As if men aren’t.

The reason for the topic - personal experiences aside - is the Oct. 2 the double “Species” release of “Species IV: The Awakening” and “Species Collector’s Edition.”

I always liked the original: A cold, sexy woman often in the nude infected with alien DNA escapes, develops a need to mate - and mate and mate - and then rudely, colorfully, unashamedly mutilate and murder the man who, depending on your point of view:

a. served as her sexual object

b. serviced her

The film has a subtheme about her searching for the perfect type - via some kind of scent thing - with whom to mate and reproduce.

Or maybe that’s in “Species II”; sometimes it’s hard to keep the “Species” straight.

The thing that suddenly occurred to me, as I was slogging through No. 4, was the movies as metaphor.

Now everyone has a dark side; killers and politicians being the exceptions, we seldom reveal them except when we are in relationships or some aspect of the mating ritual.

And, oh my it can be nasty.

As you very well know.

The point, illusive as it may be: This series was created by somebody who has had a very, very bad experience with one woman, or more than one of a similar type that he’s drawn to like (fill in the simile of your choice); i.e., he sees the danger and dives in anyway.

The upshot: According to these films, every cool, pretty, sexy woman who’s comfy with her body and with her sexuality and takes the initiative is very bad news - according to the man or men who invented the “Species” saga

I don’t know where these men have been but it evidently wasn’t very pleasurable.

Of course, their pretty-sexy-confident-woman problems may have been of their own making. Ditto the outcomes.

I’ve had good luck and back luck with the “Species.”

The good luck was better but the bad luck was always instructive and entertaining.

Got back from Monterey yesterday; went for R&R and long walks by the ocean in the cool, cool, cool of the evening - and the a.m.

Got a call from a friend, surprised I hadn’t told her I was going. (If we had been more than pals she would have been notified, if not invited.)

I mentioned my recent bloggings about women with walls. She asked if I had written about her.

I said, not yet.

Well, the time is now.

My friend is the only woman I’ve ever met who’s proud of her walls and their thickness; proud of the way she keeps her past to herself; proud that she won’t open up.

She’s talked to me about some things from her yesterdays, and some were colorful.

But there’s a layer that stays closed, let’s her keep her distance and gives her a place to retreat when she chooses.

She wears her wall like a badge of honor.

She’s said she’ll reveal herself when she meets The Right Man.

I wish her luck.

I know she doesn’t want a man with thick walls, so her perfect match will have to show some vulnerability, or that mystical something that only she can sense, and puts her under a spell.

Of course she has to be willing to let the magic work.

I sometimes wonder how she expects to find the right Mr. Strong and Vulnerable when, generally, healthy, vulnerable men don’t fall for women with thick walls.

Unhealthy vulnerable men? You never know.

I hope she doesn’t settle for that.

I hate my computer. It just killed the first version of this before I could store it.

I just needed to share that. Here we go again, give or take:

I’ve been thumbing through “Don’t Make a Scene,” a 2007 novel by Valerie Block, author of “Was It Something I Said?”

It’s about a single woman, about to turn 40, who manages a Greenwich Village revival house.

It looks promising but I’m just not in the right mood for it now. See if it appeals to you.

The lead:

“As Diane Kurasik neared the rapids of her fortieth birthday, her world seemed to be taking on the bittersweet tones of a life-change comedy from the 1970s, something starring Glenda Jackson or Jill Clayburgh.”

On the same page, she riffs on old movies. She’s showing “Indiscreet” at her theater.

“On the bulletin board, Ingrid Bergman gazed at Cary Grant with offended longing in a publicity still. With five hundred cable channels, free videos at the library, and DVDs selling for $5.00 on the sidewalk, why would anyone go out in the rain to pay $9.50 to see Indiscreet (Stanley Donen, 1958)? But if it was part of a series called `Heels, Cads, Sadists and Heartbreakers,’ there would always be a few who would show up to see Ingrid Bergman explode on the big screen, `How DARE he make loff to me and not be a married man!”

The author identifies most films she mentions by director and year. A nice touch.

The narrator goes on to say it took three month for her to be hired, but no big: “After all, fifteen other, bigger names had turned down `M*A*S*H’ (1970) before Robert Altman agreed to direct it.”

She also waxes poetic about the movie marquee:

“… it served the public as a light source, a meeting point, a billboard and a shelter from the rain. It could comment on a passing scene, as in the Weegee photo of a crowd gawking at a newspaper-covered corpse beneath a marquee announcing `Irene Dunne in The Joy of Living.‘ A crank regularly denounced Diane at Bedford Street Block Association meetings for poisoning the neighborhood with cynicism when, for example, the marquee advertised a double bill of Contempt and Repulsion… .”

All of that’s in the first three pages. Based on my thumbing-through, movie trivia is laced through the story, though it’s not a thick as in her opening.

The novel looks like fun. If you try it, finish it and like it, let me know and I’ll give it another try. It’s published by Ballantine Books.

In the meantime I’ll get back to The Specialist (Luis Llosa, 1994); nothing like total trash - an absolutely awful film with Stallone, Sharon Stone and James Woods - to put the proper punctuation on an ungainly day.

Everyone has emotional baggage.

The amount determines whether they build walls - or bridges.

(Quote from the “Streets of San Francisco” TV series: “People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.” TV used to teach.)

How to deal with women - or men - who have walls that keep them distant and protect them from pain - and joy:

1. Gently offer to help repaint.

2. Shop together for new wallpaper.

3. Do no recommend spackle.

4. Hang pictures; on second thought, don’t - it’s the hammer-and-nails thing, which won’t go over well unless you’re dealing with a masochist.

5. Appreciate the texturing.

6. Make no cracks about the color.

7. Don’t hit your head against it.

8. Compare it to your own.

9. Ask for help repainting yours.

10. Let it be and exit stage left.

More later.

Still dazzling after all these years

Julie Christie, still striking more than 40 years after winning hearts in “Dr. Zhivago,” creates a poignant portrayal of a woman stricken with Alzheimer’s in “Away From Her.”
Don’t let the subject matter frighten you away. While the film can be gut-wrenching with its thick, emotional undercurrents, it minimizes sentimentality, asking instead that audiences focus on the enduring love between Christie’s character and her husband of 44 years, played with strength, sensitivity and suppressed fear - that his wife will forget him - by Gordon Pinsent.
Written with wisdom beyond her 28 years (and adapted from an Alice Munro short story) by actress Sarah Polley, who makes an impressive directorial debut, the story allows Christie to show her character’s depth and mettle as she maintains an awareness of herself as her mind starts to deteriorate; when she forgets the word “wine,” she tells dinner guests it feels like she’s becoming invisible. She becomes the decisive one in the marriage when it comes to her moving into a facility where she can be better cared for than at home.
The story becomes more complicated when, early on, it is clear that she has become involved with another patient - former Woody Allen regular Michael Murphy - and her husband must deal with a new set of feelings and expectations.
Complexities abound in the story, whose flashbacks tantalize while adding depth. A powerful film about love, loss and self-sacrifice, “Away from Her” is highly recommended.
Extras: In Christie’s minimalist commentary, she admits she did not want to do the film initially because she doesn’t like movies about illness, but the script, her friendship with Polley and her losing friends to Alzheimer’s changed her thinking; Polley’s commentary on the few deleted scenes offers insights into her mind-set; various actors communicate their thoughts about the spread of Alzheimer’s prior to the film’s start.
Trivia: Reportedly, John Hartford was so dazzled by Christie’s performance in “Dr. Zhivago” that he went straight home, sat down and knocked out the song “Gentle on My Mind.”

Noir lite

“A Few Days in September” takes place in 2001, in the days leading up to the World Trade Center tragedy. That awareness is intended to add tension to the tale; a sense of urgency like the ticking of an invisible clock. It seldom does - because of writer-director Santiago Amigorena’s awkward tonal shifts and his never having met a digression he didn’t like. The result is a clash of thriller, relationship saga and political drama.
Juliette Binoche stars as some sort of agent or former agent - it’s never made clear until near the end - with bad eyesight. Whenever she removes her glasses, the screen becomes an indefinable blur which makes one think, “Well, that’s interesting and, perhaps, a metaphor - for the story’s pointlessness.” At the request of a mysterious former associate she hasn’t seen in years, she brings together his adult French daughter (Sara Forestier), who hates him for abandoning her as a child, and his adult American son (Tom Riley), who worships him. Their father wants to meet with this for reasons unknown until the finale. He avoids their first rendezvous because his psychopathic former associate (John Turturro) shows up and starts killing people.
The film’s shot well. The acting’s above average. The story’s kinkiness provides food for thought. Yet, the enigmatic ending leaves you feeling, OK, so? Extras: none.

Plastics!

Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, Mr. Nichols and Mr. Hoffman. “The Graduate: 40th Anniversary Edition” reminds viewers of the movie’s timelessness and, as noted in the commentary, that you don’t have to have a pretty face to be a leading man.
Dustin Hoffman reportedly received $15,000 to play aimless college grad Benjamin Braddock, soon to be seduced by an older woman (sexy Anne Bancroft), fall for her pretty daughter (Katharine Ross) and be forced to figure out what to do with his life. The writing’s timeless. And the performances, Mike Nichols’ direction and the Simon & Garfunkel songs that meld so well with the story are as good as ever. Most of today’s releases couldn’t fill its sprockets.
Extras: Mike Nichols explains the rationale for every shot, movement, lighting choice, song, color and costume on a fascinating film-school-like audio commentary with Steven Soderbergh; Hoffman’s cute musing about his on-set crush on Ross during his commentary with her; a second disc contains four songs from the original soundtrack.

Women kick it

Critics panned “D.O.A.: Dead or Alive” when the martial-arts spoof debuted in theaters - most likely because they couldn’t stomach the froth or were disappointed the it wasn’t another remake of “D.O.A.,” the drama about a poisoned man searching for his murderer before he dies. (The Edmond O’Brien version begat the Dennis Quaid version which begat the Jason Statham update, “Crank.”)
Like the recently released “Balls of Fury,” the newest “D.O.A.,” on DVD this week, parodies Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon.” Unlike “Fury,” “D.O.A.” is entertaining. Lively and amusing, the film features a bunch of buff, butt-kicking babes as its heroes; think “Charlie’s Angels” with B talent.
Jaime Pressly, the most recognizable star from her role on “My Name Is Earl,” plays a wrestler supreme invited along with a ninja princess (Devon Aoki), an assassin-thief (Holly Valance) and a host of boorish rugged males to compete for $10 million and the title “World’s Best Fighter” in an exclusive tourney on a secluded island.
Of course, there’s more to it - including revenge, mystery, thievery, courting, sparking, computer high jinks and an arch villain (Eric Roberts).
The plot’s silly but the plot’s not the point; the point’s the action and the fun. Created by Cory Yuen, Bruce Lee’s stand-in and director of “The Transporter,” the picture’s loaded with fancy fighting, balletic moves and chiseled pecs. And, with the exception of the hammy Roberts, the actors give it their best - and, like the movie itself, they refuse to take themselves seriously.
Extras: The making-of documentary “East Meets West: Behind the Action of `D.O.A.’ ” provides diverting peeks into the actors’ training and wire work, Yuen’s animated directing style and the handsome China locales; no commentary.

Also on DVD

“Even Money”: Addiction and gambling destroy nine lives; with Forest Whitaker, Kim Basinger, Kelsey Grammer and Nick Cannon.

“Face/Off - Two-Disc Special Collector’s Edition”: FBI agent John Travolta and terrorist Nicolas Cage trade faces, identities and bullets; includes new commentaries and alternate ending.

“The Film Crew: Wild Women of Wongo”: The “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ guys make fun of the 1958 D picture about women who monkey around with male ape-like creatures, discover an island of handsome men and go ape over them.

“The Roger Corman Collection”: “Bloody Mama”; “A Bucket of Blood”; “Gas-s-s-s”; “Premature Burial”; “The Wild Angels”; “X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes”; “The Young Racers.”
“Snow Cake”: Endearing oddity with former convict Alan Rickman forced to rethink his life after picking up a hitchhiker who dies, then visiting her autistic mother (Sigourney Weaver) and taking up with her mother’s free-spirited neighbor (Carrie-Anne Moss).

Classic horror releases: “The Burning”; “The Food of the Gods”; “From Beyond - Unrated Director’s Cut”; “The Lost World - Special Edition”; “MGM Movie Scream Legends: Vincent Price Collection”; “The Return of the Living Dead Collector’s Edition”; “Scarecrows”; “Sometimes They Come Back.”

TV on DVD
“The Addams Family - Volume 3″; “Avatar: The Last Airbender”; “Bones: Season Two”; “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”; “Charmed - The Final Season (Season 8)”; “Goosebumps – It Came From Beneath the Sink”; “Goosebumps - Say Cheese and Die”; “Grey’s Anatomy: The Complete Third Season, Seriously Extended DVD”; “Griffin & Phoenix” (Dermot Mulroney-Amanda Peet version); “I Dream of Jeannie - The Complete Fourth Season”; “Las Vegas: Season 4″; “Lillies”; “Masada - The omplete Epic Mini-Series”; “McHale’s Navy: Season Two”; “Prime Suspect 7 - The Final Act”; “The Starter Wife”; “Supernatural: Season 2″; “Two and a Half Men: The Complete First Season.”

Everybody has baggage.

You, me, our friends and, for purposes of this mulling, the women I’m often attracted to.

I’m talking about the emotional kind, not the kind with zippers. Although, if the emotional kind came with zippers - most of ours would probably get stuck.

Because we’d make ourselves, or think ourselves, too busy to soap them (if there’s another zipper lubricant, let me know).

Even if we believe we had healthy, normal childhoods, we carry hidden (to us) and not-so-hidden scars/wounds/baggage.

We carry our “stuff” from bad school experiences, early and later relationships - involving or not involving sex, love, friendship and work.

The amount of baggage - lunchboxes, suitcases, trunks or storage lockers - determines our health and the health of our relationships.

You see this sort of thing surface to varying degrees in movies, most obviously in early Woody Allen films such as “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan,” romance films such as “A Man and a Woman,” the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan/Billy Crystal/Julia Roberts/Hugh Grant series, and, more recently, “The 40 Year Old Virgin” - I’m thinking of the Catherine Keener character as much as Steve Carell’s - and “Knocked Up.”

Most of us know what we bring to a relationship in terms of scars, infections, wounds in different stages of healing or festering.

We just prefer not to dwell on it.

Most of us would rather keep our stuff in the background because denial seems so much simpler than admitting that, well, we have baggage.

Which is really pretty since being flawed means being human.

Usually, we keep keep our baggage in remission during the blush or honeymoon period of a new relationship.

And we plant the first relationship mines - they’ll blow up later; it’s a sure thing - by pretending we don’t notice the other person’s baggage despite the blinking caution lights (addressed in an early blog entry).

Our baggage often blinds up to theirs, or convinces us to ignore it. (I’ll show you my scars another time.)

That’s the long way around my admission that I seem to attract, and am attracted to, women with walls - walls that distance and protect them - from pain as well as happiness; can’t be open to one without being open to the other.

It’s like a protective a field of energy. It’s in the posture, the way she touches or doesn’t touch, the way she reacts to touch, certain words, expressions or behaviors.

It’s usually most visible as a tensing-up or closing or a moving back - in reaction to a stimulus only she can hear, see or feel.

For instance, I was once involved with a woman who, when I suggested we have dinner after work, angrily said she wasn’t cooking or cleaning up.

This happened more than once, which always seemed out because neither my words not my intention had anything to do with her cooking or our staying home for dinner. In each case, she always assumed and reacted to that assumption, rather than giving me time to finish - and tell her I wanted us to go out to eat.

Somewhere in her past, a man - her ex-husband I imagined - always expected her to cook, perhaps even demanded it, and she never said “no.” In fact, she may have assumed that’s what he wanted without even asking him.

But that’s her stuff, not mine.

The main thing is he’s long gone - as am I - and her baggage remains, still packed and zippered tight.

More on that relationship in a future entry.

I’ve always found talking about our stuff helps in relationships. Not all the time, but when it surfaces or is about to. This works if both of us are in reasonable mental and emotional health and willing to risk opening up a little.

That’s the trust issue.

If the attraction is strong and the baggage heavy, it can take a long time to get someone comfortable enough to take a risk and open up.

Questions that pertain: Is it worth the time and effort? How committed am I? How committed is she?

More this weekend about tips on taking risks, telling truth and being honest - with ourselves.

Maybe I’ll learn something.

Like the Western, I’m back in the saddle again.

The classic shoot-’em-up’s made a return with “3:10 to Yuma,” a remake of a famed 1950s oater.

And I’ve made it back to blogland after surviving a bike ride through a mini-tornado in Chicago.

Ride ‘em, blogboy: It’s good to be alive and well and shooting out those looks at life once again.

Saw “3:10,” the remake the other night. A self-treat. Excellent start with Christian Bale as a one-legged, browbeaten, failure-mentality dad struggling to make the ranch work and earn back the respect of his wife and sons.

And in the other corner, Russell Crowe is acting crass but smart, ironic, witty and badlands-wise as the conscienceless leader of one of the baddest group of bad men this side of “High Noon.”

The crux of the story has Bale joining a posse for the cash to keep his home afloat and helping escort the captured Crowe through Apache territory, with his men in pursuit, in time to catch the 3:10 to the federal prison in Yuma.

The remake’s more exciting, more violent, more complex and less claustrophobic than the original - most of which takes place in a hotel room where rancher and killer await the 3:10 - but the plotholes remain.

No problem until the ending which could have used injections of logic and common sense.

It’s not perfect but what is?

“High Noon” comes close. Ditto John Ford’s “The Searchers,” although I prefer Ford’s “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” because it feels more mythic.

“Silverado” is grand fun, and gave Kevin Costner the chance to do more than display his scarred wrists (in “The Big Chill”).

I also love “My Darling Clementine,” the most mythic of the Wyatt Earp films, and the most successful in capturing the romance of the Old West.

That’s the allure - our imaginings about the West, mostly from movies, as a place of excitement, adventure, outlaws vs. cowboys, quick draws, men living by “the code of the West,” which I see as a sense of honor; of right and wrong without today’s ever-present shade of gray.

It only seems simple in our imaginations, of course, in part as an extension of our imaginings as children playing cowboys and Indians, or some such Old West theme, and in larger part from our seeing the lily-white representations on the little and big screens.

And god knows we want simple, at least sometimes.

“The Wild Bunch” cast aside the simplicity myth, as did Clint Eastwood in “Unforgiven” and the Man With No Name Westerns, all shaded with cynicism and assorted flaws; lawman, outlaw, cowboy, rancher, all started to show the dirt of the trail, of the lifestyle, and seemed more realistic for it.

And we found the realism refreshing, despite most of the stories boiling down to the hero or antihero landing in a life-or-death situation with no middle ground.

Most of the good guys survive, although frequently they come out damaged - which brings us back to real life but with a message that we can survive what feels like overwhelming odds.

Or maybe we just come back refreshed from enjoying a great escape for a couple of hours.

Even in “The Wild Bunch” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” - a real treat - the guys may succumb to overwhelming odds, but they stay true to their code; as Sinatra said, they did it their way.

Costner, too, exhibits that rawness; that blend of good and bad - honor with tarnish - with his portrait of the vengeful title character in “Wyatt Earp.”

Westerns let up time-travel again - and other places are often better than now, especially when now is rough, tough, raw, squirmy, or just plain difficult to inhabit for the moment - and we need the perspective provided by some time away - from here and now.

Like a visit to the Old Midwest and Chicago, where I kept my bloodshot eye out for a memorial to Mrs. O’Leary’s cow but settled for touching the rock from the Alamo embedded along with other bricks and rocks from famous monuments in the outer walls of the Chicago Tribune building.

And now I’m back on the keyboard again.

So happy trails. For now.