his ride to stardom as Legolas (Elf) in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Balian gets a visit from Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson), the famed knight who announces, "I am your father," and invites him along to Jerusalem in the service of the leper King Baldwin IV (Edward Norton), who wants to keep the city open to Christians, Jews and Muslims. "I have done murder," says the son. "Haven't we all?" says the father, who teaches Balian how to wield a sword like a street fighter. Neeson is a great, forceful presence. "I fought for two days with an arrow through my testicle," Godfrey says.

Godfrey goes on to knight Balian and charge him to protect the holy city from the Saracen army, led by the Muslim legend Saladin (the superb Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud gives a performance that should be remembered at awards time), and the greedy, militant Knights Templars, led by Guy de Lusignan (Martin Csokas, a walking sneer), who both see war as an IPO and faith as an excuse to launch it.

Before surrendering the city, Balian asks Saladin, "What is Jerusalem worth?" "Nothing," says the Muslim of the pile of stones. Then, realizing the city's symbolic power, he answers, "Everything."

William Monahan's deft script underscores the modern parallels in this story without hitting us upside the head. Set between the second and third crusades, the film is not anti-Muslim, it's anti-fanaticism — taking on both sides of the "God wills it" equation. The script takes its biggest liberties with Balian, a fact-based character who has been Hollywoodized into heroism. He's a fighter, a lover of King Baldwin's kohl-eyed sister Sybilla (Eva Green of The Dreamers), who is also Guy's wife, and a moralist.

Balian will not act against his conscience even when the king (touchingly voiced by Edward Norton behind a silver mask to hide his rotting flesh) and his trusted adviser Tiberius (Jeremy Irons, complex and compelling) offer to remove Guy to clear the way for Balian to marry Sybilla and become king when Baldwin dies.

Ridley Scott, directing balls-out as he did in Black Hawk Down (which also featured Bloom) and Gladiator. As always, Scott can stage action like nobody's business. The siege on Jerusalem makes striking use of digital armies and assault towers.

Kingdom of Heaven is meant to bring the epic back to Gladiator-size glory. Scott delivers rousing entertainment layered with provocation. But he's up against the same core contradiction as the U.S. in Iraq: How do you justify the spectacle of bloody carnage while preaching the gospel of give peace a chance?

The two disc DVD is released on Oct. 10th. This is a "Must Have" classic of cinematic heroism. To read more reviews or make purchase, click on image to go to Amazon.

This is definately in my top-ten favorites list.

This is an excellent work of art. Through computer rendering and artistic vision, comic illustration of the thirties and forties is brought to life with realism. From the colorisation, to the costuming and storyline; the film captures the imaginations of sci-fi writers in the first half of the twentieth century.

The acting is good for the genre. Gweneth Paltrow looked good too. Angelina was obscured in costume eye patch and black uniform. She plays a tough-chick in the military.

This is a DVD to get not because it has a lot of bang as an action flick; it doesn't; but a film to get to view on your new digital big screen. For this it will be a classic work of art.

I need traffic and dialogue with the human race. Come help a brother out @ My WordPress.com community site.

There isn't much that can be done except create lucid or entertaining content and dialogue. WordPress.com is a project by the developers of WordPress. Matt in particular; he is the founder. He needed community feed-back for developing the next generation of WordPress, and decided to actually set-up that community to do it. By sending out invites, in the form of golden tickets; just like in Willie Wonka; he established a network. He is providing the server space for free. A Gmail version of blogging. I think it's pretty cool.

I like being apart to the development of WordPress. There is some very interesting design ideas being employed for functionality. Though all the Ajax stuff has some bugs to it.

The primary by-product is that not having access to all the PHP and CSS for your site makes you focus strictly on content. Content has to be the primary concern. For the moment I will be making duplicates of my personal site's posts and reposting them at Wordpress.com

Born in Atlanta, Russell launched his television career as Officer Anderson in the 1961 television series "Car 54, Where are You?" He also appeared in the 1994 film version.

He became a fixture on popular television game and talk shows, where he was welcomed for his poetic delivery that earned him the moniker the "poet laureate of television." He also took his signature four-line poetry on the road for readings and performances.

He settled in New York after graduating from the University of Cincinnati and serving as an Army captain in Europe during World War II.

The actor, who had been suffering from cancer, died Sunday afternoon at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Just like with Peter Jennings, another aspect of my childhood has passed. The end of what was is official for me. All the greats from my childhood will be gone soon. Now-a-days, film and tv suck; they really had to act back-in-the-day.

God bless Nipsey……thanks for the memories.