Kyle MacLachlan

Showgirls

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Nomi licks the poledancer's pole

The film that ruined a lot of careers, Showgirls has a reputation it only partially deserves (though there is that sex scene in the swimming pool). Since it debuted in 1995 it’s been a soft target for any prurient soul looking for an easy win. Look – naked women! Its actual failings are far less regularly mentioned. Sleazy, camp, sexist and so on. It’s none of these, but it does portray a sleazy, camp and sexist world in a bracingly honest way, and there are plenty of commentators with an agenda only too willing to deliberately confuse the two. It’s an A Star Is Born story, with Elizabeth Berkley as the wannabe turning up … Read more

Dune

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Max von Sydow, Patrick Stewart, Kyle MacLachlan and Jürgen Prochnow

Dune. Not Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 behemoth, that pleasure still awaits. But David Lynch’s 1984 version, the only film in his career that he wished he hadn’t made and will not talk about in interviews, except to say he shouldn’t have made it. And not the theatrical version either, but the “extended” one worked up for TV so it could be shown in two 90 minute chunks. Lynch hated this one so much he had his name taken off the credits. So welcome to another “Alan Smithee film”. Acutally Lynch originally had a four-hour cut in mind but had managed to get the running time down to three hours. Not short enough for his … Read more

Giant Little Ones

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Ballas and Franky on bikes

Franky is a buff swimmer and from the moment Giant Little Ones kicks off it seems fairly certain, from the way the camera is lingering on his upper body as he wakes up in the morning, that it’s a gay drama we’re watching. Why a camera can’t have a female gaze, I don’t know. Discuss. Anyhow, Franky is popular with the other guys in the swim team, has a girlfriend “with a fine rack” according to one of his friends, and what’s more she’s very keen to lose her virginity and Franky seems like the guy to do it. All this changes after Franky’s birthday and a late-night, very drunken, stoned fumble with … Read more

Xchange

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Stephen Baldwin plays a clone in sci-fi thriller Xchange

Here’s one of a number of interesting sci-fi films produced in Canada in the wake of Vincenzo Natali’s Cube. It’s a low-budget body-swap futureshocker with three different actors (Stephen Baldwin, Kyle MacLachlan and Kim Coates) all vaguely playing the same man, a “floater” refusenik named Alvin Toffler. There’s a joke in that name if you’re a dyed in the wool sci-fi fan. Possibly also funny is that in this futureworld if you’ve swapped bodies (that’s the “floating” bit) with someone but can’t get back to your starting position you can park yourself inside a clone while everything is sorted out. Enter Stephen Baldwin as the empty vessel waiting to be filled. So when … Read more