One of our New Year’s resolutions is to, as one reader cruelly suggested, "shut the hell up" — at least to the extent that we can. So this issue’s editorial will aim for brevity, which may have the additional benefit of stemming the recent tide of vicious e-mail from armies of 14-year-olds unhinged by our coverage of such apparently controversial topics as Michael Jackson’s videos and the overrating of American Beauty. In this, our 27^th issue, we’ve dusted off our red carpet for Roger Corman and his ‘70s exploitation company New World Pictures. There’s an interview with the divine Mr. C. from New World’s heyday (1974) and sketches of some of the company’s notable players and motifs. Eric Schlosser sticks it but good to Steven Spielberg for the sins of Saving Private Ryan. (Perhaps for the next issue we'll provide a balancing review of the movie’s evil twin, the wonderfully named porn flick Shaving Ryan’s Privates.) More fun arrives in a survey of ‘60s indie narrative cinema, a far cry from what passes for independent these days. (Disney subsidiaries do not make independent movies.) Jans Wager’s scintillating look at Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat is nearly as hard-boiled as the movie.

Queer readers can cancel that Club Med tour. The ever-popular "Homo Corner" lets you visit your sisters of all sexes throughout the world without leaving your throne: Head On (Australia), Boys Don’t Cry (U.S.), Show Me Love (Sweden), and The Trio (Germany).

James Broughton died in May of 1999, and we honor the brilliant old queen with a survey of some of his charming experimental films. Jerry Garcia’s favorite movie, The Saragossa Manuscript, has resurfaced in revival and now in Bright Lights.

DVD is coming into its own as the cineaste’s medium of choice. This issue looks at recent reissues of two bona fide classics: The Passion of Joan of Arc and The Third Man. For the more audio minded, there’s C. Jerry Kutner’s wildly clever review of the Bernard Herrmann Twilight Zone CD. And for those readers who can still read more than a page or so, there are reviews of The Werewolf Book, about all manner of "shape-shifters," and of Mark A. Vieira’s charming Sin in Soft Focus, about pre-Code movies. Augmenting the latter is a sexy gallery of pre-Code women, a group of sirens, sluts, and sweethearts who’ll have you lusting after their bodies or their glittering gowns, depending.